Got 690 today, very bad on verbal. Need to retake

Question

Hi guys,

My name is Fabian and I took my first GMAT today and got 690 (Q50 V32).
I've been studying for the GMAT for over two months, I took an offline course with a company in my country. I must admit the course was really bad, a ridiculously low amount of attention was given to CR, IR or RC, the entire course was grammar, and even in the grammar we just learned the rules, without actually teaching us how to tackle questions as we see them.
A few weeks after starting my course when I did my midterm exam and I saw that I actually got no added value from taking the course, I signed up for e-gmat verbal online course. I will be completely honest, due to lack of time I did the course in a rush, without practicing too much and I barely finished it one day before the exam. I can say however, that in mock tests I usually got a higher grade than what I got in the exam including 3 times that I got V41.(I also must admit that there were times, especially in the workshops, that it was really hard for me to understand e-gmat lecturers accent)
I don't know what I've done wrong today but I screwed up. I can say however that while I think my SC isn't that bad, for most questions beyond the easy ones, I can't eliminate all 4 wrong answers but rather I can eliminate 2 or 3 and from the 2 or 3 that are left I choose the one that sounds the best.
I must retake the exam next month as I want to apply to top b-schools in this year's second round (I'm 31, I'm not getting any younger...)

I'd really be happy to hear from you, based on your experience, what do you think I can do in order to improve my grade in 50-60 points in a month? I am willing to spend more money if that will bring me salvation

Thanks,
Fabian

Thanks, Fabian

redfield · Answer

Veritas and GMAT Pill (what I'm using) both have very good sentence correction. I kind of skimmed the CR and RC for GMAT pill as I naturally do very well in those categories and unlike you fall apart on any numbers question so am spending most of my time on that (and it's destroying my soul...). Veritas has sentence correction stuff on youtube and I found that to be of decent quality, granted every student is different but worth checking it out. In terms of non-course related things for Verbal you can try reading an article a day from something like the Economist or a novel by Ernest Hemingway. There are lists around this forum on things that might help if you read (though putting in that same time in an actual structured study session might be much more helpful). Best of luck on the verbal, I hope you have more luck figuring it out than I do with quant!

EntMBA · Answer

Thank you for your response!

Do you take Veritas course online or offline? I'd appreciate your feedback on GMAT pill course.

How was their RC material that you skimmed over? Are you a native English speaker? I'd appreciate your response!

redfield · Answer

- I don't know much about veritas because I had already enrolled in GMAT Pill by the time I discovered the youtube videos for Veritas. If you mean online/offline as in internet vs in person I think it's an entirely internet based course. I know some that have both components. - One of the benefits with GMAT Pill is the material is forever accessible, all these other things typically have a few months before your membership runs out. I'm taking my time with studying (which is usually not recommended but every person is different and I understand how I learn best) so that really benefited me plus they update their material every so often. I've only just moved into the Quant part of the GMAT Pill and didn't go TOO in depth into verbal as I'm naturally strong in those areas. The sentence correction is quite good, I really liked the approach. I believe there are some examples on the website (possibly youtube as well). CR and RC are both a difficult subject to teach I think as it's not as much about rules/formulas as problem solving and sentence correction are. In those categories I would say practice is super helpful, the more you practice (and more importantly use the information to better yourself) the more comfortable you'll be with it just like anything. The CR is pretty in depth but personally the approach was a bit complicated for me (especially since I felt I already had a firm grasp on CR), but some tips and tricks they give you are useful regardless of how you approach the question. The RC is fairly general in that they teach you the types of questions, types of passages, and how to prioritize what you're reading to best fit that question type. I'm not sure I would recommend GMAT Pill for solely reading comprehension, HOWEVER I don't have much (if any) experience with other programs outside of the occasional video/forum review. Also important to note that many reviews I read for the GMAT Pill say the Verbal stuff is all amazing so it might just be the way the subject should be taught, as I said I lack experience with other programs. They do offer a verbal package that is much cheaper than getting the whole thing if you don't need the quant. - I am a native speaker and come from an educated family that all enjoy reading so I have a natural inclination towards English beyond just the fact it is my native language. That is a good question to ask too because it makes all the difference in the world in how you learn the subject if you have to process it as a 2nd language first so I'm sorry you have to take so much of what I say as a less than helpful opinion of someone you can't really relate to. It is important to mention most of these programs offer free trials of sorts so you should find a few that have good reviews and test them out to see what line of thinking fits best with how you learn and want to study. Honestly I almost picked e-gmat over Gmat pill for verbal but just like you the instructors accent was a bit too hard for me to get over and the sound quality fluctuated at times. Sorry for the long response, once I start typing I tend to just keep going

EntMBA · Answer

Thank you for the detailed answer

I will go over the reviews more thoroughly and then decide. I saw however that there's a SC written by GMAT club founder himself. I will give it a shot as well. You are right about CR and RC, I also tend to be strong at those things, but if you can have any shortcut strategy that can't do any harm

The most terrible thing for me in RC is when I get a terribly boring passage. I can almost fall a sleep on the keyboard in an instance

Thank you very much for your great help!

Got 690 today, very bad on verbal. Need to retake

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards