620 Diagnostic to 690 and finally 750 debrief

So the day I wasn't even sure would come is finally here, my GMAT journey is thankfully finished. I just finished my 2nd attempt this morning and received a 750 (Q48 V44) the debriefs and all the other threads here helped so much I figured I'd do one to in hopes of helping someone out. I started out back in October with a quick 30 minute skim of gmat questions and refreshing my memory on high school geometry then I took a diagnostic GMATPrep and scored 620 I don't remember the exact breakdown but i was something around Q 35 V40. For all of October I read through all the Manhattan quant guides as well as the SC guide after the first week of November though I didn't study at all until the week before Christmas.

So my first exam was the second week of January but I hadn't even looked at GMAT stuff since November I really should've studied more or postponed the test but I decided to go for it anyway so from around Christmas to test day I studied as much as I could. Despite reading the quant guides and doing the suggested questions my quant score wasn't improving and I was getting around Q 40 on the Manhattan tests going into my test. On my first test I came away with a 690 (Q43 V42) which was higher than I thought I would get but not high enough for a PhD program.

After my first exam I knew I had to figure out a strategy to improve my quant score and since it was a busy time for my work I had a few months to decide on my next step. I ended up using EmpowerGmat when they had a sale I got 3 months plus exam packs 1 & 2 of Gmat tests at the start of May. Even though I consider myself a self learner my previous method didn't work so I started EmpowerGmat by just going in order through the videos. About halfway through I was running low on time so I focused on doing the quant modules and skipped the RC and CR ones since I was already strong there. I can't tell you how much I love EmpowerGmat, the videos were great and the problem sets with video explanations by EMPOWERgmatRichC really helped me improve my quant score. Watching a video for missed questions that goes step by step so I'm not left guessing how a formula works or where numbers came from really helped, I even watched most videos for ones I got right just to see if there was a faster approach.

After restarting my studies in May with both exam packs I began taking more exams to gauge my ability.
Exam Pack 1 Exam 1 670
Exam Pack 1 Exam 2 710 Q45 V 42
Exam Pack 2 Exam 6 660 Q 43 V 38 don't know what happened here
Default Exams 2 770 Q49 V44 This score surprised me it was when I stopped running out of time on the quant section
Exam Pack 2 Exam 5 720 Q45 V44

My actual exam I guess I got lucky because I got a mix of my highest Quant score and my highest verbal score although I definitely didn't feel all that lucky during the exam. My biggest advice especially for quant strugglers like me is to not be afraid to get some help if your method isn't working. Also there will be a ton of stress on test day but you have to put it all behind you and just do it one question at a time. I started quant 30 seconds late and since I always cut close on time that really got in my head for a few questions but I knew I couldn't worry or I'd lose focus. After my quant I felt like I failed so bad but I made myself do jumping jacks and eat a piece of chocolate and just go back and get through the verbal section. With a real game plan improvements will happen sometimes it just takes a certain way of teaching and a certain repetition of problem sets to make it click.