No improvement on Verbal don't what to do next

Hi teesucka,

GMAC has publicly stated that the Official Score that you earn on Test Day is within +/- 30 points of actual ability. While you've clearly made some improvements to how you handle the Quant and Verbal sections, these 3 Official Scores show that you performed in a fairly consistent way on your 3 attempts (approximately 590 +/- a few points). You handle certain aspects of the GMAT consistently well, but you also make certain consistent mistakes.

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 many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used besides the books that you mentioned?
3) On what dates did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) What is your overall goal score?
5) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

While the ESR doesn’t provide a lot of information, there are usually a few data points that we can use to define what went wrong on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). If you have purchased the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you. You will need at least 5 posts in the forums before you can include any attachments to your posts or PMs; if you would rather not go through those extra steps right now, then you can feel free to email me your ESR directly (at Rich.C@empowergmat.com).

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

I think I side with experts here. Change your method of studying,if books didn’t work switch to other methods and see expecially verbal , Cheers !
Posted from my mobile device

I started with V25, then rose to V40.

In my case, OG2019 has nailed one of my major weaknesses (SC) a lot in my latest test. I read and understood all explanations from OG SC: why every single wrong answer is wrong. As a non-native speaker, I realize that an explanation from only right answer is not sufficient for learning.

Identify which part (SC, CR, RC) you are weakest at by looking at your ESR.

For CR, I prefer to use Powerscore Bible and for RC, I just regularly practice good reading from Economist, NYT and of course OG and OG Verbal Review.

I haven't tried tutor, so I have no comment on this.

Hi teesucka,

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT. The good news is that your quant is VERY STRONG, so nice job! That said, verbal quite clearly is dragging down your overall GMAT score. Thus, I think it’s a good call to keep studying and apply next year. Regarding how to move forward with your prep, here is some advice you can follow to improve your verbal skills. I’ll start with CR.

When studying Critical Reasoning, you need to ensure that you fully understand the essence of the various question types. Do you know the importance of an assumption within an argument? Can you easily spot a conclusion? Do you know how to resolve a paradox? Do you know how to properly evaluate cause and effect? Do you know how to properly weaken or strengthen an argument? These are just a few examples; you really need to take a deep dive into the individual Critical Reasoning topics to develop the necessary skills to properly attack any Critical Reasoning questions that you encounter.

As you learn each Critical Reasoning problem type, do focused practice so that you can track your skill in answering each type. If, for example, you incorrectly answered a Weaken the Argument question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific question type? Were you doing too much analysis in your head? Did you skip over a keyword in an answer choice? You must thoroughly analyze your mistakes and seek to turn weaknesses into strengths by focusing on the question types you dread seeing and the questions you take a long time to answer correctly.

When practicing Reading Comprehension, you need to develop a reading strategy that is both efficient and thorough. Reading too fast and not understanding what you have read are equally as harmful as reading too slow and using up too much time. When attacking Reading Comprehension passages, you must have one clear goal in mind: to understand the context of what you are reading. However, you must do so efficiently, so you need to avoid getting bogged down in the details of each paragraph and focus on understanding the main point of each paragraph. That being said, do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can just read the intro and the conclusion and comprehend the main idea of a paragraph. As you read a paragraph, consider how the context of the paragraph relates to previous paragraphs, so you can continue developing your overall understanding of the passage. Furthermore, as you practice, focus on the exact types of questions with which you struggle: Find the Main Idea, Inference, Author’s Tone, etc. As with Critical Reasoning, analyze your incorrect answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. You can perfect your reading strategy with a lot of practice, but keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be stimulating. So, to better prepare yourself to tackle such bland passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as The New York Times, Scientific American, and Smithsonian.

Sentence Correction is a bit of a different animal compared to Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions: what you know, such as grammar rules, what you see, such as violations of grammar rules and the logic of sentence structure, and what you do, such as carefully considering each answer choice in the context of the non-underlined portion of the sentence. To drive up your Sentence Correction score, you likely will have to work on all three of those aspects.

Regarding what you know, tfirst and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not just a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning grammar rules is so that you can determine what sentences convey and whether sentences are well-constructed. In fact, in many cases, incorrect answers to Sentence Correction questions are grammatically flawless. Thus, often your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine which answer choice creates the most logical sentence meaning and structure.

This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and logical is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending less than two minutes per question. For a while, anyway, you have to spend time with each question, maybe even ten or fifteen minutes on one question sometimes, analyzing every answer choice until you see the details that you have to see in order to choose the correct answer. As you go through the answer choices, consider the meaning conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does the meaning make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does the version really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do all pronouns clearly refer to nouns? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer to a Sentence Correction question is correct.

There is only one correct answer to any Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and none of those reasons are that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct version often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answers were always the ones that sounded right, then most people most of the time would get Sentence Correction questions correct, without really knowing why the wrong answers were wrong and the correct answers were correct. So, you have to go beyond choosing what "sounds right" and learn to clearly see the logical reasons why one choice is better than all of the others.

As for the third aspect of getting Sentence Correction questions correct, what you do, the main thing you have to do is be very careful. You have to make sure that you are truly considering the structures of sentences and the meanings conveyed rather than allowing yourself to be tricked into choosing trap answers that sound right but don't convey meanings that make sense. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question may take bouncing from choice to choice repeatedly until you start to see the differences between the choices that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to put in the necessary time to see the differences between answers and to figure out the precise reasons that one choice is correct.

To improve what you do when you answer Sentence Correction questions, seek to become aware of how you are going about answering them. Are you being careful and looking for logic and details, or are you quickly eliminating choices that sound a little off and then choosing the best of the rest? If you choose an incorrect answer, consider what you did to arrive at that answer and what you could do differently to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Furthermore, see how many questions you can get correct in a row as you practice. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could do differently to extend your streak.

As with your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension regimens, after learning a particular Sentence Correction topic, engage in focused practice with 30 questions or more that involve that topic. As your skills improve, you’ll then want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple SC topics.

Ultimately, if you are unable to learn and practice in the manner described above, you may consider looking for additional verbal prep resources. If you are unsure of which resources to choose, check out some reviews here on GMAT Club. You also may find my article with more information regarding
how to score 700+ on the GMAT helpful.

Feel free to reach out with any questions. Good luck!

As a non-native English speaker myself, I struggled a lot in V... what I ended up doing it was to use my commute to work on SC (mostly) and CR (sometimes). I used the GMAT Club Toolkit and during the commuting time (25 mins) I answered all the questions that I could. The good thing about this is that I was able to recognize patterns once I took more of the "regular" exams... I guess being in a noisy environment getting used to the kind of questions that I would revise later was a good strategy. I ended up with an overall 700 GMAT and into Wharton

Just use Gmatclub forum. A lot of SC and CR hard questions are around. Read the explanation from expert or those with mos kudos.

Posted from my mobile device

Hi teesucka - I would recommend you to get the basics right first! That's the fault even I faced, if I were to point a finger on something.

GMAT is all about quality, not quantity! Make an error log and explore GMAT for the topics where you find yourself struggling.

And believe me, there aren't any shortcuts to success! No one can actually tell you the exact thing to do. The experts can only guide you until a point, but its you who have to fight your own battle at the end!

Just get up and crush it buddy!

- k