Disappointed in Verbal

Question

Hi all,

Almost a month away for my actual exam and my verbal is not improving. Any tips would be helpful.

My Verbal score declined again in GMAT prep4.

Mock score results:

GMAT prep 1 - Diagnostic - Q43/V21 540 - Mid Jan

GMAT prep 2 - Q46/V24 580 - 24th Feb

MGMAT 3 - Q41/V30 580 - 580 - 17th Mar

MGMAT 4 - Q46/V32 640 - 24th Mar

GMAT prep 3 - Q46/V33 640 - 31st Mar

GMAT prep 4 - Q49/V27 630 - 7th Apr

Edit: Practicing 2/3 RCs every morning and solving 20 timed SC questions everyday with an accuracy of >80%. Still unsure of the low verbal score.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

mangamma · Answer

which materials you followed for verbal preparation?
how long are you preparing?

kiran120680 · Answer

try e-GMAT.
keep your all your process aside ,just follow e-gmat instructions.
Magoosh also good one for verbal

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi makbar94,

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) How long have you studied?
2) What study materials have you used so far?

Goals:
3) What is your goal score?
4) When is your exact Test Date?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
6) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

makbar94 · Answer

Hi Rich,
1. I have been studying since mid Jan of this year- roughly 2.5-3 months.
2. I am using the MGMAT and the official guides along with extensively solving gmat club questions.
3. I am motivated to score above 700.
4. I am planning to give the exam on May 15th.
5. I will be applying to business schools starting July for the class of 2022.
6. My target schools are INSEAD and all T25 schools in the US ( have a gpa if 4 in my bachelors and 3.77 in my masters and will have 3 years of experience)

Posted from my mobile device

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi makbar94,

GMAC has publicly stated that the Official Score that you earn on Test Day is within +/- 30 points of actual ability. Assuming a similar 'swing' in how your CATs function, your various CAT score results show that you essentially performed the same each time (around 610 +/- a few points). You handle certain aspects of the GMAT consistently well, but you also make certain consistent mistakes. Considering the Schools that you plan to apply to, scoring at a high level in the Quant should be one of your sub-Goals (and you've hit Q49 just once so far, so we cannot assume that that is your current 'ability level' in that section). As such, you're going to have to make some significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections.

With a May 15th Test Date, you have a little over 5 weeks of study time, so you're going to have to be really efficient with your studies going forward - and you'll need to focus on learning and practicing the proper Quant and Verbal Tactics to hit your Goal Score in that time.

1) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

makbar94 · Answer

Hi Rich,
I can dedicate 4 hours of study during the weekdays and 6-7 hours during the weekends.

Posted from my mobile device

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi makbar94,

I've responded to your email.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi makbar94,

I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. Here is some advice you can follow to improve your GMAT verbal skills. I’ll start with Critical Reasoning.

When studying Critical Reasoning, you need to ensure that you fully understand the essence of the various Critical Reasoning question types. Do you know the importance of an assumption within an argument? Can you easily spot a conclusion? Do you know how to resolve a paradox? Do you know how to properly evaluate cause and effect? Do you know how to properly weaken or strengthen an argument? These are just a few examples; you really need to take a deep dive into the individual Critical Reasoning topics such that you develop the necessary skills to properly attack any Critical Reasoning questions that you encounter.

As you learn each Critical Reasoning problem type, do focused practice so that you can track your skill in answering each type. If, for example, you incorrectly answered a Weaken the Argument question, 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 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 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, 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 answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. You can perfect your reading strategy with a lot of practice, but keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be stimulating. So, to better prepare yourself to tackle such bland passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as The Economist, 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 answer were always the one 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 logical meanings. 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. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to be determined to see the differences and 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 skills improve, you will then want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple Sentence Correction topics.

Ultimately, if you are unable to learn and practice in the manner described above, you may consider looking for additional verbal prep resources. If you are unsure of which resources to choose, check out some reviews here on GMAT Club.

You also may find my article with more information regarding
 how to score a 700+ on the GMAT  helpful.

Feel free to reach out with any questions. Good luck!

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi Akbar, which resources have you been using, for your prep?

Also, which sub-section in verbal to you perceive as your weakness?

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