Climbing to 740 after being stuck at 710

I have been a silent follower in GMAT club and with my own preparation I achieved 710 (Q50 V35) two years back. However last week I gave my GMAT and scored 740 (V38 Q51). I felt that my journey from V35 to V38 was easy contrary to popular belief as soon as I was on the right track.
I write here to share my experience that may help people here, continuing the tradition of GMAT club. This is a first draft and this is the effort I put in AWA section to score 5.5. Trusting my ability based on the AWA score I am writing this review, or a first draft of the review.

I am indian engineer and decided to give GMAT in 2014. Did some preparation on my own using the books from Manhattan GMAT for studying verbal topics. I got V35 Q50 (710) which I was told is not adequate for indian engineering considering the exploding population of Indians. It was not until 2016 mid that I again became serious for the application and GMAT test. I am a lazy person that way. So some lazy people may benefit from my experience person. I attempted GMAT again in 2017 beginning after preparing SC and RC from Manhattan GMAT and Powerscore CR bible. I was stuck at V34. No improvement in score after much effort.
Then I realised that there is some skill that I have not developed. I took e-gmat verbal course , inspired by review from one of my colleague's feedback and the feedback from GMAT club. After spending almost a week on CR and RC practise problems I achieved a V38.

In the long jouney to 740, which I have condensed in the paragraph above, there are some things that helped me a lot. RC was my weakness. I was not able to score above 50 percentile in RC in GMAT attempt and GMAT prep practise tests. E-gmat teaches an approach, which is not any shortcut, to solve RC problems. The essence of the approach is to make sure that answer is completely correct, i.e. each and every word correctly answers the question, and even one word error makes the answer incorrect. The proper reading strategy, which Rajat told in one of his webinars is taught in lower classes of schools is US, is what converted my weakness of RC to a strength. I saw an increase in my RC ability, as E-gmat measures, in 4 quizzes. I meticulously followed the reading strategy and the framework for answering RC questions. I used Manhattan SC guide in which I learnt mostly grammar rules and the need for checking the meaning. My SC ability as measured by E-gmat questions was almost above 90 percentile so I did not put much effort in SC. For CR I used powerscore GMAT bible which gave me the confidence that each CR question in GMAT has a sound and reasonable logic.

Different people achieve their goals taking different tracks or strategies on the exam day. I spent last 36 hours till GMAT in a very different way. 36 hours before GMAT, friday evening, I had not scheduled my GMAT. I was looking at initial e-gmat quiz results and asking my self whether I will be able to reach the score in 2 days. So I gave more quizzes. A two hour effort and I saw the effect of practise in the RC and CR ability. So 24 hours before GMAT, Saturday morning, I booked GMAT and got back to practise and revision. I had a plan of what all topics I needed to revise before giving the exam next day. I studied till 10 hours before the exam and then slept. The nmorning on the exam day I did not do any exercise as I had one hour to do everything - warm-up for exam, cooking for myself and morning activites. The test center for 30 kms away so took a cab to the center and started the exam in 5 mins after reaching the center. I had moist almonds and soy milk to keep me alert throughout the exam.

Thanks E-gmat for the questions and the RC course. I could feel during the real exam that I had chosen a course in RC which gave real GMAT experience of RC questions. Thanks Manhattan for the SC book. It really helped me a lot. Thanks Powerscore for the CR bible that gave me the confidence, though that confidence prevented me to practise before this attempt, that CR question deserves some thought as each question from GMAT has a sound logic behind it which is not difficult to decode. Finally thanks to my brain which roughly segregate easy and difficult questions in verbal section and identify where exactly I had a weakness. And yes not to forget my engineering course from India and CAT preparation which helped me achieve Q51 without practically putting any effort in quant.