Hi
I wanted to emphasize, first of all, that how well you do on the exam does not have much to do with how many questions you get right or wrong. It's the level of the questions you get wrong that really matters, so a person getting 17 questions wrong in the 700-800 level will score a lot better than somebody who got 17 questions wrong in the 300-400 level.
In terms of the timing mentioned above, on the verbal you should try and spend 90 seconds on every Sentence Correction and Critical Reasoning problem. This leaves you about 8 minutes for each of the four Reading Comprehension passages, to both read the questions and respond to them. You should spend about 2.5 to 3 minutes reading the short RC passages, and 3-4 minutes on the longer ones.
Good practice for the Reading Comprehension is to read a lot of magazine articles. Since a lot of the RC passages are lifted from places like PhD theses, articles in intellectual journals like the Economist, or university alumni magazines are good places to start.
You may also want to check out our Reading Comprehension guide, which you can find by going to our website at ManhattanGMAT[dot]com and clicking on the "Store" link in the upper gray bar. (It's also sold at Amazon and other book stores.) Like our Sentence Correction guide, the Reading Comprehension would give you some good strategies to get through the questions quickly and effectively.
Hope the advice helps!
Best,
Caitlin Clay
Student Services Associate
Manhattan GMAT