noboru wrote:
PS: Any other comment on verbal?
Noboru,
Let me pitch in for verbal as I feel your pain dude. I assume you are a non native speaker, and problems with non native speakers are manifold as far as verbal is concerned.
Who scores high in verbal: an avid reader? I am sure you must have read Economist, NYtimes, scientific American, and some other useful reading material in last few months leading up to the test. Verbal heavily tests your reading skills. I have scored 90 percentile in verbal, and I can assure you that test implicitly tests your reading speed and a certain level of vocabulary. We all know that Verbal section tests comprehension, logic, and grammar explicitly. If you are weak in any of these areas, it would be very hard to lift your score above 70 percentile, which corresponds to a raw score of 34-35.
Now if you already made great strides in all of these areas (I am sure you have in SC), and still the score is low then I would advise that you need to pay attention to RC subtleties. Tough RC questions have very subtle difference in two answer choices. You need to learn these subtleties, and it comes by paying close attention to the context and words. Even a word or two will differentiate between these two answer choices. I am not sure what technique you are following for RC. Initially I was trying to master the passage and most of the time ended up falling behind in terms of time. Then I switched my strategy and read very carefully first time, and I had fairly good amount of understanding about topic, scope, main idea, purpose, and tone etc. For other detail specific questions, you need to know where to look for text in passage.
In my test I was in a tough spot in terms of timing as I spent extra time on initial tough questions. I had only 29 minutes for 21 questions left, strong urge to go to restroom, and I knew toughest RC was ahead. I did not panic as I had practiced with this kind of scenario beforehand. That’s when my reading speed (Not that I am a very fast reader but I am way better than when I first started) came handy and most important part in verbal section is not to panic. Once you panic, at that very moment you loose battle. Surprisingly, I cruised through all 4 passages in around 28-30 minutes although I had allotted more time for RC section as I knew it could make or break my score. It’s not that I completed verbal section comfortably. I guessed almost 2-3 questions blindly one of them was RC question in last passage. Problem with not understanding the RC passage is you can make 3-4 questions wrong in a row. Once you do that there is a high probability that you will make subsequent questions wrong too even if you are good at that section. Once a test taker makes 3-4 questions wrong in a row in verbal section, there is no way he/she could score more than 70%. No matter how hard he/she tries in subsequent questions.
Try to identify patterns for all verbal questions and practice RC carefully. You don’t need to practice hundreds of passages, but whatever you practice just get under the skin of it. I am sure you will see a lot of improvement. Most important advice is study lightly as you have all the knowledge you need for this test, it’s just a bit smart practice and not burning yourself is the key to a good GMAT score. You have already burnt yourself, so take a break and then come back to tackle the test with a fresh mind. You are already there, and you just need to execute it.
- gm