Introspection - what went wrong?

For last couple of days, I have been introspecting to figure out what went wrong. Clearly, my first attempt isn't worth repenting, because I knew I hadn't been prepared, but the second attempt was more satisfying and learning experience. I fixed the G-day only when I was confident of doing well. So, did I just have a bad day or I wasn't ready for the G-day? Did I have a false sense of confidence before the GMAT? It's the questions like this that I am trying to answer in this post.

As reflected in my GMAT score (Q-48, V-25), I didn't perform to my level in both the sections. Before the G-day, while analyzing the FLT scores, I felt that my Quant score can be anywhere between 49 and 51 and only my concentration level will determine whether I get 49 or 51. But, somewhere in my thoughts, I knew that I can even get meager 48 on a bad day. At the end of Quant section, I had a fair idea that I didn't do well. Having experienced the kind of traps that Pearson sets, it's very easy to fall for the trap if one is not alert. I think I must have fallen for such traps. I wasn't even worried too much about quant score. So getting 48 on a G-day didn't surprise me at all.

What surprised me was the verbal score. Critical Reasoning & Sentence Correction was my strength. I was almost certain to sail through the Verbal section on CR & SC. In the FLTs before the G-day, I was making only occasional mistakes in CR & SC. For most questions in the two sections, I was able to find the logical fallacy in CR and Grammar error in SC. Powerscore LSAT Critical Reasoning bible had certainly helped me. For SC, I had not memorized the Idiom lists and rather relied on finding the grammatical errors in the sentences. I was able to do it with good accuracy level.

RC was an exception. In the last 2 FLTs that I took before the G-day, 70-80% mistakes were in RC, with weighted Verbal score being 43+. Ofcourse, I scored 750+ in both the FLTs, 770 & 760 to be precise. My strategy in RC was to follow the mental passage map with MLIC's anchor phrase look-up approach. But, I wasn't confident in RC. This was one area where I could go wrong. I relied more on my CR fundamentals to answer tricky questions. So, RC might have brought my score down.

Finally, I didn't sleep the night before the G-day. I wasn't worried; I was excited. Silently, I was planning the party afterwards and was framing the GMAT debrief. In both my attempts, I noticed this change in me. Though I tried my best to get some sleep and later remain focussed during the test, I think this had a big impact on my GMAT performance. deprived of sleep, I wasn't at my best. Even the Red-Bull didn't work :-). For those who are yet to take on GMAT, I can not emphasize enough on the importance of getting sound sleep and remain calm before the G-day. This is the deadly mistake that one can commit.

Finally, there are few lessons that I got from the last G-days.

1. Don't neglect Quant - Getting a 50-51 in Quant is the key to 700+ score and MUST for 750+ score.
2. Focus on RC - Minimize the mistakes and have a well-practiced approach to RC.
3. Sleep well before the G-day - This time it will be a surprise G-day for me. Will treat it as another FLT and nothing more.
4. Practice more on SC/CR.
   

Wish me Goood Luck...!!!