How good are the Verbal Challenges?

dybuzam - here's some more details of what I thought of the verbal challenges and where I feel they could be improved :

1. The SCs are rather straight up. What I mean is, more often than not, they only test one concept. A typical GMAT SC is not that robotic, it tests 2-3 subtle concepts and it throws answer choices that look correct, but are not. Also, the GMAT sentences tend to be longer. This is because GMAT test creators put in lots of "padding" in sentences to obfuscate the meaning of the sentence. GMAT also tests the overall meaning of the sentence quite frequently. Furthermore, GMAT sentences are out of publications, books etc. The sentences in the challenges felt very "contrived". Its not they are incorrect or are a poor test, its just that they don't "feel" like the real GMAT (I could argue the same about MGMAT's verbal tests).

2. CR - we can debate this one till the cows come home, but after looking at several LSAT and GMAT (and MGMAT, Kaplan CRs), I felt that the CRs in the challenges were more open to debate - i.e. they were not water tight enough.

3. The order of the questions. This is a minor gripe, however, it may help usability of the verbals. Typically GMATprep throws at least 2-3 CRs , 1 passage (3-4 questions) and 2-3 SCs by the end of the 1st 10 questions. The variety might have something to do with its internal scoring algorithm. The challenges should try to "mimic" this order, at least initially.

Thanks for the detailed explanations, BSD. +2.
We'll do our best to improve the Verbal Tests.

Thanks for the feedback. We are hoping to expand the number of verbal tests available.

If anyone has time/ability to work on the Verbal tests and create several new tests - we are interested to work with you and will compensate for your time. Certain requirements will apply. Please PM me for details.

Hi ,

Has anyone taken GMATCLUB TEST V5??

I took it just now and had a disappointing score of just 17 .

I know I am bad at verbal but score of 17 is kind of frustrating.

All other test which I took, I had a score ranging from 26 to 31.

Unfortunately, CR section in which I thought to be very confident has become my weak point.

I am struggling in RC and CR.

Anyone please help..

Hi,

You might want to go through this thread if you haven't yet:
new-to-the-verbal-forum-please-read-this-first-77546.html

It has a lot of valuable info and links.

Don't be frustrated because of the score you get, but rather pay attention to the cause of your errors. Make sure to analyze all questions that you got wrong. Maintaining an Error Log is also very helpful in tracking down your weak areas. If you notice a pattern in your errors, do your best to eliminate the errors using that info.

Good luck with your prep!