NOw wrote:
All - I'm looking for some suggestions for good sectional tests. I've exhausted
GMAT club tests during my first attempt (scored 640 - V29 Q49). I'm targetting 740+ in the next 2 months, so any suggestion around material/strategy is highly appreciated. My main aim is to focus on sectional tests more (especially verbal)
Hi NOw,
Looking at your individual break up of score, you are surely on the wrong path for verbal preparation.
OG may be a great source for solving GMAT like questions, however, it is definitely not the ideal way to prepare in your case. Moreover, you may find that the
OG is a good option as a question bank but lacks detailed explanations for you to use for improvement. It’s always better to prepare with a definitive resource to help you learn concepts while formulating a consistent strategy to solve questions before practicing them from the
OG. This way, your preparation will be a lot more structured, and the chances of you leaving gaps in your learning will be significantly less. Focus on improving the method you follow to solve questions because that's what stops people from scoring 700+. As such, following a resource which focuses on the right methodologies becomes even more crucial.
Your verbal score clearly indicates there are many conceptual gaps and you may need to start from scratch, revisit the concepts and get a clear understanding of them before you solve the questions. Verbal questions on GMAT are very tricky. Let me help you with the right way to approach your Verbal Prep.
How to Ace your Verbal Prep?
For GMAT Verbal, it is very important that you follow the
right methodology and the
logical approach. Your focus has to be on
eliminating four incorrect choices rather than choosing the right one. The key is to develop a solid understanding of the concepts that are typically tested on the GMAT and master the process skills that are required to solve GMAT questions. Only then, you will be able to smartly avoid the traps set by the test makers.
Before you start learning, it's important to understand what is actually tested using the questions. Each module in Verbal (SC, CR and RC) has to be approached in a different way. For example, before you start learning the concepts of SC, you need to understand that SC questions on GMAT test your ability to convey the right meaning without any ambiguity. So, it's important to approach them from a meaning stand-point. You might have often come across answer choices which are both grammatically correct and convey a logical meaning but are indeed incorrect because they do not convey the intended meaning. So, the process to approach SC questions is to:
• Comprehend the original meaning of the sentence
• Identify errors if any (both grammatical and meaning wise)
• Eliminate answer choices which either are grammatically incorrect or do not convey the intended meaning
You can go through the link below to understand the process in a better way:
Also, improving in SC alone won’t fetch you the desired score. You need to prepare for RC and CR as well in a structured and efficient manner. You have to follow a methodical and systematic approach while solving the questions in order to work on your accuracy and increase your score. For example,
• In CR, you have to understand the argument, identify the premise and the conclusion and then pre-think the answer before looking at the solutions.
• In RC, you need to have the right reading strategies to understand the inferences which are not directly stated in the passage.
I’d recommend you to
follow this order for the verbal part - SC->CR-RC. The reason for this is very specific. Each question type on the GMAT is testing a specific skill. SC tests your comprehension skills. CR tests comprehension & analytical skills. Finally, RC builds on the previous two skills and also tests your ability to be able to grasp the central point of the passage i.e. Your inferential skills. Thus, when you learn in this order, it's much more effective.
The importance of using a standard resource:
The only method to make sure that you invest your time, money and effort in an effective way is to use a standard resource which teaches you the concepts, strategies and also helps you work on your weaker areas. Studying using
OG or a few random resources might help you to solve GMAT like questions but I’m afraid that they won’t be able to help you much from a strategy perspective.
I would suggest you to go for some standard course for your Verbal preparation at least which can help you prepare in a structured and efficient manner thereby increasing your productivity. It’s always better to spare some more time on your preparation until you are ready instead of missing out on your dream colleges/ b-schools in hurry.
GMATWhiz helps you with all these things as we follow a
structured and methodical way of teaching things, which makes the learning process simpler and efficient. It also helps you to develop an understanding of the test maker’s intention behind asking the question. It uses an
AI powered learning platform to provide you with
real time improvement modules after every practice quiz. It provides you with
additional concept videos and
practise quizzes which helps you overcome your weaker areas in a specific topic right away without having to put in additional effort to identify your weaker areas.
You can check out
GMATWhiz and go for its Verbal Prep Course.
Here’s a link to our free trial –
https://learn.gmatwhiz.com/?page=signup Hope this helped and feel free to contact if you have any further queries.
You can always write back to me here or the better way would be to connect over a call and have a discussion. You can schedule a free consultation call using the below link.