GMAT Power Prep test taken - got 520 --- skeptical !!!!

Hi

VN: Thanks for the reply. You are right that I need to score much higher than now atleast in PP. I would appreciate if you could suggest me some possible ways to improve my Verbal skills.-- :cry:

bb: You were also absoultely right in most of the points that you had mentioned especially the one that "I finished the tests on time but couldnt get a good score".

I have finished going through with the Kaplan Verbal yesterday including the pracitce drills of individual sections. I have not taken the tests in CD of the Kaplan bcoz of technical problems.
Kaplan CD's do not work in Windows 2000 in my laptop and I am hung with the Kaptest Technical team for this.
Currently, in the regular practice tests in Kaplan Verbal for individual sections I am only getting about half of the questions correct.

for example, my usual score in Kaplan Verbal Workbook Tests which is timed for 25 mins are

Critical Reasoning - 9/16
Sentence Correction - 10/18
Reading Comprehension - 13/22

I have ordered a book in Amzon named "Power Reading" which I assumed would do some good to my reading skills. I am not sure as to what should I do for scoring better on sentence correction and critical reasoning --- :?

Any suggestions - please

WIN 2000 Workstation worked with me
but I did hear complains... I am sure since you are a software engineer you know all about it...

For reading - the best option is to follow Kaplan's BOOK with CD strategy, practice the Workbook - which is very little though, and read books. i just read books I liked in English - this gave me style in writing, grammar feeling for SC, and reading skills and endurance for RC...

I think it is a good benefit. If you go to the Books section of the site, you will find a number of quality suggestions, if you have not done so already.


CR's key is assumptions, as I think about it. Some may disagree, but the difference in international/american logic strongly depends on the idea of assumptions. I have only one lesson on this site posted about CR and assumptions, check it out. It is supposed to be helpful. Let me know if it is not, and I will try to improve it.


Obviously SC is the easiest to fix - just learnd the Cliff's book's rules

CR is my favorite, but it may be hard for some...

RC is the hardest. Stolyar is currently fighting it and he had some helpful tips... such as Understand what you are reading. Read the intro carefully, read topic sentence of each paragraph, and make sure you keep track while you rea reading and not walking somewhere in your thoughts....


Let me know what you think about the power reading book.. I am interested.

iceman,

As far as Verbal, I have some issues with it myself ( I scored low 30s in my GMAT), although I have been speaking and reading fluently for the past 10 years. I regularly read Economist and Business week for the last 7 years and that somehow did not help my Verbal score. Although, I spent only about two weeks of serious prep time before the test.

As for the Kaplan CD, I lost mine about a month before the test. I opened the book on the last page and it said that if you have technical difficulties call ... I called and said that my CD is damaged, could they said another one, I got a new CD (which comes with the next edition of the Kaplan book) about 4-5 days in my mail box. By the way I have Windows 2000 Server on my laptop and had no issues using their software.

Cheers and good luck.