This series of emails and PMs focuses on situations that many Test Takers face during their studies. The names of the original posters have been changed to protect their identities.
Reading Skills vs. GMAT RC Skills
Hi Rich
I am preparing for the test, and I find the verbal section more difficult (in terms of time spent to come up with a solution) than the quantitative section. This is because I am a non-native english speaker, so in order to improve effectively my english reading-reasoning ability I would ask for suggestions on how to deal with it (for instance, if it is useful to read the new york times or the economist in the free time, or if there is a particular newspaper writer whose articles could help).
Eta
Hi Eta,
The suggestion to read from scholarly journals (The New York Times, etc.) is an interesting way to build RC reading skills but it's not necessarily going to improve your RC performance because those articles do NOT come with GMAT questions attached.
Effective practice requires an understanding of what MATTERS in an RC passage and what does not, the proper way to take notes as you read (the EMPOWERgmat Method is called the RC Ladder), and an understanding of the types of questions and the common types of wrong answers that you'll see with each question. In short, you have to be trained to know what RC questions require of you.
As a nudge to help you improve, try thinking about WHY a sentence or paragraph appears in a prompt (what purpose does it serve), as opposed to trying to understand or memorize every nitpick detail provided.
Extra Time on IR Training?
Rich,
How much time should be given to IR preparation? I have given GMAT once and did not prepare for IR much. I got a 4. Is that a decent score? I am giving my GMAT again in few days and I am wondering that if giving practice tests with IR section sufficient for the preparation.
Theta
Hi Theta,
The national average for the IR section is right around a 4.3, so your IR score is fine. The good news is that just about every Business School who has spoken on the subject considers IR to be a NON-FACTOR in the application process. The data collected on this section doesn't consistently correlate with scores in other sections, so Business Schools haven't found a way to use IR data to assess applicants. The short answer is that it IR doesn't matter in the short term, so you shouldn't spend too much time or energy trying to improve (that time would be better spent improving other areas). This might change going into the future, but it likely won't be for at least several years.
The Random Order of Questions in Each Section
Hey Rich,
I had a strange experience with verbal section during my retake of GMAT prep 1. In my first attempt I scored 650(Q49,V29). So, today I gave my GMAT prep 1 again after resetting it. To my surprise, I got 3 reading comprehensions within the first 13 questions. How common is this experience?
Iota
Hi Iota,
Your experience with the software is clearly NOT typical and I wouldn't expect it to repeat (either in practice or on Test Day). From a probability standpoint, it's clearly mathematically possible, however unlikely; I once had a client tell me that (on his actual GMAT) that his first 10 Quant questions were DS questions. While he said it was a bit unnerving, he stayed calm, remembered his training and scored 730. My advice is to roll with whatever the GMAT throws at you. The order of the questions will vary, but the content, rules, format, etc. won't.
GMAT assassins aren’t born, they’re made,
Rich
