GMAT Done -- 760 (49Q, 47V)

[tweakin_it_up]

Well its nice to have that test over with for good. Going into it I was quite anxious and my confidence level wasn't particularly high. When I got to the test center there was an issue with my birthdate (not a real issue, the administrator read it wrong) so that added to the tension as I was told to call Pearson Vue afterwards to clear up the issue.

The topic in the essays weren't particularly difficult and the AoA was strongly put together if not a little too lengthy, but I could tell I was being redundant on the AoI essay. Overall I left the essays feeling pretty good and full of energy for the Quant section.

The Quant section began quite well with some very easy questions that I was able to breeze through quickly, and then all of a sudden I hit a wall of about 4-5 questions that I was completely stumped on. After fighting through those questions the level of difficulty did not decrease and it seemed as though every question was coming out of the "ADVANCED" section of the MGAT books. I was starting to lose confidence very quickly and was already thinking that I was going to have to cancel if I couldn't make up the ground in the Verbal section. After the smoke cleared I figured that I guessed on between 5-7 questions, and felt uncomfortable with my answers on another 3-4. Also, I strangely finished the section with 12 minutes to spare. Needless to say I thought I had bombed it and after those first couple difficult questions I was second guessing every move I made.

In my break between section I splashed a little cold water on my face and tried to calm myself down. Then came the Verbal section which I usually excelled at. This particular group of questions was nothing out of the ordinary and I felt very confident that I performed strongly after I finished.

When it came time to check the score it took me about 45 seconds of staring at the screen before I clicked the mouse. After all of that hard work (studying, 4 hours of test writing etc.) I was scared to look at the screen and see a bad score. I figured I scored anywhere in the 580-620 range and was absolutely baffled to see the 760 in the middle of the screen. I wasn't surprised I did well on the Verbal section but was ecstatic that I was somehow able to pull off a 49 in the Quant section. I must have gotten extremely lucky with my guesses.

I guess the main point I'd like anyone to take from this is that you shouldn't doubt yourself, even when you don't think you're doing well because in all liklihood you're performing better than you think you are.