How to improve verbal score

Question

Hi All,

I took GMAT two times. In my first attempt I got a score of 550, 48Q and 19V. I prepared for this exam about 2 moths. During my 2 months preparation, I studied mostly on weekends (6 hours/day). On weekdays I spent 1 hour a day. I spent 60% of my preparation time for verbal and 40% of time for quant.

After few months later I studied for 1 month. And this time my score went down to 510, 44Q and 20V. During my second attempt I spent most of my time for Verbal, but could not improve my verbal score.

My Study approach was below:
SC. Read each chapter in MGMAT and practiced corresponding questions in OG11 and OG verbal supplement.

CR: First I read power score LSAT CR, and then daily practiced 10-12 questions from OG11 and OG verbal supplement.

RC: Daily practiced 10-12 questions from OG11 and OG verbal supplement.

I used to get correct answers to 75% of SC questions, 65% of CR questions and 50% of RC questions.

My Power Prep score rang was between 500 and 600. In my practice tests and also in final test I ran out of time for verbal and guessed 6-8 questions.

I am planning to take the test again after 5 moths from now. But, I could not figure out the right approach to get a good verbal score. Can you guys please give me some suggestions to improve my score?

Thanks,
Srini

bsd_lover · Answer

Srini , try using gmatter for practice - sometimes its tougher to read / do a problem on the screen when compared to reading from paper. Find it at https://www.gmatter.biz

jimmyjamesdonkey · Answer

I'm having a very similar problem...I can't really figure out how to improve RC and CR....I mean do you just get better from repeating passages and answering questions...this is not like quant so I'm kinda lost on how to get better.

suyashjhawar · Answer

i guess getting 40 plus on verbal is straight hats off...i personally feel Rc weighs the most.You can observe it,compared to sc ,cr,your score dips down more if u get a rc wrong and moreover most of us are lazy to practice Rc's.Generally you see any forum,you will have most queries on sc followed by Cr....

bsd_lover · Answer

I would hate to guess which question type is weighed more. On one gmat prep I got 11 incorrect out of which I got only 1 RC wrong. My final V - 41. Today I retook that gmat prep and got 9 incorrect out which I got 4 RC wrong. Today's V - 41

So there "might" be some truth in what you are saying about this RC business.

mail2me_ds · Answer

I downloaded GMATTER one week before the exam, but never used extensively. From now on I will start using it. One of my biggest problems is timing. I almost ran out of time while doing Verbal.

In SC, I have one problem. After reading a chapter in MGMAT sentence correction book, I can do most of the questions, related to that chapter, correctly. But when I combine all kinds of SC questions, my hit rate is going down. Can you please let me know if there is any strategy to improve verbal?

Virflo · Answer

Hey guys, I would also LOVE to know how to improve the verbal. Took the test today and scored 620 (Q:40; V: 35), and I'm really disappointed about the verbal (I suck at math, so the 40 was no surprise). I realize SC is a lot harder than I originally thought... I'm not a native English speaker but lived in the US 8 years, and know (or at least thought I knew!) my grammar. But the questions I got today were not as straight-forward as the ones I had seen in the OG or other books. I was always down to 2 answer choices which were both grammatically correct (parallelism, tense, etc), and just could not tell which one was better

The RC was also really tough. Although I was relieved to come upon texts that I could actually understand (I came accross much harder texts during practice), the answer choices were all so similar, I found it extremelly hard to pick one amongst the rest. The RC was so much harder than I expected that I ran out of time by the end of the verbal section and guessed the last 6 questions of the exam... To cut a long story so short, I need to improve my verbal within the next few weeks. I want to take the exam again in 6 weeks... Is this realistic? If so what can I do??? Help!! Thanks a million!

examsample123 · Answer

The verbal section might be a little tricky at first, but if you get the grasp of it with proper practice, it will be a piece of cake. All you need is careful preparation and your GMAT score will be more than your expectations.
Reading comprehension
There are many quick tips and tricks that you might find in many books and websites, but nothing beats long term practice. So make sure you combine them both to get the maximum GMAT score. If you really want to get a high GMAT score in reading comprehension, go through some high caliber publications and journals like Business Week, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and The Economist. Reading their content will improve your reading skills and GMAT passage reading will become much easier for you.

tring375 · Answer

Hi,

V19- i guess you have a mountain to climb...

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