Help Plz - 1st time GMAT 660 (Q 50, V 30)

[wisedeer]

Please can anyone help me?

I am 39 year old non-native speaker (came to the States in 1995 -24 year old then). I would like to apply for the very top Executive MBA program in US and my 1st GMAT score (I took it yesterday) isn't good enough as you can see from the subject line. Please advise me my chance of admission to Wharton and GMAT strategy. Please note rest of my profile below.

Work: Software Engineer (10 yrs - previously worked for two top Aerospace Company for 9 years and currently working for non-profit University Affiliated Research Center)

Academic:
1st BS in Chemistry from South Korea: GPA 3.76/4.00
2nd BS from a State University in US (Comp Eng): GPA 3.59/4.00
Master's in Electrical Engineering (Top 20 Eng): GPA 3.75/4.00

I don't have any management experience and I only had 3 promotions from Aerospace Companies for past 10 years. I knew I really had to do good on GMAT, so, I prepared for verbal section of GMAT for close to 11 months ( First 7 months - about 3 hours of every weekday except weekend. Later 3 months - about 3-4 hours weekday and 6 hours on Saturday only. Last 1 month - weekday 4 hours, weekend 7 hours each on Saturday, Sunday)

For the last 2 weeks I only did CAT (MGMAT, GMATPrep). Here are my scores.

GMATPrep 1st : 640 (Q ?, V 35)
GMATPrep 1st (repeat after reset): 710 (Q 48, V 35)
MGMAT 1st: 680
MGMAT 3rd: 610
MGMAT 4th: 640
MGMAT 5th: 650
MGMAT 6th: 650
GMATPrep 2nd test: 670
GMATPrep 1st (3rd time repeat with reset): 740
GMATPrep 2nd (2nd time repeat with reset): 760
GMATPrep 1 st (4th time repeat with reset): 760
GMATPrep 2nd test (3rd time with reset): 760

I didn't worry too much about MGMAT because I heard it's harder than real GMAT but I repeated GMATPrep again and again for Quantitative practice. I think the real GMAT Quantitative test was about the same level as GMATPrep and the repeats of GMATPrep really helped for Quantitative. Throughout all of these practice CATS, I got 35 or above of Verbal scale score, so, I wasn't too worried about Verbal. However, in real GMAT, I only got 30 for verbal. The following is my real GMAT score.

660 (Q 50, V 30)

When I was taking the test, I knew that I was doing good on Quantitative and I had 1.5 minutes left when I finished the section. However, I wasn't sure about verbal, cause I was losing concentraction and also felt that questions were tougher and new compared with practice test ones. I still managed to answer through 40 questions and left 1 question unanswered. I guess I had many incorrect answers.

I don't know what to do about verbal at this point. Here are the books I did for Verbal prep.

Powerscore CR bible : completed once.
MGMAT SC : 3 times repeat (repeat only with something new to me)
OG 10/12: Completed and then repeated all incorrect ones twice.
SC 1000: Completed and then repeated all incorrect ones twice.
LSAT: latest actual exam 10 sets. Timed.
Economist: Read 1 or 2 articles almost everyday for a month.

I took the real GMAT at 8 am and had to get up at 6 am. I slept about 5 hours or less before the test day. I am guessing the lack of sleep had some effect on my real GMAT score. Also, the GMATPrep repeats for 3 days before exam showed about 10 - 20 repeated verbal questions, so, it might did some bad part too. I guess the first time GMATPrep tests (1st and 2nd practice test: 640, 670) reflected my real GMAT score. But what I don't understand is that for the GMATPrep tests, I always got above 35 of Verbal scale score (even for the first tests when I got 640, 670).

I really appreciate if you are still reading my post up to here . Please advise me about my chance of getting into Wharton EMBA and also help me with my future GMAT strategy. I will retake the GMAT again in 2, 3 months. What shall I do to improve my verbal score in 2, 3 months?

Thanks, and enjoy your holidays!

[tim]

we do have forums where you can ask these kinds of questions, but the verbal forum is not that place. i'm going to go ahead and lock this post, but i would certainly encourage you to post the same question in the appropriate forum because you will be able to get a good answer..

[editor: the proper place for posts like this one is in the General Questions folder.]