Journey of 45 year old guy to GMAT score of 700

I am not a frequent poster here, but I have learned a lot from people here, and I want to contribute in whatever way I can. This is great forum and people are great. Thank you guys!

I am from India, now Swedish citizen, turned 45 this Christmas. I have background in the field of Semiconductor chip design with work experience of over 15 years (about 9 years in USA, 5 years in Sweden, rest India). My work experience is mainly technical (R&D) with some technical management.
I am quite happy with my work and I did not start thinking about MBA until year 2011. It was after few visits to Philippines for my work (Many American and European Semiconductor companies have chip test facilities in Philippines), when I noticed that growth is catching up in Philippines. Today, there are more call center employees in Philippines than in India, and I see some Software R & D activity in Philippines in small scale. I also noticed that some of the major semiconductor companies have their small R&D centers in Philippines. In my view Philippines is poised for growth, and today Philippines is at the same stage India was 15-16 years ago (that was the time when I started my carrier in the Semiconductor industry). Although the level of education in Philippines is not at par with the level of education in India, it is not bad either. I think the engineering graduates in Philippines are highly motivated and with initial training, the ROI in Philippines will be much higher with good quality of work. And this brings my motivation to go for MBA. After MBA, I want to promote semiconductor R&D activity in Philippines and also promote/enhance industry-university interaction there.

Since I am out of college for long time, it took me some time to get back to rhythm. I have been preparing for GMAT since summer of 2011, on and off. Initially I was planning to take GMAT during Nov-Dec 2011, but I broke my leg in Sept 2011 (my left leg is affected by polio, since age of 2 years, and is weak), and I was on wheel chair for about 3 months. It disrupted my studies. I have had lot of disruptions during first half of 2012, which included my travel to India for divorce, purchase and moving to apartment in Sweden etc.

Material used:

OG 12 : Did it twice

OG Verbal Review

OG Quant Review

Manhattan strategy guides

Aristotle SC guide, 2nd edition. Purchased 3rd edition also but did not touch it.

Economist's GMAT Tutor Prep course: My score did not improve during first few practice tests, so I decided to try out online GMAT Prep course. I took 7 day trial of GMAT Tutor for $1 and I liked its approach and content, and I decided to buy the course. I did not complete it though. It gave me good practice in the Quant section (especially approximating, plugging-in, table approach for solving overlapping-set problems), and also on verbal. I finished about 25% of verbal content and 15% of Quant content. What I did not like about this course is that it does not let you choose what you want to study. It did not let me practice IR because I had not completed about 50% of the material.

GMAT Club tests: Purchased during the last phase of my studies, mainly for Quant practice. I highly recommend them.
AWA: I used templates from Chineseburned, and practiced 3-4 essays before the exam. Also watched Ron's video on AWA. I think these two are sufficient for AWA. You just need to spend 2-3 days for AWA.

IR: I only practiced about 10 IR questions from GMAT Prep free software. I did not put much efforts on IR because I think for my admission, IR score won't count that much.

SC: Did Manhattan strategy guide twice. Watched almost all of "Thursday with Ron" SC videos and made lots of notes. I went through SC explanations by Ron on Manhattan forums. I found Ron's explanations superb. His explanations are awesome. Aristotle 2nd edition is ok. I think GMAT Tutor tests and Manhattan tests provided me with good practice on SC. I reviewed the practice tests multiple times, and reviewed all the questions, irrespective of whether I got a question correct or incorrect.

CR: I found pre-thinking strategy for CR very useful and for around 60-70% of the CR questions, pre-thinking gives correct answer.

RC: Practiced from OG12, Aristotle RC questions, GMAT Tutor. My RC was not very strong, and my hit rate was about 60% during practice and in mock tests.
I never took notes while doing CR and RC questions.

Quant: I think GMAT tests how you approach a quant question rather than your mathematical knowledge. It is important to know when you should plug-in the answers to the question at hand. It really saves time.

Mock test scores:

Sept 10, 2011: GMAT Prep test 1, without AWA : 570 (Q44, V25)
Aug 25, 2012 : GMAT Prep test1, without AWA : 640 (Q43, V34)
Sept 30, 2012: Manhattan CAT 1 (without AWA, without IR) : 550 (Q38, V28)
Oct 06, 2012 : Manhattan CAT 2 (without AWA, without IR) : 550 (Q37, V29)
Oct 11, 2012 : GMAT Tutor CAT 1 (without AWA, without IR) : 560 (Q44, V24)
Nov 30, 2012 : GMAT Tutor CAT 2 (without AWA, without IR) : 600 (Q38, V36)
Dec 01, 2012 : GMAT Tutor CAT 3 (without AWA, without IR) : 670 (Q45, V38)
Dec 09, 2012 : Manhattan CAT 3 (without AWA, without IR) : 640 (Q41, V36)
Dec 16, 2012 : Manhattan CAT 4 (with AWA, without IR) : 640 (Q44, V33)
Dec 19, 2012 : GMAT : 700 (Q48, V38)

When my score did not improve on Oct 11, 2012 mock test, I was extremely frustrated, and I gave a very hard look at my approach and reviewed all the exams from every angle and made exhaustive notes on:
1. Timing on each question, especially when I took 3 plus minutes to solve a question and took notes on how to reduce my time. This is when I learned about guessing a question, very important.
2. Whether mistake was silly or conceptual.
3. Whether I could have solved the question by plugging-in the answer rather than solving the equation (Quant).

I reviewed my notes multiple times and finally I saw my results improving. When I scored 640 in the Manhattan CAT second time in a row (on Dec 16, 2012), I decided to gamble and book test date for Dec 19.I just wanted to see how much I score on the real test. I did not have high expectations and I was prepared to retake GMAT. But I am happy with 700, it is either above or at the level of average score of schools I am targeting (1 year MBA program in Europe).

Exam day: I could not sleep well the night before exam because of anxiety. I slept only 4 hours and most of the night I was turning and tossing on the bed. I woke up at 6:30, with red eyes due to lack of sleep. I had done some research on what to eat before and during the exam, and I think that saved me from tiring out during the exam.
I ate muesli cereal with milk (contains complex carbs, excellent source of energy), and coffee. During the exam breaks, I ate dried figs and bar containing nuts, raspberry and chocolate, and drank little water. I found that dried figs give instant energy, and 2-3 dried figs during the break did the trick for me.
Even though I had less than normal sleep, I made sure that I don't panic during the exam. I did not keep track of time during the break, and lost 18 seconds in the first break and 2 minute 15 seconds in the second break, but I did not panic. I did not think about the score even for one moment during the whole exam. Only time I thought about the score was just before I hit the key to get my score. I just guessed that my score would be around 640-650, but when I saw 700 on the screen, I was really happy that I don't need to retake GMAT.

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