Instructors! Please advise

[bhagwat.hemant]

Hi Team,

First, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all of you at MGMAT for your priceless and timely assistance. Your efforts are highly commendable.
I have a dilemma and I thought who would be better than you people to assist me. I took my GMAT on 30th July 2010 and was quiet baffled to see the score because I had never expected that score even in my worst nightmares.
I scored 610 (Q-42/V-31) on the real exam. I was consistently scoring well above that during my preparation. My MGMAT TEST scores were : 710, 670, 680, 680, 730, 720.
My GMAT PREP scores were 730(Q-47/V-42) and 730(Q-50/V-39).
I believe I somewhat know the reason for it. I didn't sleep entire night and my appointment was at 9 AM. I always took GMAT quiet seriously, I stopped socializing and despite my hectic job schedule I tried my best to prepare for the test. Everything seemed to be within my grasp but during the final days I became extremely anxious about the repurcussions. I somewhat lost control of my nerves. I was trying to sleep but couldn't and I could feel my heart pounding throughout the night. Anyways on the day of the test I kept on convincing myself that its just a matter of four hours, Be alert, but I really felt terrible inside my head while taking the exam. During the quant section I realized that the markers were not working and I was waving my hand but the invigilator was busy reading the newspaper; I lost 5 mins due to this and I have already escalated an issue with Pearsons for the same. I normally finish off a essay in 15-20 mins inclusing correction but that day it took me complete 30 mins. The quant questions seemed to be not that difficult, I did well but faltered during the end of the quant section. In verbal section I got two bold faced CR's then I was not able to pay concenteration to one long RC and ended up spending unreasnable time on it. In this section too I faltered at the end. I believe now you would have an idea about my exam day.

Now, not letting past events hinder my goals I want to take the test again but GMAC has a policy that there should be gap of 31 days. Could you please suggest my what to do during these days. I am planning to retake the MGMAT tests and GMAT PREP tests. Regarding content would you advise redoing the Official Guide 12. Moreover now after taking MGMATS I am used to much harder questions than OG. Please let me know what I should and shouldn't be doing at this point of time.

Stacey, Ron, Emily, Ben... I have been following you people all these days. I know my story seems to be a bit different but I am trying to acquaint you with all the facts.
I would really appreciate any suggestions from your side. Please advise. Thanking in anticipation.

Kind regards,
Hemant

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry you had a tough time on test day.

I lost 5 mins due to this and I have already escalated an issue with Pearsons for the same.

Good. Follow up on this diligently. Perhaps they will eventually offer you a free re-take.

Did you take your practice tests under official conditions? With essays, normal breaks, no pausing, nothing that's not allowed during the real test? If not, please explain how you deviated from official conditions.

Also, read the below article and do the analysis described. I know you've already described some of what led to the performance drop, but I want to make sure we're not overlooking anything:

http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/10/26 ... went-wrong

You are not the only person to succumb to nerves on test day; it happens to everyone sometime or another. These articles might help you to develop some stress management strategies:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/stress-tips.cfm
http://www.manhattangmat.com/strategy-series-stress.cfm

Finally, do this analysis on your last MGMAT practice test and share your analysis here:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/09/23 ... tice-tests