Please suggest

Question

I am really weak in verbal section..scored only 17 in V...

..I don't know what should I follow to increase my verbal score...I want to start from the beginning for the verbal section..I will retake my exam on July..Can anyone guide me that what should I follow?I don't want to score really high in verbal but need a decent score...

egmat · Answer

Faruk,

You need to build your core skills to improve on verbal. The good thing is that you are ready to start from Verbal. We had a student like you who started our course at a score of 18 and was able to improve to 32. His name is Ashok. You can check his testimonial at the link below. He was also a GC member.

https://e-gmat.com/testimonial_all.php

We offer a bunch of free concepts that help improve your core skills. Take those and see if you improve.

Bottom line: Its possible to improve your verbal score but you need to put in some concentrated effort - probably 150+ hrs to improve your score beyond 30.

-Rajat

mikemcgarry · Answer

Hi, there! I'm happy to contribute!

Here's a three-month study plan I've written, which may help you: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/3-month-gm ... l-focused/ This plan assumes you are in OK shape on math but need help on verbal. You will see links to other plans listed in the sidebar of that page. An integral part of that plan is Magoosh. We're an online test prep organization that has 200+ lesson videos covering all the content and strategy you need. We have 800+ GMAT questions, each with its own video explanation. We also give prompt feedback to any GMAT-related question from any GMAT-prep source, so it's like buying online support for all the materials you own already. Our material is comparable so the quality of some of the finest GMAT test prep sources on the market, but we are considerably cheaper than our competitors. Here's a sample CR question: https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/1247 When you submit your answer, the video explanation will appear on the next page. Here's a sample SC lesson: https://gmat.magoosh.com/lessons/602-par ... the-basics I hope this is helpful. Let me know if you have any further questions. Mike :-)

farukqmul · Answer

Thanks for your valuable advise...My reading skill is really poor...At the first place,How can I improve it?Only reading articles and newspapers?

KarishmaB · Answer

Try reading some books on topics you enjoy. You might get really interested and force yourself to finish the books. That will help you develop an ear for the right usage. Mind you, don't expect miracles since mastering a language takes years. Reading magazines and newspapers is a must anyway to improve not only language skills but also general business awareness.

farukqmul · Answer

Thanks..I have 3 months in my hand...I don't want a high score...If I can manage around 30 that will do...So the question is Will I able to move from V17 to V30 in 3 months?

egmat · Answer

Faruk, you dont need to master the language to do well on the GMAT (otherwise we all would be scholars in English). What you need is to inculcate certain reading habits to improve comprehension. These reading habits come by following certain reading strategies.

While reading novels is a good idea, I have 2 issues with this:

1.  Lucid : Novels are written to be interesting and lucid to read because the writer does not make much money if they are not. RC passages (especially the difficult ones) are not very lucid.

2.  Repetition : Novels have a ton of repetition. Even if you miss a fact while reading, it is more or less repeated elsewhere. Hence you maintain an understanding of the novel even if you miss comprehending certain ideas. RC passages have little repetition. With 450 words max. to make a point, the author of RC passages cannot afford to repeat the same facts. Hence, novels due to this repetition, while helping you read also inculcate a bad habit - they dont make you read and comprehend.

Again, I am not trying to say that novels are not useful because they are in some ways. They help improve your vocabulary, familiarize you with complex sentence structures and sometimes new terms that you may not be aware of. However, due to the above downsides, I dont recommend reading novels to improve RC.

Rather, I would much recommend reading short articles (less than 1000 words) from WSJ, Journal of American History (advanced, complex language), Harvard business review, Scientific American, discover magazine, NYtimes (most read and most emailed articles).

-Rajat

farukqmul · Answer

WOW thanks I didn't notice this part.....but I don't actually feel comfortable while reading long and complex sentences as those appear in SC ,CR and RC....I need to read twice or thrice ..so I am killing my time by reading those ..

..any suggestion for this?

KarishmaB · Answer

It's not just about how much time you have but also about how well you use it. Moving up from V17 to V30 is not hard.

Long sentences irritate many people. It gets hard to retain the thread and you lose focus mid way. What you have to do is 'slash and burn' i.e. ignore the modifiers and focus on the core sentence - the subject and the verb. To make sentences long, authors add lots of modifiers. If you ignore those, you still get the sense of what the author is trying to convey but you don't get lost in frivolous (in many cases) information. Once the structure of the sentence is clear to you, it will make a lot of sense.

Please suggest

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards