An exciting day turned into the gloomiest day ever

Question

Hi,

I gave my GMAT exam yesterday with full hope of getting close to 700, although I was certain of getting at least 650. Since it was my 1st attempt and based on the preparation, I was confident enough to achieve a score between 650 to 700. The day started horribly. A glass of hot water fell from my hands(I have boiled water and pour it several times before yesterday and never have I ever dropped it). Luckily, there was no bruise. I don't believe in superstition but I was shocked when such an incident occurred for the 1st time and that on the most important day of my life. Still, I was quite motivated for the day and ignored this incident. When I reached the test center, I was pumped up to give my 1st GMAT exam. I began my quant section first(as it is my strongest part) and I performed decently well. Then came my biggest fear: the Verbal section. I was scoring well on SC during my preparation, slightly average in CR and horrible with RC. I targeted to get at least 10 questions correct on SC, 6-7 questions correct on CR and a minimum of 5 questions correct on my test. But two of the 4 RC passages which appeared on the test just blew my mind away. They were significantly intricate to understand and I invested a lot of time there to decode their complexity but wasn't able to do so. I was completely shattered after the verbal section. I knew I would not be able to cross 600 even, let alone my achievable target of 650+. But the unofficial score withered me away completely. I scored a mere 480 with a Q44 and V10.

Please provide some verbal(especially CR and RC) suggestions that I can implement to decode such complex paragraphs(in RCs mainly). Also, some information to tackle hard questions on the Quant section will be of great help. Looking forward to receiving your recommendations.

Leadership · Answer

Hi, It's sad to hear that your day and experience was horrible. I read your text carefully and sorry to sat that you need to change your approach. The approach (I targeted to get at least 10 questions correct on SC, 6-7 questions correct on CR and a minimum of 5 questions correct on my test) is incorrect. Q44 is not a bad score but you need yo work on it to get at least Q49-Q50 or even more if you want 700 and Verbal is weak point. For the verbal, you need to start from 'Zero'. I do not know how you studied but you need to go back to basic concepts of each section in verbal. Check the below link and you will find the study plans to follow: https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-study-plan-217827.html You need to follow some experts: 'Bunuel' , 'GMATNinja' for start. I also ask you to check for some online courses which suits you and can help you in achieving your score. Take the trial and decide by yourself. Let us know in case you need further advice.

Biswadeep20 · Answer

Hi sjas31,

Thank You for the advice. I do follow bb, GMATNinja and GMATNinja expert, Charle's videos on YouTube but I got those videos very late. I need to work on my RC and CR a lot. I have to improve my 70-80% consistency rate on SC to at least 90% before my next attempt. Regarding my preparation, I enrolled in e-GMAT's GMAT Online course and I improved from scratch to 70-80% in SC and from scratch to 50% consistency in CR because of this course. However, I was always struggling with RC passages and the 2 passages that I got in my exam seemed to be of an entirely different planet. Both of them were ridiculously complex. I now think I should have randomly selected the questions of those 2 passages and focused on the CR and SC more along with the other 2 passages, which were relatively easy but couldn't solve properly due to a shortage of time.
Thank You again.

Leadership · Answer

Hi,
You cannot ignore a section like RC on the Verbal. You will see 12-14 questions from it and they carry an importance. Obviously, if you see a passage out of this world, it is recommended to ignore it but with bit guess. Some do blindly but at the end of exam. Imagine the damage which 4-5 consecutive incorrect answers can make. So, cheer up and get positive thoughts on improving in every section. Believe in yourself. All the best.

Biswadeep20 · Answer

Thank You. I will surely work hard on RC along with improving the efficiency in CR and SC as high as possible.

Leadership · Answer

Good. See the below link if helps you: https://gmatclub.com/forum/new-project- ... l#p2218950 People improved a lot by doing 2 RC's a day.

Biswadeep20 · Answer

The passages would be a good set to begin for the initial days. Hopefully, I can overcome this daunting part of the Verbal section. Thanks for the link.

thyagi · Answer

Fall in love with reading long passages and understanding them. You need to have a lot of interest and lot of patience in reading the complicated question stem of CR and of every RC passage that you solve to conquer GMAT verbal.

Posted from my mobile device

EducationAisle · Answer

I really believe that V10 is indicative of conceptual gaps in all the three sections of Verbal. Perhaps you can order a ESR, so we can dissect further.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Biswadeep20,

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT. Would you like general advice on how to improve in all aspects of verbal and quant?

Biswadeep20 · Answer

Hi ScottTargetTestPrep,

Thank You for your response. I would surely love to get advice on both the sections in order to improve my score by a huge margin.

Regards,
Biswadeep

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

HI Biswadeep, To improve both your verbal and quant skills, you need to follow a linear and structured study plan. In other words you need to follow a study plan that allows you to learn each GMAT quant and verbal topic individually and then practice each topic until you’ve gained mastery. Let me expand on this idea further. Let’s say, for example, you are learning about Number Properties. First, you should develop as much conceptual knowledge about Number Properties as possible. In other words, your goal will be to completely understand properties of factorials, perfect squares, quadratic patterns, LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, and remainders, to name a few concepts. After carefully reviewing the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions, practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties. When you do dozens of questions of the same type one after the other, you learn just what it takes to get questions of that type correct consistently. If you aren't getting close to 90 percent of questions of a certain type correct, go back and seek to better understand how that type of question works, and then do more questions of that type until you get to around at least 90 percent accuracy in your training. If you get 100 percent of some sets correct, even better. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you do such practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant skills. Follow a similar routine for verbal. For example, let’s say you start by learning about Critical Reasoning. Your first goal is to fully master the individual Critical Reasoning topics: Strengthen the Argument, Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, etc. As you learn about each Critical Reasoning question type, do focused practice so that you can track your skill in answering each type of question. If, for example, you get a weakening question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific question type? Were you doing too much analysis in your head? Did you skip over a keyword in an answer choice? You must thoroughly analyze your mistakes and seek to turn weaknesses into strengths by focusing on the question types you dread seeing and the questions you take a long time to answer correctly. When practicing Reading Comprehension, you need to develop a reading strategy that is both efficient and thorough. Reading too fast and not understanding what you have read are equally as harmful as reading too slow and using up too much time. When attacking Reading Comprehension passages, you must have one clear goal in mind: to understand the context of what you are reading. However, you must do so efficiently, so you need to avoid getting bogged down in the details of each paragraph and instead focus on understanding the main point of each paragraph. That being said, do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can just read the intro and the conclusion and thereby comprehend the main idea of a paragraph. As you read a paragraph, consider how the context of the paragraph relates to previous paragraphs, so you can continue developing your overall understanding of the passage. Furthermore, as you practice Reading Comprehension, focus on the exact types of questions with which you struggle: Find the Main Idea, Inference, Author’s Tone, etc. As with Critical Reasoning, analyze your incorrect Reading Comprehension answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. Keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be easy to read. So, to better prepare yourself to analyze such passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as the New York Times, Scientific American, and Smithsonian. Sentence Correction is a bit of a different animal compared to Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions: what you know, such as grammar rules, what you see, such as violations of grammar rules and the logic of sentence structure, and what you do, such as carefully considering each answer choice in the context of the non-underlined portion of the sentence. To drive up your Sentence Correction score, it is likely that you will have to work on all three of those aspects. Regarding what you know, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not just a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning grammar rules is so that you can determine what sentences convey and whether sentences are well-constructed. In fact, in many cases, incorrect answers to Sentence Correction questions are grammatically flawless. Thus, often your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine which answer choice creates the most logical sentence meaning and structure. This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and logical is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending under two minutes per question. For a while, anyway, you have to spend time with each question, maybe even ten or fifteen minutes on one question sometimes, analyzing every answer choice until you see the details that you have to see in order to choose the correct answer. As you go through the answer choices, consider the meaning conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does the meaning make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does the version really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do all pronouns clearly refer to nouns? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer to a Sentence Correction question is correct. There is only one correct answer to any Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and those reasons are not that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct version often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answers were always the ones that sounded right, then most people most of the time would get Sentence Correction questions correct, without really knowing why the wrong answers were wrong and the correct answers were correct. So, you have to go beyond choosing what "sounds right" and learn to clearly see the logical reasons why one choice is better than all of the others. As for the third aspect of getting Sentence Correction questions correct, what you do, the main thing you have to do is be very careful. You have to make sure that you are truly considering the structures of sentences and the meanings conveyed rather than allowing yourself to be tricked into choosing trap answers that sound right but don't convey meanings that make sense. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question may take bouncing from choice to choice repeatedly until you start to see the differences between the choices that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. It may take time for you to see what you have to see. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to be determined to see the differences and to figure out the precise reasons that one choice is correct. To improve what you do when you answer Sentence Correction questions, seek to become aware of how you are going about answering them. Are you being careful and looking for logic and details, or are you quickly eliminating choices that sound a little off and then choosing the best of the rest? If you choose an incorrect answer, consider what you did that resulted in your arriving at that answer and what you could do differently in order to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Furthermore, see how many questions you can get correct in a row as you practice. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could have done differently to extend your streak. As with your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension regimens, after learning a particular Sentence Correction topic, engage in focused practice with 30 questions or more that involve that topic. As your Sentence Correction skills improve, you will then want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple Sentence Correction topics. In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new quant and verbal materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for (https://gmatclub.com/reviews/highest-ra ... or-quant-4) and (https://gmatclub.com/reviews/highest-ra ... -verbal-34]. You also may find my article with more information regarding how to score a 700+ on the GMAT helpful. Please reach out with any further questions.

An exciting day turned into the gloomiest day ever

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