Debrief: 1st attempt/770/48Q/51V/IR8/AWA6

Hi all, this is my first post so please forgive any formatting errors. I took the GMAT in December after preparing for about 2 weeks. While I didn't use a long-term study regimen, I thought I may as well share the experience with you in case it can be helpful to or informative for anyone.

BACKGROUND:
I have always been fairly good at standardized testing. In high school I scored a 2330 (Math 800, CR 730, W 800) on the SAT on my second attempt (first attempt was 2240 with a 740 in Math and a 700 in CR, and I knew I could improve). When I was younger, I was a huge reader and I attribute that to my success in the verbal section of the GMAT. I am also a bit of a "grammar nazi" (Of course I don't call people out on it. I also don't proclaim to speak/write perfectly, and I often catch myself making mistakes. For whatever reason, though, grammar always seems to be top-of-mind for me.). I graduated from a top-30 US university with a degree in business in 2017 (3.7 GPA), and I have worked as a financial analyst for a large bank since. I am planning to apply to MBA programs this coming fall.

PREP:
I did some research on the best study materials and decided to focus on the OG guide first. I also bought the entire Manhattan Prep set online along with the Manhattan Prep "Advanced Quant" book. I scheduled a test date for early February, as I anticipated needing to study for at least a couple of months before feeling good about taking the exam. It took me a couple of months (at least) to properly prepare for the SAT, although I can't remember how many hours I actually put in.

After getting strong results on the diagnostic test in the book, I did about 50 quantitative questions (a combination of easy and hard; I flipped between the front and back of the section because it was quickly clear that the questions toward the back were significantly harder). I got a bunch of the hard questions wrong and reviewed the correct answers, in some cases repeating the problem to produce the correct solution myself (hoping for "muscle memory" in the event that I encountered a similar problem in the future). I then took my first official GMAC practice test the following day. Below are my GMAT practice test results/dates:

GMAC Practice CAT 1 (12/8/18): 750/Q49/V44/IR8 (did not write essay)
GMAC Practice CAT 2 (12/10/18): 750/Q48/V44/IR8 (did not write essay)
GMAC Practice CAT 3 (12/12/18): 760/Q47/V49/IR8 (did not write essay)
GMAC Practice CAT 4 (12/16/18): 770/Q49/V48/IR8 (did not write essay)
Real Deal (12/18/18): 770/Q48/V51/IR8/AWA6

As you can tell from the results, I was strong in verbal from the beginning. I generally finished the verbal sections with anywhere from 8-16 minutes to spare. I was, however, concerned to see that my quant score was dropping from the 1st to the 2nd and 2nd to 3rd. I mostly focused on quant problems, probably studying 1.5-3 hours a day on average by working through all of the problem solving questions and then all of the data sufficiency problems. Of course, I answered a good number of the hard questions incorrectly, and even though I could understand the explanations while I read them, for some of the hardest problems I had a hard time believing that I would be able to come up with the correct answer in expedited fashion during the exam. That is to say, I found some of the problems out of my league in terms of quickly being able to find the method of solving them, even if I had a good understanding of the underlying math (I'm sure this is a common struggle with this test).

I was pleased to see that my verbal score improved despite me not really spending any time doing practice problems (maybe 2 or 3 hours total in the 2 week period). I attribute this to the fact that I was only missing 2-3 problems in the CATs and I was able to find the answers on this forum, and I tried my best to drill into my head why I had gotten those problems wrong.

Since I was consistently hitting 8/8 on IR, I did not touch the IR portion of the OG.

Ultimately, I decided that in order to score higher than a Q49 on the real test, I'd have to put a great deal of effort and time. Frankly, I was eager to take the exam because I know that 750+ is a very good score, even if the quant is not a 50 or 51 (although I know quant is considered more important). I decided that the time and energy I'd need to invest in quant to consistently hit 50/51 not be worth it since I felt I could score 760 or so on the exam if I took it soon, and any improvement via 1-2 months of study would be marginal at best. I recognize that that was a questionable decision and that I may have been better served studying for a month or two to get my quant score up, but again, I had read enough about how anything above 750 basically checks the GMAT box for any application and adcoms would then focus on other parts of the application. Additionally, the GMAT was dominating my mind to an unhealthy extent and I was spending way too much time thinking about various math problems--I was losing sleep over it. It is also a very busy time at work and I wanted to put this process behind me so I can focus on other things.

Somewhat shortly after getting my CAT 4 results on 12/16, I made the decision described above and paid the $60 to re-schedule the exam for 12/18.

