GMAT Day Mishap | Help with CR and RC

Question

Fellow members and Experts,

I am writing to seek your advise on how to best prepare and practice for CR and RC. As I work in banking, I do not have the luxury to go through the overwhelming material that is out there. Given adequate time, my GMAT prep %ile in both sub-sections (CR & RC) is above 80. The average time to answer the question is 2:30s (dubious). As you can see, I have the ability and just need to just bring the timing under 2 min while marginally improving the %ile. Have practised from e-GMAT so far. It is good, but timing is still a cause of concern.

Could you please guide which is the  best  resource to study CR and practice CR and RC 700 level questions? I have about a month before I sit for the exam. Any help / tips from experts would be much appreciated. Many thanks!

Best,
Yugansh

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Yugansh,

In another post, you stated that you took the GMAT today - but you did not include your Score. How did you score on the GMAT (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)?

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?
3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) What is your goal score?
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

rohan2345 · Answer

Hi yugansh01, For verbal I believe the e-gmat Scholaranium which is included in your course is one of the best verbal practice tools in the market. You can easily track your progress in that you can identify your strengths and analyze and improve on your weak areas.Further taking multiple mocks might help. Apart from the GMATPREP, Manhattan GMAT tests and Veritas Prep Tests in my experience have good verbal and Quant section and will certainly help you point out and improve your weak areas. Further taking multiple mocks might help. Apart from the GMATPREP, Manhattan GMAT tests and Veritas Prep Tests in my experience have good verbal and Quant section and will certainly help you point out and improve your weak areas. Further another advantage of taking many mocks is to build up your stamina. Apart from the GMATPREP tests, taking practise tests of any major GMATPREP company ought to do that. I would also encourage you to purchase GMATPREP QP 1 for some great additional practice. Here is a link that will really help you. https://gmatclub.com/forum/verbal-guide ... urces-389/ Hope this helps. All the best!

yugansh01 · Answer

Thanks Rich,

I scored Q48 and V34. Some of the questions you have asked are great. If you could share your email address, I will share my excel with you. In that, I have included all the details including sourced I have practiced, various scores and average response time per category. You will see how deeply I have tracked my performance. Don’t know why, I am unable to upload the excel here.

My target score is 740 (Q49+, V40+). I followed e-Gmat course religiously. I have practiced all MCATS, all GMAT preps, all OGs, all REVIEW guides and official 404QP. My GMAT prep score was 760; prior to that (700, 730, 700 - in the order). I have been studying for the last 6 months, everyday.

As regards goal, they will change as per the score!

Pls share your email so that I can over the excel. Appreciate your time and help.

Thank you

Sent from my iPhone using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

AjiteshArun · Answer

Do you want to look at bringing your SC average time down as well? You seem to be good at SC, and any time you save there will help you in CR.

AkshdeepS · Answer

Hi, IMO you should try e-gmat Scholaranium course that is really helpful to score high in Verbal. As you said, your accuracy is quite high in CR and RC, your focus should more on timing strategies. You can search here. https://gmatclub.com/forum/timing-strat ... ml?fl=menu It may help you. QZ

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Yugansh,

At this point, I don't need to all of the data that you've archived during your studies, but I do need answers to all of my questions (and you did not answer them all). By better defining your overall goals (re: GMAT Score Goal, the Schools you plan to apply to and when you plan to apply), we can better define what you'll need to work on to improve AND the amount of time that you'll have.

You might also choose to purchase the Enhanced Score Report. While the ESR doesn't provide a lot of information, there are usually a few data points that we can use to define what went wrong (and what you should work on to score higher). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.

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

HKD1710 · Answer

Here is what that i believe will help for sure. Do official CR questions from following sources: OG10/12/13/15/16/17/18 verbal review GMATPreps Exam Packs Question Pack LSAT - https://gmatclub.com/forum/actual-lsat- ... 49447.html MGMAT CR Use this URL to pick a type of question or source or category or level: https://gmatclub.com/forum/search.php?view=search_tags With questions from these many resources, you would really need nothing else. Please understand that doing ton of questions will not increase the acuracy and reduce time. It is the understanding of followings: 1. making of Argument 2. way to attack a question i.e your strategy for a type of question 3. POE 4. pattern recognition 5. Prethinking/Paraphrasing or say understanding the Assumption/s So do not do second question until you know what all have you learnt from first question. Follow empowergmat's strategy from here. It's all you need to understand the pattern: https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-club-ve ... 29247.html Also, GMAT uses real world logic, so try to learn personalise the argument technique by RON: https://vimeo.com/94692523 This is ALL you need . Once you are done visiting all the URLs provided above, start practicing from the sources given

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Hello

Best Book for CR= PowerScore CR Bible
Best Book for RC= Aristotle RC Grail

For Practice

The Official Guide for GMAT 2015-18
The Official Guide for GMAT Verbal Review 2015-18
GMAT Club

Learn the Concepts from the books 15 days for learning concepts and 15 for Practice are enough. During you Practicing question don't forget to make an error log to track your weak areas after practice. Once you know your weak areas revise your Concepts related to those areas and do some more Practice

Top CATs for Practice

1. Official GMAC CATs
2. Veritas Prep

Good Luck

yugansh01 · Answer

Rich,

I have sent my ESR and other details to your official email id. Could you please review and let me know the feedback? Really appreciate your time and feedback.

Thank you

yugansh01 · Answer

EMPOWERgmatRichC   mcelroytutoring   Other  experts
 egmat 
Could you please review my ESRs and Excel file, and let me know the study plan / resources I should follow to gain the ability to solve CR and RC questions in less than 2 min. My accuracy is good. Pls see the excel, which will supplement my ESRs.

ESR: 333343333 (new GMAT)
Note that I skipped I full big RC passage (4 questions in 20-30 question range). Further, I also skipped 1 SC question in 15-25 range and 36th SC question. Additionally, I had to guess 1-2 CR questions in 10-20 range as the level of questions became extremely hard and I had already spent c.2.5 min on them.

The other three RC passages were decent and I felt reasonably comfortable attempting the questions and am pretty sure they were right. Had there been some more time, I would have nailed the 4th passage as well. In GMAT Prep exams, I always used to score 80-90th %ile in RC whenever I attempted all the four RC passages, but less than 50% whenever I skipped 1 full RC passage. The same thing got replicated in exam. Initially I planned to skip 2 CR and 2 SC, but somehow I ended up skipping 1 full RC and 2 SC questions 

Pls help me. My target score is 740+ and my dream school are Wharton and CBS. I will be applying in R1 for sure and have about a month with me to work on my weak areas before I again sit for the GMAT.

Kindly let me know your feedback.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Yugansh,

I've sent you a PM with some notes/suggestions based on this ESR.

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

mcelroytutoring · Answer

Hi  yugansh01 ,

Thanks for the ESRs! However, I didn't need your ESRs to know your problem:   you should aim to confidently answer all questions on the Verbal section if you want a great Verbal score. In other words, don't rush, "punt," or settle for a guess on any question, if possible.

Please note: I understand that the above is easier said than done, especially for non-natives.

Skipping 4 or 5 questions is very simply not going to cut it: in many cases, even just 5 wrong of the 30 counted questions on Verbal will drop you below V40.  You have to train yourself to complete every question, to evaluate every answer choice, and to maintain the pace that the GMAT requires, no matter what.

-Brian

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GMAT Day Mishap | Help with CR and RC

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