From 580 (Actual) to a 730! A story of perseverance :)

I always knew that I too will write this post one day, but can't believe that the day has finally come! I wrote the GMAT Online on 8th July and scored a 730 (Q48 V41). Had it not been for this community, I would have given up a long time ago. Thank you, gmatclub . This forum has undoubtedly contributed the most in my journey

Background
I'm an Indian male engineer and I graduated in 2016. I casually started studying for the GMAT in 2016, but only got serious in 2019. I am someone who suffers majorly from test anxiety, so even though my mock scores were always in the 720-770 range, I could never translate the performance on either of my official attempts.
GMAT Attempt 1: 580 (Q44, V27) - October 22nd, 2019
GMAT Attempt 2: 620 (Q44, V31) - December 10, 2019

As you can see, in each of my official attempts, my final score was a minimum of 100 points below my lowest mock score. It was a very frustrating experience for me because even though I knew the GMAT content, psychological factors were holding me back from realizing my true potential, and that is something no test prep company prepares you for So when GMAT finally decided to allow us to use the whiteboard on the GMAT Online, I decided to take it, hoping it will help in alleviating my anxiety since I would be giving it from the comfort of my own room. And it did! Read on to know how I overcame the anxiety.

Materials used
Verbal CONTENT
1. Sentence Correction: EGMAT SC (I had purchased the full course, but only found SC helpful)
2. Critical Reasoning: PowerScore CR Bible
3. RC: Free GMAT Video by Manhattan

Verbal PRACTICE
1. OG 2020 - 1988
2. VR 2020 - 1988
3. 1000 series
4. GMAT Official Advanced
5. GMAT Official Practice Set 1 & 2

Quant CONTENT
1. Target Test Prep
2. Manhattan Advanced

Quant PRACTICE
Mixed bunch. I used to apply 600-700 and 700+ filters for PS and DS and do focussed practice for each sub-section, such as NP/Inequalities. I used to sort the result by KUDOS so that I get the most upvoted, and possibly the better, questions first.
+ Official Advanced

DEEP DIVE
Sentence Correction
SC has always been my strongest area. Even in my first attempt, even though my overall score was just a 580, my SC score was a V40. I found the EGMAT videos to be really exhaustive and engaging. However, even Manhattan SC is really good, so you can decide for yourself. If I have to pick one factor that has really helped me in SC, it has to be the habit of figuring out the answer without looking at answer choices. This exercise forces you to focus on grammar and meaning, preventing you from 'using your ear' to pick choices. With this, not only was I able to maintain high accuracy in SC questions across difficult levels but also able to get my average time down to just 45- 50 seconds. When you save 40 seconds on each question, you can devote more time to solving higher difficulty CR and RC questions!

Critical Reasoning
Initially, I really struggled with CR. I stopped using EGMAT for CR because I was getting demotivated after watching their videos. In my opinion, they should allow a wider range of possible pre-thinking scenarios, but I found that in many of the videos, they would share only 1 pre-thinking scenario, which just happened to be the correct choice! This frustrated me because I would never get close and would wonder how can anyone think of such a scenario!
So, I stopped using EGMAT for CR and started using PowerScore CR bible. Man, it definitely is the CR bible! After reading that book, my entire approach to CR changed. I no longer felt guilty for not being able to come up with pre-thinking scenarios. The book explains everything so effortlessly that even an absolute outsider to the GMAT can understand CR. So my first tip is to DEFINITELY read that book. Second, each weaken question is also an opportunity to practice a strengthen question! I used to read the argument and write down all possible scenarios in which the argument can be weakened and also all possible scenarios/minor modifications in the argument that would strengthen it. This helped me to get more bang for my buck and also improved my pre-thinking skills significantly.

For CR, if you've run out of questions, you may also practice questions from the LSAT, but as far as possible, stick to official resources from over the years.

Reading Comprehension
I didn't really 'prepare' for RC. I only watched video by Avi from MGMAT. It really helped me to get the 'content' for RC in place. However, I found that I performed better when I read the entire RC in depth. No doubt, it would take me around 3-4 minutes to read the passage itself, but I would save a significant amount of time on the questions, most of which I could solve in < 30 secs.

