teatime45 wrote:
Hey guys -- apologies if this is a dumb question or one that has already been answered repeatedly (wasn't finding anything through searches).
My GMAT prep began in January of this year with a practice test on Veritas. At the time I scored a 30th percentile quant score and an 80th percentile verbal score. Naturally, I realized I had to focus hard on quant with an emphasis on building the basic math foundation that I clearly lacked. That effort has varied in the hard to believe 8 months since, with a couple months of serious effort followed a couple months spent watching Netflix in bed. Recently, I signed up for
TTP and feel confident with how it's structured to help boost my quant score.
Today I figured I'd take the other free Veritas test, and got a 45th percentile quant score (42-43) and, again, an 80th -- or, more accurately, 83rd -- percentile verbal score (37).
My question is: at this point, should I just focus on working through
OG Verbal questions if I want a 730+?
FWIW, I am a native English speaker, read daily, and do an above average amount of writing during the week at work. The only verbal "prep" I've done are these two practice GMAT tests, GMAT questions of the day, and some problems from the free Veritas "question bank." It's a relatively small sample set, but the Veritas question bank shows I got 100% of CR/SC problems and 86% of RC questions I did correctly; no hard data on this, but I imagine a similar breakdown with GMAT Club's QODs.
Any thoughts?
Hi,
I would recommend you to take an official GMAT prep mock and plan your studies based on the score. Because official mocks are the most reliable ones and they will help you assess the level accurately.
But to suggest you a general strategy to improve your verbal score, I would recommend you to follow a methodical approach to solve questions. Verbal questions can be very tricky and test makers set a lot of traps to confuse students. They use similar words in the answer choices and there are high chances that you will be stuck with two or more choices. To answer them perfectly, it is really important to have a strong understanding of the concepts and to use the right methodology to solve questions. Let me explain it to you from the perspective of individual modules of Verbal.
- To solve SC questions, it is important to approach them from a meaning stand-point. There is a misconception that grammatical rules are enough to solve SC questions. But what GMAT actually tests using SC questions is the ability to convey the right meaning without ambiguity. Once you understand the intended meaning the sentence is trying to convey, you can use the process of elimination to eliminate the choices which do not convey the intended meaning or which have grammatical errors. You can understand the gist of the approach by watching the following video.
- To solve CR questions, it is really important to develop the ability to pre-think. And to do that, you need to have a strong understanding of the underlying framework. This will help you pre-think the underlying assumption before jumping into the answer choices. Refer to the following video to understand the same.
- To solve RC questions, you have to read the passage with an open mind, leaving all the unnecessary baggage. GMAT gives you ample amount of information in the passage. It does not test your knowledge on topics such as physics, political science. You need to read the passage in an inferential manner so that you can draw the right inferences and understand the intention behind writing the passage. There is a process called “Involved and Evolved Reading” which helps you read a passage effectively. You can refer to the following video to understand the strategy of “Involved and Evolved Reading”.
Are OG and Verbal review sufficient?
Most students make this mistake of studying using
OG in their initial stages of preparation.
OG is a great source for GMAT like questions. But to learn the concepts and the methodology, you would need a more standard resource. So, I recommend you to start studying from a course which teaches you the right methodology to solve questions. The resource has to help you identify the weaker areas and work on them. You can effectively learn the right methodology by referring to the detailed solutions and comparing your approach with the right one. So, make sure the source you use for studying provides you with detailed solutions.
I can suggest you in a better way once you provide me with the individual breakdowns of your official mocks. You can write back to me here or a better way would be to discuss over a call quickly. You can schedule a free consultation call using the below link.
Click here to schedule a call