How to tackle 700+ questions in SC

Question

I have been practicing SC on GMAT Club website for a while. The challenge that I face is solving 700+ question.

I have no problem solving sub 600 and 600-700 questions. My workbook show that I get 51 out of 61 sub 600 questions and 35 out of 45 600-700 questions. The time I spent on each question is still acceptable. On average, I use 56 seconds on sub 600 questions and 81 seconds on 600-700 questions.

But when it comes to 700+ questions, I barely get 40% of them correct, and the average time that I spend increases to 92 seconds. I have tried to go back and check the concept but my score still doesn't improve.

Are there any advice for me to tackle 700+ questions and help me increasing my accuracy? Please kindly advice.

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi  KP7784 ! Since you mention SC as your specific area of concern, thought I would mention that our sentence correction book  Sentence Correction Nirvana  is perhaps the  only  book that offers a score improvement  guarantee , and is especially designed for  non-native  speakers.

After reading the book  twice  (yes! it's an  academic  book, and so must be read twice in all seriousness, to  reinforce  the concepts), you will start looking forward to solving SC questions!

The book is available on  Flipkart  and  Amazon.in . You might want to refer to these sites, to also read testimonials of how readers have benefited.

See  here  how Mohit, who scored 750 on GMAT, vouches for our book.

If you want to  sample  a chapter before deciding to go ahead with our book, please PM me your mail-id (along with the chapter that you would like to sample) and I will be happy to send that chapter to you by mail. In addition, the entire Grammar section of the book is also available for free preview at  pothi .

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi KP7784,

You seem focused on '700 level' SCs, but it's not clear whether that's actually what you should be focused on right now or not (it's possible that there are more important areas that you should be spending your time on). 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) In a prior post, you stated that your Score Goal was 730+; is that still your Goal?
5) Have you taken the Official GMAT yet (and if you have, then how did you score?)? When are you planning to take the GMAT?
6) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
7) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

KP7784 · Answer

Dear Rich,

First, thank you for your time and attention. I saw that you mentioned my post from 2015; therefore, I will provide brief explanation about it. After my last topic, I had continued to prepare for GMAT before I got a job opportunity that made me postpone my MBA study plan. After 2017 job evaluation, I discussed my plan to study master with my boss and he encouraged me, so I have beginning since then.

Please kindly find my response to your questions below.

1) How long have you studied?
I have studied for about four months. But I can spend only approximately 8 - 10 hours a week because of my job.
2) What study materials have you used so far?
I sat for live GMAT course that focuses on Verbal in my country, Thailand. It gave me a good basic concept to tackle SC questions because I go from around 50% precision in even easy questions to around 80% precision.
3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?
My last score on real GMAT taken in 2015 is 640 (Q50 V26).

Goals:
4) In a prior post, you stated that your Score Goal was 730+; is that still your Goal?
Yes, this is still my goal because, besides my targeted schools, my boss support me to take company sponsorship for MBA and I need to have a decent score for the application. 
5) Have you taken the Official GMAT yet (and if you have, then how did you score?)? When are you planning to take the GMAT?
My last score on real GMAT taken in 2015 is 640 (Q50 V26).
6) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
I plan to apply to Business school around Aug - Sep this year.
7) What Schools are you planning to apply to?
Harvard, Wharton, Columbia, Insead and HEC Paris

For other Verbal part, I think that my CR is acceptable because I get nearly 90% correct. For RC, I realize that I need to improve the speed (now I spend around 2 minutes per questions including the reading time) without compromise my precision below 85%.

Thanks,
Kampanath

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kampanath,

It is not clear when you last took a practice CAT Test. Earlier last month, GMAC made a formal announcement defining some changes that will be taking place to the format of the Official GMAT (which began April 16, 2018). These changes primarily impact the overall length of the Exam (meaning the number of questions in the Quant and Verbal sections as well as the amount of time that you’ll have to complete each of those two sections). If you have not taken one of these new, shorter CATs yet, then you should plan to take one soon (perhaps this weekend), so we can see how well you perform in this new format.

You should plan to take a NEW CAT (with questions that you have NOT seen before) and take it in a realistic fashion (take the FULL CAT - with the Essay and IR sections, take it away from your home, at the same time of day as when you'll take the Official GMAT, etc.). Once you have that score, you should report back here and we can discuss the results.

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

KP7784 · Answer

Dear Rich,

Thank for the advice that you give. I have wrapped up my preparation and taken the practice exams provided by GMAC. However, the environment of the test was not exactly the same as the real test.

