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pria131
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verbal scores help ! 04 Aug 2015, 12:06
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Hi people,

My exam is one week from now and I am still faring bad on the verbal section in the mocks !

Either RC, SC or CR, one section is always screwed up

My mocks scores are as below-
GMAT prep - 650
Mgmat 1- 680(q47 v37)
Mgmat 3- 640(q47 v31)
Mgmat 4- 710(q49 v37)
Mgmat 5- 700(q49 v36)
Kap1 - 740(q51 v28)
Kap2 - 640(q49 v23)
Kap3 - 720(q50 v38)
GMAT club quant test 51
GMAT club verbal test 39

I am really tensed regarding my range of verbal scores.
Please help on how to improve accuracy.

I really want to nail it the first time by scoring 750+

Regards
Pria

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verbal scores help ! 04 Aug 2015, 12:26
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pria131
Hi people,

My exam is one week from now and I am still faring bad on the verbal section in the mocks !

Either RC, SC or CR, one section is always screwed up

My mocks scores are as below-
GMAT prep - 650
Mgmat 1- 680(q47 v37)
Mgmat 3- 640(q47 v31)
Mgmat 4- 710(q49 v37)
Mgmat 5- 700(q49 v36)
Kap1 - 740(q51 v28)
Kap2 - 640(q49 v23)
Kap3 - 720(q50 v38)
GMAT club quant test 51
GMAT club verbal test 39

I am really tensed regarding my range of verbal scores.
Please help on how to improve accuracy.

I really want to nail it the first time by scoring 750+

Regards
Pria
Show more


Hi pria131 -

Please provide a bit more information regarding your request for help on the Verbal section. The scores you posted show that, while your Quant scores are fairly stable, your Verbal scores have fluctuated more. Have you drilled into the results deep enough to have a feel for where your strengths and weaknesses are on the Verbal side? Are you making silly errors or are they mostly a lack of understanding the concepts? Also, are you having any difficulties with your timing or stamina on the Verbal portion? Let me know what you can.
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GMAT 1: 720 Q50 V38
WE:Business Development (Computer Software)
Products:
My Reviews
Schools: Kenan-Flagler '18 (WL) Olin '18 (A) NUS '18 (D) Tuck '18 (D) HEC Dec '17 (D) INSEAD Jan '17 Oxford'17 (A)
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verbal scores help ! 05 Aug 2015, 05:06
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Hi,

Actually due to the lack of time I tend to do questions at a great speed.
Sometimes I have half of the RC questions wrong sometimes SC and sometimes CR

I really don't know on what topic I should focus more

I am just concentrating on verbal right now.

Please guide me as my exam is only one week from now !!
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verbal scores help ! 05 Aug 2015, 07:23
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I found that in my case the verbal score was held back by my method of approaching CR. The funny thing is that CR was my strong suit when I was doing verbal. But I was taking too many notes, which were eating up all my time, and, as a result, I had less time to think through the questions where I should have been spending more time. I was following the MGMAT T diagram approach, but I switched to a kind of visual method where I write down 1 or 2 words for each premise and connect them to the conclusion. This helped me think in terms of structure as well as content.
This is just one aspect though, but I hope it helps a bit. It did help me to free up a tremendous amount of time on verbal. My average time on CR questions dropped from 2.5 minutes to 1.5 minutes.
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verbal scores help ! 05 Aug 2015, 07:31
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pria131
Hi,

Actually due to the lack of time I tend to do questions at a great speed.
Sometimes I have half of the RC questions wrong sometimes SC and sometimes CR

I really don't know on what topic I should focus more

I am just concentrating on verbal right now.

Please guide me as my exam is only one week from now !!
Show more


pria131 -

It really sounds like you have some gaps in the Verbal fundamentals and this is leading to a scattershot approach on the practice tests and in your studying. I am attaching a document that has some quick Sentence Correction tips. Remember that the GMAT is about "reasoning", and you can reason your way to the correct answer in many cases. In the SC portion, you can weigh and measure the answer choices even if you do not immediately know if something is right or wrong. By looking at the answer choices, you can see differences in verb tenses, differences in pronouns and the like. Your job, at this point becomes determining what the correct verb tense or pronoun is rather than understanding some archaic grammar rule.

On the CR questions, they key is really understanding the structure of arguments. An argument consists of premises and conclusions. Once you can properly identify the premises and conclusions in an argument (or for purposes of the exam, in the stimulus), you know how to attack the problem. For example, if the question asks you which of the following strengthens an argument, you should realize that there is a conclusion and premise(s) in the stimulus and you are looking for another piece of information (a premise) that DIRECTLY strengthens the conclusion. If a question asks what can be inferred from the above, your answer will be a conclusion. If you do not have a good grasp of this, spend some time doing some drills in identifying premises and conclusions. Another thing to remember is that the GMAT utilizes a very "mechanical" type of logic. By this, I mean that rather than esoteric arguments about the meaning of life or things of that nature, the logic required is more like functions in algebra - if x = y, and y = z, what can we say about the relationship of x to z? The conclusions must directly flow from the premises. Many trap answers on the GMAT involve emotional responses and get you to deviate from the mechanical nature of the logic. Let me know if you would like more information on this section.

Finally, the RC section. Do you think the test makers believe that test takers need to know about the various theories of how butterfly nebula were formed? Or how the brain synthesizes certain proteins? No; just as they do not expect test takers to know how to calculate, without a calculator, the square root of 182,329. However, they do expect us to be able to figure out which of the 5 choices the correct answer is. One of the most important pieces of the RC section is HOW you read the passage. Typically, we read for details - because we are reading something that we already have a solid base of knowledge about - a white paper, a text book, an article from an industry magazine. SInce we are not expected to know anything about the subject of the RC passage, we must read it differently - because reading it so slowly as to digest the details will waste time. (The good news on this is since we are not expected to know anything about the subject, all of the answers to the questions can be found within the passage!) So, instead of reading for detail, read at the 30,000 foot view to get the landscape of the passage. In your initial reading of the passage, you will simply want to get what the passage is about (the scope), how the passage is organized (chronologically; point/counter-point;hypothesis 1, hypothesis 2, new hypothesis), what the author is saying about the subject (just giving info, just giving opinion or analyzing the subject) and finally, WHY the author wrote the passage. If you can get this landscape picture in the first reading, and possibly a high level connection on the technical and scientific passages, you are where you want to be. This understanding will allow you to answer the universal type questions such as, which of the following would be the best title or why did the author write this passage. For the detail oriented questions (such as, the primary difference between the cranial screw top method and the endonasal endoscopic method is best described as), your understanding fo the organization of the passage will allow you to quickly go back into the passage to find the answer.

Pria131, let me know if you would like further info on any of the above. I think you have a good base, and with your Quant skills have a great shot at achieving the score you want. Focusing on the right things on the Verbal section will provide you with a comfort level and the confidence to post a solid V score. Good luck!
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pria131
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Joined: 25 Jan 2015
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Location: United States
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Schools: Kenan-Flagler '18 (WL) Olin '18 (A) NUS '18 (D) Tuck '18 (D) HEC Dec '17 (D) INSEAD Jan '17 Oxford'17 (A)
GMAT 1: 720 Q50 V38
WE:Business Development (Computer Software)
Products:
My Reviews
Schools: Kenan-Flagler '18 (WL) Olin '18 (A) NUS '18 (D) Tuck '18 (D) HEC Dec '17 (D) INSEAD Jan '17 Oxford'17 (A)
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verbal scores help ! 05 Aug 2015, 11:05
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Thank you so much !! :)

I would keep your points in mind.
There are still 5 days and I am hopeful that I would get the required score.
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verbal scores help ! 05 Aug 2015, 11:16
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pria131
Thank you so much !! :)

I would keep your points in mind.
There are still 5 days and I am hopeful that I would get the required score.
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Best of luck to you! And continue to ask questions.
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verbal scores help ! 19 Aug 2016, 06:44
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Hi Dennis,

Excellent reply. I need some help with CR and RC questions. My major concern is with assumption, inference and strengthen based questions in CR and inference based questions in RC. For SC, my concern is with modifiers and comparison questions. Please advise, how can i improve on these topics.

My verbal gmat scores are in range of 23-26 while in mocks i score 29-34.

Regards



VeritasPrepDennis



pria131 -

It really sounds like you have some gaps in the Verbal fundamentals and this is leading to a scattershot approach on the practice tests and in your studying. I am attaching a document that has some quick Sentence Correction tips. Remember that the GMAT is about "reasoning", and you can reason your way to the correct answer in many cases. In the SC portion, you can weigh and measure the answer choices even if you do not immediately know if something is right or wrong. By looking at the answer choices, you can see differences in verb tenses, differences in pronouns and the like. Your job, at this point becomes determining what the correct verb tense or pronoun is rather than understanding some archaic grammar rule.

On the CR questions, they key is really understanding the structure of arguments. An argument consists of premises and conclusions. Once you can properly identify the premises and conclusions in an argument (or for purposes of the exam, in the stimulus), you know how to attack the problem. For example, if the question asks you which of the following strengthens an argument, you should realize that there is a conclusion and premise(s) in the stimulus and you are looking for another piece of information (a premise) that DIRECTLY strengthens the conclusion. If a question asks what can be inferred from the above, your answer will be a conclusion. If you do not have a good grasp of this, spend some time doing some drills in identifying premises and conclusions. Another thing to remember is that the GMAT utilizes a very "mechanical" type of logic. By this, I mean that rather than esoteric arguments about the meaning of life or things of that nature, the logic required is more like functions in algebra - if x = y, and y = z, what can we say about the relationship of x to z? The conclusions must directly flow from the premises. Many trap answers on the GMAT involve emotional responses and get you to deviate from the mechanical nature of the logic. Let me know if you would like more information on this section.

Finally, the RC section. Do you think the test makers believe that test takers need to know about the various theories of how butterfly nebula were formed? Or how the brain synthesizes certain proteins? No; just as they do not expect test takers to know how to calculate, without a calculator, the square root of 182,329. However, they do expect us to be able to figure out which of the 5 choices the correct answer is. One of the most important pieces of the RC section is HOW you read the passage. Typically, we read for details - because we are reading something that we already have a solid base of knowledge about - a white paper, a text book, an article from an industry magazine. SInce we are not expected to know anything about the subject of the RC passage, we must read it differently - because reading it so slowly as to digest the details will waste time. (The good news on this is since we are not expected to know anything about the subject, all of the answers to the questions can be found within the passage!) So, instead of reading for detail, read at the 30,000 foot view to get the landscape of the passage. In your initial reading of the passage, you will simply want to get what the passage is about (the scope), how the passage is organized (chronologically; point/counter-point;hypothesis 1, hypothesis 2, new hypothesis), what the author is saying about the subject (just giving info, just giving opinion or analyzing the subject) and finally, WHY the author wrote the passage. If you can get this landscape picture in the first reading, and possibly a high level connection on the technical and scientific passages, you are where you want to be. This understanding will allow you to answer the universal type questions such as, which of the following would be the best title or why did the author write this passage. For the detail oriented questions (such as, the primary difference between the cranial screw top method and the endonasal endoscopic method is best described as), your understanding fo the organization of the passage will allow you to quickly go back into the passage to find the answer.

Pria131, let me know if you would like further info on any of the above. I think you have a good base, and with your Quant skills have a great shot at achieving the score you want. Focusing on the right things on the Verbal section will provide you with a comfort level and the confidence to post a solid V score. Good luck!
Show more

Archived Topic
Hi there,
This topic has been closed and archived due to inactivity or violation of community quality standards. No more replies are possible here.
Where to now? Join ongoing discussions on thousands of quality questions in our Verbal Questions Forum
Still interested in this question? Check out the "Best Topics" block above for a better discussion on this exact question, as well as several more related questions.
Thank you for understanding, and happy exploring!
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