Scoring above V40

There are two things happening here: Since the GMAT is adaptive, you’re pushing the difficulty level so high coming out of the first 13 questions that you’re getting stuck both in terms of time, and getting stuck in the weeds with the trickiest questions in the pool.

We call this “difficulty overshoot”. We see this a lot when a test-taker has a strong inherent ability, but is treating the GMAT like a traditional exam in which the goal is to get 100% correct. Your early accuracy pushes the question difficulty to an unsustainable range, mid-section. The GMAT doesn’t care how great you were in the middle of the section though. It would be great it did, because you’d walk away with V47. What matters is your trailing average coming out of the last several questions of the section. Right now, you’re rising to soaring heights, and then falling below your true score level on the latter half of the section, thus delivering a score below your true capability.

There’s some really good news for you here though. You have a strong ability in Verbal if you’re able to track to the 99th that far into the section, and even getting to that point takes a lot of skill.

Now you just need to make some tactical adjustments. You need a cohesive strategy for the entire section, instead of just focusing on the first dozen:

• Right now, if you want to earn your best Verbal Score, you’re going to need to be willing to intentionally let a small handful of the worst-of-the-worst questions go. Those could include EXCEPT questions, Bolded Statement questions, or any other question that you know could either take too long, or that you don’t think you have a great shot of getting right.
• You are probably spending upwards of 5 minutes plus on certain questions. You’re going to need to stop that habit immediately.
• Let 3 questions go after 30 seconds, instead of spending 5 minutes on them. Keep in mind that these are questions you are most likely to miss anyway.

Here are the huge perks by making that bad for good trade:

➊ Time Savings: 13.5 Minutes (1.5 Minutes vs 3x5). You’re going to be able to save over 13 minutes. Imagine what you could do with that 13 minutes instead?

➋ Better algorithm management. Instead of going for everything earlier on and crashing, you’ll be able to better track your true talent level.

➌ Time to read carefully, and take interest on the questions that matter – Imagine how many other questions, and passages you could handle better with that extra time, ALL THE WAY TO THE END of the section. Imagine what that could mean for your score?

➍ Time to read all 4 RC passages thoroughly – Many people who lack a cohesive Verbal section strategy, go down in flames on the last RC passage, either skimming it, or even skipping it altogether. Ouch. That string of 4 resulting questions can be extremely costly. Now, you'll be able to avert that loss.

➎ There’s also the intangible benefit of avoiding the worst of the worst, and feeling even better about the questions you do

Now knowing what you need to adjust is one thing. Doing it is an altogether different thing. Bringing all of this together will take A LOT of discipline on your part. That’s why we stress the difference between studying and training for the GMAT. You’re getting ready for a performance, so you need to REHEARSE.

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions down the road.