760 (99%tile, 95 Q, 97V) from 680(90%tile, 82Q, 81V)

Question

Never thought I would be writing one of these posts. I first joined the GMAT club back in July of 2004 under user name Damit when I scored a 680 (hence damit). 1 year later, I am happy to be changing my user name to Woohoo after scoring 760 in my test. 

I am going to put up a long ass post later today when I have recovered from my hangover but wanted to say two things to folks who have G day coming up soon esp. people taking it again.

1. It can be done! I learnt that attitude really matters. Watch this documentary called "What the Bleep do we know" and you will see what I mean. 

2. I think the following is all the matterial you need to study for the GMAT
a. OG
b. Manhattan GMAT strategy guides
c. 1000 SC, CR doc floating out there somewhere
d. Gmatclub forums
e. ETS paper tests which are available at mba.com or somewhere on this forum 

One problem i faced in the past was too much material, not enough focus. For verbal beyond OG and the 1000, SC, CR, RC doc you dont need ANYTHING!! 

Wanted to thank all the members here esp. those who wrote back to my posts and a super hearty thanks to Paul who's brilliant grammer explanations for sure contributed to my 97%tile in verbal. 

More later... stay tuned

AJB77 · Answer

Congratulations! 

I admire people like yourself who have proven that failure (relatively speaking) is a stepping stone to success.

kayser1soze · Answer

wow congrats on the great score thats quite an improvement. :band

HIMALAYA · Answer

Hmmmmmm Damit,

Congratulations.

gmat2me2 · Answer

WooHoo: Congratulations !!

Paul · Answer

Congratulation damit(woohoo)! I am very happy for your drastic increase and actual score. I wish you all the best in your applications and definitely am waiting to hear more from your experience.

woohoo · Answer

Ok have finally recovered from my hangover and mass destruction of brain cells over this weekend. Sorry I tried to keep this brief but failed miserably and decided on to err on the side of too much info as opposed to leaving something out. 

 Background 

Took the GMAT 1 year ago and scored a 680. I was not thrilled and for a variety of different reasons I had to put off the test even though I did prepare briefly for another attempt. The best thing that happened to me after my first attempt was to discover the GMAT club. While I have not been the most active member here i.e. not responded to many posts, I did post a lot of questions and checked posts and concepts (esp. verbal) here everyday during my preparation (which started May 25th 2005 for July 30th 2005 test) 

 Lessons Learned From Previous Un-successful attempt:  
1. Improve my speed: In quant I guessed last 2 questions and in verbal I guessed last 4 questions. The reading comp. on question #34 killed me
2. Track Errors: I knew my SCâ€™s were horrible and my RCâ€™s were pretty bad too. CR I was doing well. But I didnâ€™t know where I was screwing up in SC and RC i.e. what types of questions. It was blind attempt to just keep working through OG and try and improve. I also had fundamental conceptual issues with SC grammar. 
3. Allow sufficient time for practice after concepts are solidified: My total prep time last time was 2.5 months (while working full time). It took me about 1.5-2 months to go through all the concepts using MGMAT strategy guides, Kaplan, and PR. I did not all enough time for practice and jumped to doing a lot of tests. 
4.  Reduce careless mistake in Quant:  I knew I was capable of 48-50 in Q but always made silly errors in quant like 18/4 = 4 or something stupid in a hurry. Also needed to better track Quant problem areas 
5. Never give up. Ever!!

 How I Prepped This Time / Recommendations for Prep (Keeping in mind the lessons learned)  

 SC:  

1. This was my MOST problematic area. The biggest challenge here was finding good questions as I had already done OG SCâ€™s and remembered many answer even after a here. Kaplan and PR SC material SUCKS! Thatâ€™s when I discovered 1000 SC document which essentially contains ALL SCâ€™s from ETS paper tests and also OG. 
2. I used Manhattan GMAT (which is necessary but NOT sufficient) for fundamentals. A great compliment to it is â€œGrammar Smartâ€

nadia0410 · Answer

Congratulations on a great score!! And thank you for sharing your GMAT experience with all of us. :-D

sraj · Answer

Interesting Debriefing. Thanks.

kwasi7 · Answer

Very insightful post and congrats. 

Anyway how can i get my hands on the 1000 SC, CR and RC documents?

woohoo · Answer

Hi there are different names for it. I have also heard it being refered to as SC885 on this forum. I am travelling and dont have access to it. you can just search on the forum

thanks!

HF_2005 · Answer

Congratulations once more! Thanks a lot for detailed description. Great post! Very practical!

kwasi7 · Answer

Thanks for the quick response, i have tried a couple of searches but i'm only coming up with questions that others have posted from the document or their general comments on it still can't get the actual document.

will be grateful if you can help.

macca · Answer

Congrats to a great score. 

Very inspiring to read your message. 

you said:
I started working through SC1000 document

Where can I find this document? My weak area is SC so it would 
be nice with some more SC questions.

woohoo · Answer

All here is the link to SC material https://www.gmatclub.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=5210 enjoy and happy practicing

macca · Answer

Thanks woohoo,

Great stuff!

ny · Answer

Hi,

Congratultions on your score. I was wondering if you could mention where we can find that ? CR is my weakness.

Thanks.

kwasi7 · Answer

hey woohoo, 

i was away for a short while but thanks for that!

ny · Answer

Thanks kwasi7 .... I found the 1000SC document. However, my weakness is CR, so I REALLY NEED the 1000CR document.

If someone would be kind enough to point me in the right direction, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

kwasi7 · Answer

I hope this helps.

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760 (99%tile, 95 Q, 97V) from 680(90%tile, 82Q, 81V)

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