In bothe pratice exam that I took, I choose verbal, quant, IR&AWA sequence.

I took the first practice exam on Sunday. Unfortunately, there was an error after I had finished Verbal section. I was kicked out from quant session after I finished just one question on quant. However, my response in verbal section was recorded. I got 26 out of 36 questions correct. The correct answer by quartile is 7 7 8 4. Out of 10 incorrect question, 7 are SC, 2 are RC and 1 is CR.

I have just finished another practice exam today at the same time that I will book the real exam. However I need to pause the exam when I went to toilet because I got food poisoning from last night dinner and went to toilet 5 to 6 times during the exam. The score I got from the second exam was 720 (Q50 V37). I had no problem with quant. But I doubt that I was just lucky on verbal because I got almost all the questions that I was not sure correct (those I narrow the choice down to two possible). This time, I got 28 out of 36 questionscorrect. The correct answer by quartile is 7 8 5 8. Out of 8 incorrect questions, 4 are SC, 2 are RC and the last 2 are CR

From the two practice exam, I learned that I had problem with time management. I need more time than the exam allows to answer verbal question correctly. In the first practice exam, I was left with about 13 or 14 minutes for the last 9 questions and my accuracy dropped significantly when I needed to finish it quickly. In the second practice exam, I tried to solve the problem by speeded up in the third quartile and the accuracy dropped again. I still can’t figure out the solution on this one.

Although I am satisfied by the score of the practice test, I realize that there is still possibility of getting lower score on the real exam day. If there is any advice on how to maintaining the score I got, it would be highly appreciated.

Kampanath

Posted from my mobile device

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kampanath,

The immediate 'issues' with this CAT Score is that we have just one CAT Score (which is not enough to define a pattern), you admit that you might have gotten a bit 'lucky' in the Verbal section and you did not take the CAT under realistic, test-like conditions - so it's possible that this result is 'inflated.' Assuming that you had not seen any of the questions before, it's possible that you have the necessary knowledge to score this high again - but we don't know for sure at this point. As such, I suggest that you study as you like for the next 1-2 weeks, then take a NEW, FULL-LENGTH CAT and take it in a realistic fashion (take the FULL CAT - with the Essay and IR sections, take it away from your home, at the same time of day as when you'll take the Official GMAT, etc.). Once you have that score, you should report back here and we can discuss how best to proceed.

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

KP7784 · Answer

Dear Rich,

I took another practice exam today. This time, I took it under the same environment as that of exam day. I scored 690 with Q51 and V31 with IR8. This time, I made a lot of mistakes in the first quarter of verbal. I got 5 out of 9 questions wrong in the first quarter. For the second to fourth quarter, 0, 4 and 2 questions was wrongly answered respectively. Out of 11 questions answered incorrectly, 5 are SC, 2 are CR and 4 are RC. SC is still my weakness.

The quant should not be a problem as this time I got only 2 questions wrong. Only one question was wrong in IR so this part should not be a problem as well.

How should I proceed?

Thanks,
Kampanath

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kampanath,

When we consider this recent CAT Score along with the other data that you've provided, you certainly seem to be a strong critical thinker overall - so it might be that you just need to focus on the proper content and Tactics for a few weeks (with the goal of eliminating whatever little mistakes occur as you're working through the Verbal section). Based on everything that you've described, I think that you would find the EMPOWERgmat Verbal Score Booster to be quite helpful. Most of our clients finish that Study Plan in under a month, so the overall time commitment wouldn't be too bad. During that time, you'll also be able to access any of the Quant resources that interest you. We have a variety of free resources on our site (www.empowergmat.com), so you can 'test out' the Course before setting up an account.

If you have any additional questions, then just let me know.

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

KP7784 · Answer

Dear Rich,

I see that the course you mentioned rely a lot on OG 2018 books. However, I finish all question in SC and almost all questions in CR from OG2018 (For RC, I can’t remember the exact number but I think that I have done about half of questions in the book). Should I proceed as you suggest, will that affect my preparation?

Thanks,
Kampanath

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Kampanath,

If you've worked through much of the material in the OG2018, then that's not necessarily a problem. You're going to be training to use new Tactics, so revisiting a question that you've already solved isn't an issue (unless you refuse to practice those new Tactics - then it could be a serious issue). The EMPOWERgmat Course integrates any of the Official Guides back to the OG13, so if you wanted to work through a number of 'new' questions, then you could purchase an older OG (such as the GMAT2015) and you would be all set.

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

How to tackle 700+ questions in SC

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