Just about at my wit's end... but trying to force myself to not give up

[gmat84]

Hello,

I'm writing here in hopes that I can regain some motivation for myself with respect to the GMAT (aka. the test that has been weighing on me for three years now).

I began my "GMAT journey" three years ago. I had already been accepted into a master's program (note MSc, not MBA.. it's a more research-based master's program), that required applicants to write the GMAT, but sometimes allowed students to write it later if you came from the undergraduate program at that school (which I did). I always knew that I'd want to continue onto a PhD program at some point so I'd have to write the GMAT and get a respectable score on it.... and I seriously underestimated how difficult that was (and still is) going to be.

I remember I gave myself a deadline until August 2006 to write the GMAT. I knew I'd have no time to study for it while I was in school, so I thought it would be a good idea to get it over with before I began school. I travelled for a few weeks in June, and then finally started to feel the pressure in July. I had no idea how to begin, and none of my friends had written it so I went to the bookstore, picked up the Kaplan book and also borrowed an old Barron's book from the library. After completing the practice questions in both books, I took a few of the Kaplan practice tests and consistently scored in the 540/550 range. I told myself not to worry, that maybe the score was lower than what I was capable of because I didn't have the pressure of it being the actual test hanging over me.

However, the weekend before the test, my scores remained in the same range. It was too hard to figure out what areas to concentrate on, because it felt like I was weak in everything. The night before the test, I barely slept. I had scheduled my test at 8:30 in the morning because I thought I would want to get over it. I drank a huge cup of coffee and ended up feeling sick for the entire test. The test itself started out wonderfully. I ended up getting really interesting topics to write about so I whizzed through them easily with lots of time to spare. I was ready to tackle the math section so I barely took a break inbetween. When I got to the math section, the first question was pretty easy - I solved it in no time and was confident in my answer. The next question ... was something I had never seen before. I completely froze up. I had absolutely no idea how to tackle it. After a few attempts at throwing around numbers, I finally threw in the towel and guessed. That really threw off my confidence for the rest of it and I tried to kick myself mentally to do stay focused but the questions got so easy by the end of the test that I knew it hadn't gone well.

I decided to make up for it in the Verbal section. I found this section to be a lot easier than the Kaplan one.. but maybe that's because I wasn't marking my actual GMAT test afterwards and seeing how many mistakes I had made. I finished this section with quite a bit of time to spare. By the time I got to the screen where I could choose to submit or cancel my scores, I decided to submit..... and the result was a heartbreaking 540. I can't remember the exact breakdown, but I know I got a AWA score of 6.0 and something close to Q:17 V:35.

Really, I shouldn't have been that surprised since I had never scored anything even close to the 600+ area in my practice tests. I left the office completely devastated. I remember wandering around the downtown area, holding my unofficial scores and crying.

Fast forward to 1.5 years later. I decided to try new books, and after talking to some friends, I picked up the Princeton books..... I honestly didn't feel like they helped me much. I had a suspicion that my fundamentals were lacking, so all of the tricks they were teaching me in the book could really only get me so far. I didn't like that it was starting to feel like a game. After completing the Princeton books, I really didn't feel confident/comfortable with it, so I set the GMAT studying aside to focus on finishing my master's.

Fast forward to another year later (about half a year after I graduated). I had finally gotten over the exhaustion being in school, and decided to give the GMAT studying another go. This time I did more reserach on the internet and came across a few GMAT forums, just like this one. I also decided to give Jeff Sackmann's GMAT Math Bible a chance and bought his books, along with the Official Guide (11) + Math and Verbal work out.

I studied with Jeff's bible religiously for 1.5 months. Then I began to tackle the OG by timing my attempts, and trying to keep track of the types of questions I was getting wrong (which really felt like everything). Unfortunately, things at work got really busy and I had to put aside the GMAT studying once again.

Fast forward several months later to about a month and a half ago. I realized that I was running out of time to write the GMAT in time for 2010 admissions. I decided to pick up the Manhattan GMAT books because I didn't feel like Jeff's books really gave me enough of a solid understanding and I had heard really great things about Manhattan GMAT. After going through several of their books and doing the subsequent questions in the OG, I decided to give the GMATPrep test a shot today. I knew that I wasn't at the 700+ level, but I wanted to see if I could at least crack the 600 range. I honestly believed that I had improved a lot since my first attempt in 2006. But the score I ended up with? Only SLIGHTLY better at 570.

I'm honestly at my wit's end with this thing. I keep telling myself not to give up... but I really am starting to feel beaten down by this test. It really feels like no matter how many times I try to learn the concepts, how many flashcards I download, and how many times I do the questions in the OG, I consistently get the questions wrong.

I'm really unsure of whether I'll be able to pull off any kind of decent score..but then I come on here and read so many inspiring stories of people who don't give up.

So, I'm determined to keep going with it. Maybe I won't be able to write the GMAT in time for this year's admissions, but I don't want to schedule the GMAT until I'm scoring decently well on the GMATPrep tests.

I'm going to do the questions in the OG AGAIN but stick with timing each question and maybe pick up OG 10 like m.campanella suggested in her success story post.

I keep trying to tell myself that if I want it badly enough, I will eventually get it... but I feel like I've tried and studied, and used so many resources that if I've only improved by 30 points, there's no way I can attain my dream score (700+.. I'm almost embarrassed to type that). Anyway, I'm posting this here because I'm trying to hold myself accountable. Also I want to get comfortable with this forum because I'm defiinitely going to try to use this forum as an aid to my studying.

So good luck to everyone else that's also struggling with this exam. I know I'm not alone with my frustration, and I hope I can write a success story in the "Just Finished My GMAT" thread someday soon...