Quant
Credit where it is due: TTP really helped me to get the foundations in place. Their content is so exhaustive that I knew I had covered all the topics. Additionally, their founders are so helpful that they even got on a call with me after my second attempt to help me strategize for my next attempt. However, I'm not a big fan of TTP practice questions. I found the TTP questions to be too straightforward, and thus I personally struggled when I made the switch from solving TTP - OG questions. Additionally, I really wish TTP referenced official questions in its curriculum as EGMAT does. Because TTP is so exhaustive, I couldn't solve official questions until the very end of my first attempt. Moreover, while the TTP content is outstanding, I found that they rely too heavily on algebraic approaches to solving questions, and I'm not someone who really likes algebra. This is where Manhattan Advanced came to the rescue to supplement my learning. This book shares excellent tips and tricks on back-solving, guessing strategies, and picking SMART numbers to solve questions without involving algebra. This new approach helped me to increase my overall quant accuracy to some extent, especially in questions where algebra would get too messy.

Test Series
1. Official Mocks 1-6 MUST
2. Manhattan
3. Veritas

Mock scores:
1. Official Exam 1: (730 - Oct 10,2019; 760 - Nov 20, 2019; 780 - June 8, 2020)
2. Official Exam 2: (710 - Oct 15, 2019; 770 - Nov 23, 2019; 780 - July 4, 2020)
3. Official Exam 3: (750 - Oct 15, 2019; 760 - Feb 16, 2020)
4. Official Exam 4: (700 - Nov 2, 2019; 670 - March 1, 2020)
5. Official Exam 5: (690 - Nov 11, 2019; 730 - March 5, 2020)
6. Official Exam 6: (720 - Nov 13, 2019; 750 - March 21, 2020)

7. Manhattan Exam 1: (680 - Nov 26, 2019)
8. Manhattan Exam 2: (700 - Nov 29, 2019)
9. Manhattan Exam 3: (750 - Dec 2, 2019)
10. Manhattan Exam 4: (730 - Dec 4, 2019)
11. Manhattan Exam 5: (740 - Dec 8, 2019)
12. Manhattan Exam 6: (740 - Feb 20, 2020)

13. Veritas Exam 1: (730 - June 16, 2020)
14. Veritas Exam 2: (720 - June 21, 2020)
15. Veritas Exam 3: (740 - June 24, 2020)

Official mocks are obviously the best! MGMAT and Veritas are great for Quant.

Overcoming anxiety
Luckily for me, COVID happened and GMAC rolled out the GMAT Online exam. Testing from the comfort of my own home, where I've taken so many mocks, indeed helped in lowering my anxiety on test day. It felt like the GMAT Online was just another mock exam that I was taking. I also started doing visualization exercises wherein I would visualize exactly how the day would play out. I tried to visualize the testing environment, the type of questions I'd be receiving, my final score on mba.com. In fact, I even visualized myself writing this debrief on gmatclub I did this for 10 minutes every day for 2 weeks. For those of you who have read 'The Secret' by Rhonda Byrne, this may resonate with you. In addition, I mentally prepped myself to think of the GMAT Online as just a mock that I was taking before the final in-person exam. The key to overcoming anxiety is to remove all those layers that we add on subconsciously - thinking of the GMAT as a make or break exam; fearing what friends and family might think of you if you've failed to crack it yet again. Throw everything out and JUST take the exam for YOURSELF

Last but not the least, D-Day experience
My exam was scheduled for 5:30 pm IST. I didn't practice any question on the day of the exam. In fact, I woke up after a good 10 hrs of sleep. I had a light on carbs lunch and then rested again for some time. I woke up again at 430, brewed some nice coffee to get the caffeine to kick in by 530 ish. The online check-in process was seamless. Most importantly, my proctor was the BEST. I honestly felt that there was no proctor watching me because she did not disturb me EVEN ONCE. I fidgeted with my hands many times during the test, subconsciously covering my mouth sometimes. Not once did she say anything. In fact, the only time she msgd me was during the break. During the break, I had a can of Redbull and a bar of snickers.

The exam itself was good. I honestly felt I had messed up in Quant because I was getting very easy questions after the 10th question. Verbal felt somewhat similar to the OG questions. I had read the 'what if scenarios' article on gmatclub, so I tried to concentrate on and lock-in the first 20 questions in Quant and the first 27 questions in Verbal.

Closing thoughts
The GMAT is a process. Don't go hard on yourself if you've not been able to crack it in the first attempt. I've realized that perseverance is key in this exam so just keep knocking the curveballs that GMAT throws at you. Don't neglect psychological factors that may be hindering your performance. Address them at the earliest. Thanks for reading and hope this motivates you