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16 Mar 2015, 04:05
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Hi! Just got done with my exam and proud to sign off in the 700+ category, with split as Q51 V38 (Overall 720). I started more than a year back, though the preparation has not been uniform. However, it was very clear to me within the first few weeks itself that verbal was going to be an area of challenge and pain:). That English is not my first language did not help, though I had my schooling in an English medium school.
For first few months, a good part of my time went into "lurking" on this forum, motivating myself with success stories of people who had a similar struggle with Verbal as I had. Further analysis of my own weaknesses revealed that sentence correction would be a specific pain area. Wasn't ever great with grammar fundamentals even in high school, and picking up the voluminous grammar high school books seemed daunting. This forum provided a lot of suggestions on SC resources. So, I tried signing up with few online courses for trial period and also loaned few books from my friends who had appeared in GMAT.
It was just too much of material and very overwhelming. Actually I have been quite a studious person and so, I would have been ok with too much material also, but the issue was that I could not find a structured and methodical resource (for example, someone on GC said there are "two" books that we need to go through, for SC: Aristotle and then Manhattan!). In that sense, I feel that I kind-of wasted few initial months. That's when I came across SC Nirvana, and frankly, at that time bought it because nothing else was working. Clicked bigtime for me. Extremely methodical and very structured.
I used PowerScore for CR. Now, it's a great book, but for one thing, I wasn't doing too badly in CR and so, thought that overall, it goes into more detail than I would have needed to do well.
For RC, I used a freely available material 3000 RC. I did not do all the passages, and also felt that the length of the passages here was much more than the length of the passages on the actual exam. However, this actually helped eventually, since I became used to longer passages.
I know I haven't mentioned anything for Quant, but I really didn't do much to "prepare". I am an Engineer and have been quite decent in Maths all the way. So, I just did a compilation of 500 GMATPrep Data sufficiency questions and felt confident.
By the way, I was scoring in a similar range on GMATPreps. However, I was still very apprehensive going into the actual exam, because had read few unfortunate stories from people who were scoring quite well on mocks, but fared badly on the actual exam. I feel very relieved now. I know that V38 is not a dream score for most, but from where I started, it's big!
For first few months, a good part of my time went into "lurking" on this forum, motivating myself with success stories of people who had a similar struggle with Verbal as I had. Further analysis of my own weaknesses revealed that sentence correction would be a specific pain area. Wasn't ever great with grammar fundamentals even in high school, and picking up the voluminous grammar high school books seemed daunting. This forum provided a lot of suggestions on SC resources. So, I tried signing up with few online courses for trial period and also loaned few books from my friends who had appeared in GMAT.
It was just too much of material and very overwhelming. Actually I have been quite a studious person and so, I would have been ok with too much material also, but the issue was that I could not find a structured and methodical resource (for example, someone on GC said there are "two" books that we need to go through, for SC: Aristotle and then Manhattan!). In that sense, I feel that I kind-of wasted few initial months. That's when I came across SC Nirvana, and frankly, at that time bought it because nothing else was working. Clicked bigtime for me. Extremely methodical and very structured.
I used PowerScore for CR. Now, it's a great book, but for one thing, I wasn't doing too badly in CR and so, thought that overall, it goes into more detail than I would have needed to do well.
For RC, I used a freely available material 3000 RC. I did not do all the passages, and also felt that the length of the passages here was much more than the length of the passages on the actual exam. However, this actually helped eventually, since I became used to longer passages.
I know I haven't mentioned anything for Quant, but I really didn't do much to "prepare". I am an Engineer and have been quite decent in Maths all the way. So, I just did a compilation of 500 GMATPrep Data sufficiency questions and felt confident.
By the way, I was scoring in a similar range on GMATPreps. However, I was still very apprehensive going into the actual exam, because had read few unfortunate stories from people who were scoring quite well on mocks, but fared badly on the actual exam. I feel very relieved now. I know that V38 is not a dream score for most, but from where I started, it's big!
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16 Mar 2015, 06:48
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Hi VerbalHow !
Congratulations on fine improvement in Verbal and getting to a great final score !!
You have a perfect Quant score
....You didn't mention much about your quant preparation. Still I would ask - what does it take to reach to that summit ? 
A 51 means the test taker has done very few mistakes and has consistently done well on tough questions . Any suggestions to make this transition from say 48 to 51.
As you were , I am also struggling a bit with Verbal. I am not good in CR and RC . I am hoping to breach 80% accuracy level on both these sections for an overall V4X score :D.
Would love to hear suggestions to fine tune my preparations.
Good luck with your applications !
Regards,
SR
Congratulations on fine improvement in Verbal and getting to a great final score !!
You have a perfect Quant score
....You didn't mention much about your quant preparation. Still I would ask - what does it take to reach to that summit ? A 51 means the test taker has done very few mistakes and has consistently done well on tough questions . Any suggestions to make this transition from say 48 to 51.
As you were , I am also struggling a bit with Verbal. I am not good in CR and RC . I am hoping to breach 80% accuracy level on both these sections for an overall V4X score :D.
Would love to hear suggestions to fine tune my preparations.
Good luck with your applications !
Regards,
SR
16 Mar 2015, 07:56
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Thanks. Actually after I posted my experience, I saw another post just above mine: a 790 on GMAT with a 50 on Verbal! My 38 V looks very very trivial in comparison, but I am very satisfied.
Since you ask me what it takes to go from a Q 48 to Q 51, in my case it was clearly Data Sufficiency. With Problem solving, it is relatively easy because you "solve" the question and arrive at an answer. When that answer "matches" an option, you know it is very likely that you solved the question correct.
However, with Data Sufficiency, I was getting trapped in few questions and arriving at the incorrect answer choice, primarily in Inequalities and coordinate Geometry. So, I worked on DS specifically. Apart from the 500 GMATPrep questions that I did, there was really nothing much.
For CR, a commonly given advice, which I should have heeded to earlier, is that the "starting point" should be identification of conclusion. Because even when the question is "strengthen the argument" or "weaken the argument", the question is actually asking you to strengthen/weaken the "conclusion". Also, I am not sure whether you have gone through Powerscore CR book. While I found it to be a slight overkill, I do believe that it is a good book for people struggling with a low accuracy rate in CR.
For RC, it was just practice in my case.
Since you ask me what it takes to go from a Q 48 to Q 51, in my case it was clearly Data Sufficiency. With Problem solving, it is relatively easy because you "solve" the question and arrive at an answer. When that answer "matches" an option, you know it is very likely that you solved the question correct.
However, with Data Sufficiency, I was getting trapped in few questions and arriving at the incorrect answer choice, primarily in Inequalities and coordinate Geometry. So, I worked on DS specifically. Apart from the 500 GMATPrep questions that I did, there was really nothing much.
For CR, a commonly given advice, which I should have heeded to earlier, is that the "starting point" should be identification of conclusion. Because even when the question is "strengthen the argument" or "weaken the argument", the question is actually asking you to strengthen/weaken the "conclusion". Also, I am not sure whether you have gone through Powerscore CR book. While I found it to be a slight overkill, I do believe that it is a good book for people struggling with a low accuracy rate in CR.
For RC, it was just practice in my case.
