How to improve verbal

Try e-gmat course. It's specially targeted for people who are trying to improve verbal and non-native English speaker.

Reading some different materials from what you usually encounter. Purusing it critically rather than skimming.

Practice more problems. Enough are available on thos forum.

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Hi,
Looking at the individual breakdowns, your quant score is pretty decent. And to score a 700+, you would need a significant improvement in verbal. It is possible with the right guidance. Let me share my insights here.

Verbal questions can be very tricky. GMAT test makers set a lot of traps to confuse students. They often use similar words in answer choices. And if you do not have a strong conceptual knowledge and do not use the right strategies, you will most likely end up getting confused between two answer choices. So, to eliminate 4 choices on solid grounds, it is really important to use the right methodology to solve questions.

Is OG really sufficient?

I understand that OG is the most standard material you can get for GMAT like questions. But before solving questions, ask yourself whether you have the right conceptual understanding and the right strategies to solve those questions. Many students do this mistake of starting their preparation by just practicing questions from OG and they later realize that they need something more standard which teaches them the concepts and the methods. So, I recommend you to first learn the underlying concepts of not only RC but all the modules of Verbal and the right methodologies to solve them, and only then start taking practice quizzes.

What might be the reason for the struggle in RC and CR?

Before telling you the reason, let me explain you how a student who doesn’t know the right methodology solves a RC question. And ask yourself whether your strategy is similar to that or not.

• Skims through the passage or reads the passage very slowly
• Tries to remember the details mentioned
• Goes back and forth to the passage for every question

This is the general strategy followed by students who do not understand what is actually required to solve RC passages. This will only result in a wastage of time and also doesn’t guarantee you the right answers.

To solve RC questions, you need to use the right reading strategies. You don’t have to remember all the details because RC questions don’t focus on details. Of course, there are a few detailed based questions, but you can always go back to the passage to answer them. The main intention of reading the passage should be to understand the purpose of the passage. Having said that, let me tell you how a student who uses the right methodology solves a RC question.

• Reads the passage carefully to understand the purpose of each paragraph
• Makes a mental summary of each paragraph and finds the main intention behind writing the passage
• Does not stuff himself with the details, instead draws the right inferences
• Reads the question stem and answers the question based on the inferences drawn.

Similarly, you need to use the right methodologies to solve CR and SC questions. To brief you:

• To solve CR questions, you need to develop the ability to pre-think the assumption before jumping into answer choices. To do that, you need to understand the underlying framework. You can understand the gist of the approach by watching the following video.
  
  
  
  
• To solve SC questions, it is important to approach them from a meaning stand—point. As it is the meaning which is tested on SC questions, it is important to identify the intended meaning, eliminate answer choices which do not convey the intended meaning or which are grammatically incorrect and choose the right one.

The need to use the right resource:

As you have understood the importance of using the right methodology, it is important to use the right resource to effectively learn that. As you have been using OG, I’m assuming that you did not use any standard resource which taught you the concepts and the strategies. So, this time make sure to study using a standard resource which teaches you the concepts methodically.

If you are open to suggestions, I would recommend you to check the verbal course of GMATWhiz. GMATWhiz has a unique way of teaching the Verbal part. The unit 1 of every module starts with the focus on strategy. The next units deal with individual topics and teach you by following the 3 steps.

• Teaches you the concepts.
• Teaches you the methodology required to solve GMAT like questions
• Let’s you take practice quizzes and thereby analyse your weaknesses and work on them.

The AI technology analyses your performance and provides you with real time improvement modules if you have got less than 60% accuracy in any topic. This process will help you work on your weaker areas right away.

To suggest you a proper plan on how you should go about allocating your time to individual topics of Verbal and quant, I would need you to answer a few questions.

• When are you planning to take the test?
• How many hours can you dedicate in a week for studying?

Answers to these questions will help me guide you in a better way. You can write back to me here or a better way would be to discuss it quickly over a call. You can schedule a free consultation call using the below link.

Click here to schedule a call

Thank you everyone for their input. Creating maps for RC did helped me and improved my RC accuracy. However I am falling behind in SC and CR. From your experience, can you provide me some insights as how to improve SC and CR. I have heard that SC is the easiest to improve.