Two attempts and still away from target

[mgaur76]

I first wrote my GMAT in October 2010 with reasonable preparation -I was hitting close to 680 in Kaplan tests and thought that I was ready to score in the vicinity of 700 at the real thing. I wrote the test only to end up with a disappointing 640 (Q48, V29).
In February this year, I started thinking about the second attempt and finished following material over 3 months or so:
Quant - OG 11 and 12, Various forum questions (and there are lots of them and really good quality too)
Verbal: Apart from OG 11 and 12, I also finished following material for specific sections
SC - MGMAT SC, Aristotle SC grail
CR - Powerscore bible
RC - RC99
I also took lot of full CATs once my material was over. Following are my scores for those CATS
MGMAT 1: 710 2: 750 3: 700 4: 730 5:770
Kaplan 1:690 2:700 3:690
GMATPrep 1:710 2: 740
1 (Reinstall): 660 - I did this immediately after I finished MGMAT 5 (complete four hours) and realized that it is futile to write a test when one is extremely tired and drained out
2 (Reinstall): 760

On the day of the exam, this is how it all went:
QA - The section started as a breeze and questions seemed too easy - till 15th question I felt completely in command of the section and thought I was managing pretty well and kept solving every question that came my way. Next thing I remember is having about 15 minutes left for last ten questions - I felt myself rushing through last ten questions a bit and I thought I lost my way a little in the end.

VA - The section was going OK - was not sure of my accuracy for some CR questions. RC is generally my weak area and hence I was not sure if I was doing well there or not. But, I had felt such uncertainty every time in practice CATs and broadly did OK there, so I kept going. Here again, I realized that I had 9 more questions to go with only 15 minutes left and then I got a long RC passage, completely messing up my time management.
In the end, I managed a poor score of 660 (Q47, V34) - nowhere close to my practice scores or the scores that I need to make my application competitive.

Questions I am grappling with now are:
1. Should I retake the test? If yes, what more can I do and how do I check if I have really made progress in my preparation?
2. Should I blame my overall low score on just the time management issue in last 10 problems in both sections?.
4. If I should retake, should I do this at the earliest opportunity (31 days) or should I wait for 2-3 months or so.

Comments/suggestions/help welcome.

[StaceyKoprince]

From what you described, yes, time management was a major factor. And you still got a 660! (That's not a terrible score. That's a good score!) From the details you gave, it's entirely possible that fixing the timing problem alone will get you to 700.

Read the below article and start doing what it says. You may want to go back over some of your old practice tests - it's possible that you can see the roots of your timing problems there, too, and then they got worse on the real test because - well, because it's the real test and we get nervous and hang on to questions even longer!

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... anagement/

Note: it often takes a good 4 to 6 weeks to fix significant timing problems. don't decide today when you want to re-take it. Start working and see how much progress you've made in 2-3 weeks. Then you can think about deciding when to take it.

Finally, did you take those tests under 100% official conditions, including the essays? If not, you may have artificially inflated your scores. All tests need to be done under 100% official conditions.

Also, you figured out that you shouldn't take 2 tests in one day. You shouldn't take a test more than once a week (and even then, that's pretty frequent).

CAT exams are really good for (a) figuring out where you're scoring right now, (b) practicing stamina, and (c) analyzing your strengths and weaknesses. The actual act of just taking the exam is NOT so useful for improving. It's what you do with the test results / between tests that helps you to improve.