Help needed to improve consistency in Verbal

Question

Hi,

I have given GMAT twice. The first time I scored a 700. I haven't done solid prep and hence prepared Manhattan SC and the PowerScore Bible for CR rigorously again and scored a 720.

After taking a short break, due to work demands, I really believed I could score higher and prepared verbal under timed conditions and was scoring decently in mocks. I put my heart and soul into it and thought I was getting good at it as I was able to solve LSAT CR and RC questions within reasonable time and was able to spot the minute differences in SC.I was scoring in the low 40s in the gmatclub tests. I recently gave the exam again and, despite scoring 750 in GMAT Preps and 710 in Kaplan free test, scored a disastrous 690. I ordered the ESR and attached it to the post.

I followed other posts on the same scenario and people suggested it could be because something new came up in the exam that wasn't encountered during practice. While I did not see this happening for me, I definitely rushed through the last 4 questions and guessed the answers on the verbal section and ended up with a 33. I am utterly heartbroken. I really believed I could get a V42 and set my heart for a 750(Given Quant is 50).

Regarding schools, I am looking to apply to McCombs, Tepper and Darden in R2 and really want to get into McCombs. I am almost done with the essays and am wondering if I should give the exam again in December.
I am a female software engineer/Technical Analyst at a fortune 500 company with about 2.8 years of experience from India. I will have 3.4 at Matriculation. I want to do an MBA now because I plan to grow as a CleanTech consultant(or work on Sustainability projects) and I need to get my education early (priority school is McCombs) in order to have enough time to grow in the field. Also, I do not see my plans changing drastically even if I waited another year, so I believe now is the right time. My leadership experiences include leading projects in Undergraduate years and working as an Alumni Manager at a Teach For India initiative. Won some competitions at workplace and at undergraduate level.

So I am planning to write my essays now and plan to give the exam again in December.

Please tell me how to proceed to gain consistency in the verbal section. Also, do let me know your thoughts on my school selection and my chances(I know this would go under the Profile Eval threads but the main reason for writing this post was to fix my erratic and random verbal scores;Hence, I put it here). I plan to talk to some of the alumni to get a realistic picture of my chances at McCombs.

Thanks a million.

akela · Answer

Hi Rmel , Did you run out of time in the end of the verbal part? It seems that you've bombed RC. How many of the passages were short? It takes time to improve RC. Did you practice RC during your prep? Probably the problem is that you misiterpret the question stem. IMO, you have to work on RC to improve verbal score, since RC matters a whole lot more now than it used to: https://gmatclub.com/forum/new-format-g ... l#p2088521

Rmel · Answer

I did run out of time. I had about 15 minutes left for the last 10 questions.

I believe there were three short passages and one was towards the end. It was a confusing one and I ended up guessing two to three questions on it.

Is Kaplan 800 good for RC? Would you suggest which resources to use? Should I keep doing the lsat passages? I found them quite lengthy and usually having 7 to 8 questions. Although the questions were a tad easier than gmat questions.

akela · Answer

There are different approaches to RC. I used LSAT passages, and I managed to improve RC to 91percentile.

Let me post the links that helped me: https://lawschooli.com/improve-your-lsa ... ion-score/
It says: "If it takes you an hour to finish one passage correctly, then spend an hour on it. Just try and get everything CORRECT." It took me 30-35 minutes to complete 1 LSAT RC passage in the beginning and answer all the questions (8-9). It is like learning to do a physical exercise in the beginning - it's better to do it one time the right way and build up from there instead of doing it as many time as possible the wrong way. With practice, I managed to decrease that time to 12-15 minutes with the same percentage of the correct answers (80-90%, sometimes 100%). With practice, I learned what kind of questions I would see.

Here is another link: https://lsathacks.com/guide/faq/how-to- ... rehension/
It says that it's important to understand the passage. During the test, I read certain sentences 2 or three times. That's ok for me. I noticed that when I fully understand the passage, the overall time I spend on answering all the questions decreases while keeping high the number of the correct answers (7 correct out of 8). When I rushed through the passage with the thought that I would re-read the part I need when answering the question, the overall time and number of correct answers decreased dramatically (only 40-50% correct). So, the right approach for me was to invest more time in understanding the passage rather than answering the questions and going back and forth from the question to the passage. When I understand the passage, it takes a few seconds to find the line in the passage and another 10-15 seconds to give the correct answer.

I hope I managed to convey the idea

As you're planning to retake the test soon, it's probably better to use GMAT passages and to read official explanations. Or, you can use 1 LSAT passage and 3 GMAT passages a day.

And keep practicing SC and CR. They'll get harder when you improve RC.

Hope this helps!

As you're planning to retake the test soon, it's probably better to use GMAT passages and to read official explanations. Or, you can use 1 LSAT passage and 3 GMAT passages a day. And keep practicing SC and CR. They'll get harder when you improve RC. Hope this helps!

Rmel · Answer

This helps greatly. Thank you for the links. 
I also came across lsat sectional tests during my search for tough rcs. Do you recommend those?

Thanks again for the suggestions

akela · Answer

Hi  Rmel ,

LSAT passages are more difficult that GMAT passages. They are longer and denser. You can try a few ones to practice, and read the explanations on LSAT forums. Still, you're gonna retake GMAT soon, so concentrating on GMAT passages can be more effective now. Probably. You have to try yourself and see what works for you.

Hope this helps!

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