Need help improving my verbal score!

Question

Hi, I am taking the GMAT on 6th August and I'm hoping to improve my Verbal Score!

I have done questions from OG20 and OG16. My weakest section would be SC, though I have gone through the Aristotle and Manhattan Prep Guides. 
I'm also weak in RC'S. I'm doing well on CR questions though.

I scored a V38 on the GMAT Prep Software's mock that I took today and a V41 on the Economist GMAT Tutor's Mock, last week. Before that I had consistently been scoring a V35/36.

I'd really like to work on my Verbal score and improve it to a minimum of V41/V42 by next week.

Kindly recommend methods and sources, I'd be really grateful. 
Thank You!

AndrewN · Answer

emmess26  - I was just scouring the forums and came across your post. I am unfamiliar with the Aristotle Prep guide, but the Manhattan Prep guides have gotten favorable reviews from some of my students. A good place to start if you want to improve your SC accuracy is to analyze whether you tend to make the same sorts of mistakes across different questions. For what it is worth, the following is an example of how I approach SC questions, courtesy of my own guide on the GMAT™:

GMAT™ Official Guide 2020 , Diagnostic Test, Sentence Correction, Page 35, Question 83.

Key points : A comparison is being made.
 Breakdown : Unlike the other components of the verbal test, in which the pros and cons of each answer must be weighed individually, the sentence corrections mark a return to an earlier strategy from the quantitative portion of the test:  look at all five answers at once and single out the differences . Most often, since the sentences tend to have a portion that is underlined, rather than the whole sentence, the beginning of the underlined portion, which I call the head, or the end, the tail, will mark a significant change from one answer to the next. I call my approach the  head-or-tail  strategy. That is, many times, just focusing on the head or tail can lead you to the correct answer within a minute, without having to read all the responses individually and get bogged down in misleading details. You should also skim the sentence for keywords in the non-underlined portion to get the gist of what it may be driving at. In this question, the first word, “unlike,” indicates a comparison, as in, “unlike A, B   something else.” What is being compared?

Answers : Looking at just the head of each answer choice gives us three options:

(A) the buildings
(B) the buildings
(C) the arrangement
(D) Mesopotamian cities
(E) Mesopotamian cities

For (A) or (B) to work, the latter part of the comparison must start with buildings.  The GMAT™ is downright draconian about comparing like with like , so, for instance, it would be inappropriate to complete the comparison by diverting attention to “the interiors of these other buildings.” They both mention buildings, and people talk like this all the time, but strictly speaking,  buildings  from the head would be compared to  interiors  in the tail, rather than to other buildings. Now that that point has been made, choice (C) is a gamble: if the second part starts with an arrangement, then it would be the only option that would work. (D) and (E), meanwhile, would need to compare Mesopotamian cities to cities (or “those”) of other, non-Mesopotamian places. I ask again, what needs to be compared? Read past the fluff of each response, the dependent “which” clauses, to complete each comparison:

(A) the buildings… the same basic plan
(B) the buildings… the same basic plan
(C) the arrangement… the cities
(D) Mesopotamian cities… the cities of the Indus Valley
(E) Mesopotamian cities… the same basic plan

There is only one correct comparison that is being made, that of cities and cities in (D). Both (A) and (B) compare buildings to a plan, while (C) compares an arrangement to cities, and (E) compares cities to a plan. All the details add nothing to the basic comparison that needs to be made, and that leaves (D) as the answer: pick it, confirm it, and hope that your next question is another simple Sentence Correction.

Guessing : For someone unaccustomed to taking in all five answers at once, arriving at the solution would likely take more time and effort. It is worth noting that the first choice, (A), is always the same as what is already written in the sentence, so if it seems off there, it will be off as a response as well. Ignoring the overarching comparison, you can still spot errors or misalignments here and there that will enable you to narrow the pool of choices. Consider the following, all of which involve the tail of the underlined portion:

(A)  cities of the Indus Valley: with

Analysis: Nothing but a comma will do before the proposed “with” prepositional phrase, but that very phrase leads to a complication at its base:  with houses… and houses and walls were built…  The sentence would either need to get rid of “with” in front of “houses” or “were” before “built” to achieve grammatical consistency, and “were,” of course, is non-negotiable in the sentence. Red light.

(C)  the same basic plan: houses

Analysis: The “houses” needs a passive “were” to follow it in order to match the later  houses and walls were built  in the non-underlined portion. Red light.

(E)  houses that were

Analysis: I can see where the question-writer wanted someone to connect the embedded “that” clause, looking at the earlier  buildings that were arranged  from the response. However, the fact that the final clause-- houses and walls were built --lacks a “that” after the subject reveals that “that” should not appear after the subject in the earlier part, after the colon, either. Red light.

Once such a sweep through the answers is complete, that will leave only a 50/50 between (B) and (D)--not too shabby for having missed the main point and focused on the tail.

-----

As for your RC conundrum, if you apply the same sort of logic to RC questions that you do to CR questions, then you ought to be just fine. If the question says  According to the passage... , then make sure you look to the passage to spot exactly what it says. If, on the other hand, you get a  The passage suggests...  or  It can be inferred that...  type of question, then match keywords in the question, passage, and responses as closely as possible, and I would bet that your errors start to decrease. Remember,  the correct response will be the one that is hardest to argue against , not necessarily the one that best mimics the language of part of the passage. If you need to in practice, you might benefit from two rounds of hitting the same question, the first time timed, and the second time untimed. Of course, for this study method to work, you would not be allowed to look at the answer in between, but it would be interesting to see whether you arrived at the same conclusion on back-to-back days (or whatever period of time passed in between). LSAT students use such a study method quite commonly, and it leads to developing stronger critical reasoning abilities. (Efficiency follows accuracy.) If you try everything on your own and you still seem stuck, then it might be time to seek out a professional who can break your problem areas down and help you correct your misunderstandings in a more timely manner.

Best of luck to you in your studies. You still have time!

- Andrew

TheUltimateWinner · Answer

The following materials may help you..
RC:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTQlKd ... /playlists

Sandeep gupta's materials:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... upta+gmat+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULZuU9WcYM0

mangamma · Answer

For SC, eGMAT ad Mahattan are the best resource. plaese try to do as much as concepts in these sources. These would help you in SC imrpovemnt. all the best for your exam.

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