Hi everyone. Like most of you, I've picked up a lot of the books on GMAT Club's preparation list, one of which was the Powerscore Sentence Correction prep guide. Prior to reading through the book, I did about 100 questions (untimed) of practice for a Manhattan Review book and got 72% correct--not what I was looking for considering Verbal is my strength compared to math. After spending 3 straight days going through all 250 pages of the book, I tested myself on 100 more SC questions from the Official Guide--84%, not bad. This time I timed the questions, giving myself 30 minutes for every 25 I did (with a 5 minute break in between). It was nice to see at 12% improvement in the span of 3 days. Though I know it's not as easy to improve in other areas (such as reading comp, or Quant for me especially!), but it just goes to show if you put in some time, you'll get at least SOMETHING out of it. Obvious, but true.

I genuinely noticed myself looking at the questions differently, breaking them down differently, not trusting my gut and what "sounds" best. Immediately, even for those of you who aren't great at verbal, the book gives you a few hints which will alert you to issues right away. For instance, I never really knew how to correctly use a semicolon--the book pointed out that each part of the sentence both before and after the semi-colon must be able to stand-alone as a sentence. Nice. Also, you'll start to notice a lot of red-flags that will call your attention to certain types of errors.

My biggest concern is continuing to improve my SC success rate--I want to consistently be above 90% correct. I suppose my plan is to do some SC's every day until the test, though since I have 7 weeks, I might run out. I figure 15 a day (about the number that will be on the GMAT) is a good way to keep everything fresh until the test.

In closing, just wanted to say I definitely recommend going through the whole Powerscore Sentence Correction book. It'll add at least a few points to your score, almost guaranteed.

Oh, and I scheduled my GMAT today: Sept. 2. Lots to do before then.