Struggling in verbal section

Question

Hi . I have not started preparing for gmat but I have prepared for cat previously. In which I guess I struggled a lot due to bad reading skills . I don’t want to repeat that . Pls suggest what should I do ? Should I work to improve my reading skills first and then prepare for GMAT?

bb · Answer

Hi. What do you mean by bad reading skills?

GMAT does not require you to be a great reader but it helps. GMAT reading is not the same as usual reading but again, it helps if you are an avid reader and your brain is used to absorbing information at a fast pace. GMAT RC requires a particular approach and strategy. You won't be able to brute force your way through it unless you are naturally a high scorer.

Would suggest you get a MGMAT book or an old Kaplan Verbal Book and practice some RC's to see your success rate. However, do not just read without a strategy and proper approach. Either do it right or don't mess around.

avigoesforMBA · Answer

Hey, not necessarily. Though reading comprehension is a skill which is quite essential for both CAT and GMAT, unlike the conventional advice of reading books and stuff, it can definitely be built along your preparation for the GMAT. No need to read books, newspapers! Just refer to some good sources of Verbal, practice hard and you will be good to go!

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Searching for/developing a reading approach that works for you may be helpful. The one I teach, for example, doesn't require note-taking per se but perhaps you find doing so helps. In case you want to practice reading during your free time (e.g. idle time at work) without burning official RC passages and questions, articles from The Economist similar to those on the GMAT could be helpful to leverage.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi eadolorum,

To increase your verbal score, you must identify your exact weaknesses, fill in any knowledge gaps, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to find weaker areas, learn all about how to answer questions of types that you aren't that comfortable with now, and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving your score up point by point.

For example, assume you begin studying Critical Reasoning. Your first goal is to master the individual Critical Reasoning topics: Strengthen the Argument, Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, etc. As you go through the questions, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get correct. If you missed a Weaken question, ask yourself why you didn't get it right. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize what the question was asking? Did you skip over a key detail in an answer choice? Getting GMAT verbal questions right is a matter of what you know, what you see, and what you do. So, any time that you don't get one right, you can seek to identify what you would have had to know in order to get the right answer, what you had to see that you didn't see, and what you could have done differently to arrive at the correct answer.

Regarding RC, when students get those questions wrong, it’s partly because they don't truly understand what they have just read. To understand what you are reading, you may have to slow down even more (for now) in order to eventually speed up. You have to learn to comprehend what you read, keep it all straight, and use what you are reading to arrive at correct answers.

At this point, your best bet is to focus on getting the correct answers to questions, taking **as much time as you need** to see key details and understand the logic of what you are reading. If you don't understand something, go back and read it one sentence at a time, even one word at a time, not moving on until you understand what you have just read. There is no way around this work. Your goal should be to take all the time you need to understand exactly what is being said and arrive at the correct answer. If you can learn to get answers taking your time, you can learn to speed up. Answering questions is like any task: The more times you do it carefully and successfully, the faster you become at doing it carefully and successfully.

Another component to understanding what you are reading is being “present” when reading. Don’t worry about how things are going at work, or what you will eat for dinner, or even how long you’re taking to read through the passage. Just focus on what is in front of you, word by word, line by line. Furthermore, try to make reading fun. For example, even if you are reading about a topic that bores you, pretend that you are the person making the argument. By doing so, you will make the passage more relatable to YOU, and ultimately you should be able to read with greater focus.

One final component of Reading Comprehension that may be tripping you up is that RC questions contain one or more trap answers that seem to answer the question but don't really. So, a key part of training to correctly answer RC questions is learning to notice the differences between trap answers and correct answers. You have to learn to see how trap answers seem to follow from what the passages say, but don't really, while correct answers fit what the passages say exactly. Of course, the better you become at noticing the differences between trap answer choices and correct answers, the faster you will answer RC questions.

Here is also a great article that you can check out:

How to Score High on GMAT Verbal on the Focus Edition

Struggling in verbal section

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