How to Improve score from 635 to 705+?

Question

Hi

I received a score of 635 on my GMAT FE attempt. I'm considering trying again in a month with the goal of 705+.

I am currently struggling with test adapting nature and am unable to figure out how to raise my verbal score and DI within the allotted time. I am planning to spend 3-4 hours daily. Can someone recommend a course/strategy or platform that would be helpful to me and what approach I should take?

KarishmaB · Answer

What you can do to improve depends on what you are struggling with. Are you struggling with conceptual understanding of Verbal and DI questions? Which question types are bothering you? Are you struggling with math or non math DI questions? Do you understand conditionals, percentages, weighted averages, number properties, statistics and probability well? If time is a problem, are you wasting time in calculations that are not required? Here are some question discussions on how to save time: https://youtu.be/Ycf4nxv7Cms https://youtu.be/xL631VXGjSg https://youtu.be/camUm1cCQLs Also learn to quickly de-construct the CR argument. You can run through options easily after that and get faster in CR.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi asingh22,

635 is a good score. What were your Verbal/RC/CR scores, both on your actual GMAT and your official practice tests?

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

If CR is an issue, consider checking out Manhattan-Prep's 6th Edition for Critical Reasoning. For RC, if you want to practice reading (without burning official passages/questions), articles from The Economist that are similar to those on the GMAT could be helpful as well. You could search for the types of topics (e.g. science) you may find more challenging than others.

5 Verbal tips

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi asingh22,

To increase your verbal score, you must identify your exact weaknesses, fill in any knowledge gaps, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to find weaker areas, learn all about how to answer questions of types that you aren't that comfortable with now, and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving your score up point by point.

For example, assume you begin studying Critical Reasoning. Your first goal is to master the individual Critical Reasoning topics: Strengthen the Argument, Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, etc. As you go through the questions, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get correct. If you missed a Weaken question, ask yourself why you didn't get it right. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize what the question was asking? Did you skip over a key detail in an answer choice? Getting GMAT verbal questions right is a matter of what you know, what you see, and what you do. So, any time that you don't get one right, you can seek to identify what you would have had to know in order to get the right answer, what you had to see that you didn't see, and what you could have done differently to arrive at the correct answer.

Regarding RC, when students get those questions wrong, it’s partly because they don't truly understand what they have just read. To understand what you are reading, you may have to slow down even more (for now) in order to eventually speed up. You have to learn to comprehend what you read, keep it all straight, and use what you are reading to arrive at correct answers.

At this point, your best bet is to focus on getting the correct answers to questions, taking **as much time as you need** to see key details and understand the logic of what you are reading. If you don't understand something, go back and read it one sentence at a time, even one word at a time, not moving on until you understand what you have just read. There is no way around this work. Your goal should be to take all the time you need to understand exactly what is being said and arrive at the correct answer. If you can learn to get answers taking your time, you can learn to speed up. Answering questions is like any task: The more times you do it carefully and successfully, the faster you become at doing it carefully and successfully.

Another component to understanding what you are reading is being “present” when reading. Don’t worry about how things are going at work, or what you will eat for dinner, or even how long you’re taking to read through the passage. Just focus on what is in front of you, word by word, line by line. Furthermore, try to make reading fun. For example, even if you are reading about a topic that bores you, pretend that you are the person making the argument. By doing so, you will make the passage more relatable to YOU, and ultimately you should be able to read with greater focus.

One final component of Reading Comprehension that may be tripping you up is that RC questions contain one or more trap answers that seem to answer the question but don't really. So, a key part of training to correctly answer RC questions is learning to notice the differences between trap answers and correct answers. You have to learn to see how trap answers seem to follow from what the passages say, but don't really, while correct answers fit what the passages say exactly. Of course, the better you become at noticing the differences between trap answer choices and correct answers, the faster you will answer RC questions.

Here is also a great article that you can check out:

How to Score High on GMAT Verbal on the Focus Edition

asingh22 · Answer

HI Ajitesh I am attaching my official GMAT score below. I got 15 right in verbal 4 in CR and 4 in RC wrong. Still, my verbal score is bad. https://gmatclub.com/forum/download/file.php?id=83464 Verbal Question summary - https://gmatclub.com/forum/download/file.php?id=83465 GMAT-Club-Forum-z894k6ag.png GMAT-Club-Forum-hq8koy9d.png

KarishmaB · Answer

A number of early mistakes would have led to easier questions. Though this impact is less pronounced in Verbal, but it is certainly there thanks to the adaptive nature of the test. Perhaps that is why you were able to manage the later questions with relative ease (judging as per the time taken). GMAT-Club-Forum-yn9fmram.png GMAT-Club-Forum-0o66214n.png

AjiteshArun · Answer

The GMAT is an adaptive test, so accuracy isn't always the best indicator of performance. It's possible you got some of the easier questions wrong, and maybe you had some really bad luck with the  experimental questions .

But I do think the verbal score scale isn't very good. The scores are just too closely packed together. This is somewhat similar to the  crazy quant scale  we had on the old GMAT (not as bad, but not good either). The bottom line is that I think going from (say) a V78 to the 80s isn't as hard as we may think, even if the percentiles seem very different.

Also, since you'll be a retaker, feel free to drop us a message on  delv.ac  if you're looking for support in the verbal section.

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