The debrief:
Took the exam yesterday, and figured I would post an update here although I have not been a poster before.
Backtground: I have always been good at standardized testing. I scored a 2210 on the SATs without studying, and a Q165/V167 on the GREs without studying. I am a native english speaker and a voracious reader, and an engineer by day.
Practice exam scores:
GMAT Prep 1, taken after doing around 100 math prep problems: 750, Q48, V44, IR8
GMAT Prep 1 taken again 5 months later after I had stopped studying for a long time and then picked it up a little again: 750, Q49, V44
GMAT Prep 2 (after some more studying): 720, Q48, V41, IR8
GMAT Prep 3 (after even more studying): 770, Q48, V49, IR8
GMAT Prep 4 (after even more studying): 750, Q48, V44, IR5
GMAT Prep 5 (two days before exam--I believe my Q score was artifically depressed 2-4 points because there was a typo on question #2 and I wasted a lot of time on that and had to speed through the rest): 740, Q44, V47, IR8
Materials Used: For quantitative, I used the 2018 official guides, official GMAT Prep exams, and MiguelMick's quantitative flashcards
hereFor verbal, I completed the practice questions that were part of the gmat prep exams, and I did maybe 20 practice questions from the official guides. I also briefly looked up some commonly confusing words (less vs fewer, laying vs lying, between vs among, etc).
Studying schedule: Over the course of 3 weeks, I probably studied 20-30 hours.
General strategy: I was focusing on quantitative, so I tried to basically brute force it by doing as many practice problems as possible, briefly skimming the solution when I got it wrong, and moving on. In retrospect I don't think this was very effective--I'm a very good "gut instinct" test taker, and every time I saw a question I got wrong because of a little word I missed, or something I didn't consider, I trusted my gut instinct less and less, even if I meant I got those tricky ones right. Overall it was a net loss. So the week before the exam I scaled it back and just did practice problems to keep my mind fresh, while focusing on memorizing little fundamental math things I had forgotten over the years--the ratios of the sides of a 30-60-90 triangle, the equations for outcomes in permutations and combinations, etc. I tried to not get inside my own head too much.
The actual exam:
I managed my time on Q pretty poorly, and ended up having to guess completely on 3-5 questions, at least two of which (the last two) I know I would've gotten if I had had time. As you'll see in my ESR, I got hit hard in the last part by these guesses.
Verbal was insanely hard compared to what I remembered from the practice exams, but now that I've seen my score I guess that was because I was doing much better than I normally did. There were definitely a handful of questions (mainly CR) where I was able to narrow it down to 2 or 3 choices, but then had to guess among those. I may have gotten some wrong but I guess they were experimental.
IR I managed time poorly as well, and had to almost completely guess on two. Either I guessed well or one of those was an experimental question.
In retrospect: If I could I would've focused more on managing my time during practice tests/questions--I was able to hit time pretty easily at home, but in the heat of the actual exam I just would get too fixated on a problem and spend too long on it. If I did it again I would aim to have 15-20% of my time leftover for each section on my practice exams, so that in the actual exam it would probably take all my time.
ESR: I'm not allowed to upload attachments yet, but once I get to five posts I will attach them!I realize this may not be as helpful as other posters who had really clearly-defined strategies that helped them gain 100+ points or more, but I figured there may be some other natural test-takers out there who could benefit. I will try to answer all questions! Best of luck to all of you on your own tests!
Moderator Note: Formating
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