OK, I agree that 690 is not an awesome score but it is a great score for me because that is what I was aiming for in the beginning. However, I have seen so many people with score higher than 700, which makes me want to try harder and more eager to get to that point. I took this test once before and got 610. Anyway, I learned my lesson in the first try. I know GMAT is only for MBA admission. And so, there it is. I am done with my “quest.”
For AWA: I wrote a lot more this time than last time. I do not really care much about AWA. I got 5.0 on the first one so I expect to get the same score.
For Quantitative: In my opinion, Quan is always easy. I don’t really have much to talk about it. Even though, the Quan part is a little more difficult than last time, it is still a joke. I guess I must have made some careless mistakes there, which explains why I did not get a 51. I had no question about standard deviation at all. There were a few probability and combination questions but they are very basic. On my first test, I had around 10 minutes extra. However, I was more careful and checked my answers every time. In some problem, I even try to do in two different methods to see if the answers are the same. I feel like I get more word PS this time because the first test had more DS than anything else. I tried to space out the time evenly and so I had about one minute extra.
For Verbal: I feel like Verbal is getting easier than previous one. It is like if Quan is more difficult, then Verbal is less difficult. Anyway, there are some good traps on SC about the use of participle but it is not any harder than the paper tests’ questions. I had four passages around 45 to 85. The last one was the longest. I took my time to do RC. I read the passages really slowly and looked back to the passage every time I answered a question. I did not do that last time and I think it was the main reason of failure. You must refer to the passage because it is not a good practice to base on memory alone. I had two bold faces, one at the middle of the test and one at question 39. ETS likes to rush people through because at the end, I faced the longest passage and one bold face. I finished question 41 as another SC but about 5 seconds left. That was really close. I remember the last question made me choose between “instead of” and “in place of.”
After I was done with the test, I took off my headphone and went through the survey to calm down. I think I looked very tired as the lady working there told me. There were only two people taking the GMAT that day. The other guy was around 30 years old. He got in the test room before me but I eventually came out first. It was weird when I have to click “Report score” twice. The 690 popped up on the screen. I knew I was done with this test.