TEST DAY:
I took a vacation day because I didn't want work to interfere with the exam in any way. I scheduled the exam for 1pm. I probably slept 7.5 hours the night before (once I woke up in the morning I couldn't fall asleep; I was wired). I ate cereal for breakfast (retrospectively probably not a great choice, but it's part of my daily routine) and had a protein bar shortly before starting the exam, which was at a test center about 25 minutes from my house. I googled AWA strategies and jotted down the recommended strategy/structure. I am a fairly strong writer so I wasn't concerned, but retrospectively I feel like an idiot for not at least practicing once. I kind of expected to get a 5-5.5 on the essay, and shortly after the exam I started to regret not having put any time into practicing that section.

The check-in process went smoothly and I started about 20 minutes early. I picked the order of Quant-Verbal-IR-AWA since I wanted to get Quant out of the way and also leave IR/AWA to the end since I had read they were relatively unimportant.

I honestly don't remember too much about the quantitative section, except that I ran into a couple of problems that I knew quickly I'd need to guess on in order to avoid spending 5+ minutes trying to figure them out. There was also one question I answered where I realized 10 seconds after submitting that I had given the incorrect answer. That was a very unpleasant moment but I tried to put it behind me. Unfortunately, I ran out of time while solving the last problem which I ABSOLUTELY could have solved given another 10-15 seconds...I was about to select an answer because I had approximated what the answer should be and knew I could probably choose the answer by elimination. I was very disturbed when the screen changed to inform me I was out of time on the section. That had not happened to me in any of the CAT practice tests and I was terrified that it would tank my score. Please be aware of the time once you get below that one-minute mark. You want to at least be able to guess an answer.

I originally expected not to take a break, but decided it would be helpful to clear my head and get my act together after how the quant section ended. I took about a 5 minute break, went to the restroom, and returned with plenty of time to start verbal. I felt pretty good throughout the verbal section. There were a few problems where I caught myself almost making a careless mistake that perhaps I would have made during the first couple of CAT practice tests. There was also one RC passage with one question where two answers were so difficult to choose between that I probably spent 5-6 minutes on that one question. I also noticed that I was way more concerned (than I had been on the practice tests) about making mistakes on the SC problems, and I was probably spending 30 seconds longer on them than I had on the practice tests. I wasn't worried about my time though, given how much I had had left over on the practice tests.

I realized 2/3 of the way through verbal that I was significantly lower on time than I had been in the practice tests. I didn't really speed up though since it seemed I had an appropriate time remaining to be able to spend 1.5-2.5 minutes per question without running out. Believe it or not, I got to the last pair of questions with only about 3.5 minutes left on the clock, and submitted the last verbal question with 15 seconds remaining. Retrospectively, I believe that my paranoia about making careless mistakes made me take each problem more slowly/deliberately and is probably why I was able to pull of the 51 (versus lower scores in the practice CATs).

Integrated reasoning was frankly uneventful and I felt pretty good about it (given my record in the practice CATs). The essay prompt was way more challenging than I expected--the argument, while not very deep, was pretty compelling and I had a very hard time coming up with points of contention. I also did not pace myself well and finished the conclusion paragraph with about 3 seconds remaining (I was virtually in panic mode).

The score screen caught me off-guard; in the practice CATs there were several screens to click through after submitting my (blank) essays, whereas in the real thing the scores are very much in your face as soon as you submit the essay. I was thrilled to see the 770, even with the Q48. I took the exam knowing there was a very real possibility that I would not hit Q49. I was ecstatic about the V51, and even though I felt good about IR going into the exam I was still somehow relieved to see an 8 (I think I would have felt dumb not to have done any practice problems in the OG). After about 15 seconds, I elected to accept the score.

IN CONCLUSION:
I was really relieved/happy to see the 6 on AWA when I received my official score. While I feel that one could make the argument that I should have studied quant for a month or two to try to hit Q50 or at least a consistent Q49, I feel very good about the 770 composite and I have virtually no desire to re-take. Had I scored a 5 or 6 on IR, I might want to re-take because I think that would be a red flag with a sub-excellent quant score. But since I hit an 8 and because that is 92nd percentile, I feel okay about the whole quant situation, especially since I have a finance background and did well in my undergraduate quantitative-based courses.

I know this story may not be very useful to a lot of people but I wanted to share it on the off-chance that someone finds it helpful, and I'd also be interested to hear any opinions on the decisions described above.

ALSO: I should also note that I never used the Manhattan Prep books. I returned them all. I opened the advanced quant book but ultimately decided against going through it. Perhaps another questionable decision on my part.