Stuck at 540 because of verbal(V23-24) can't seem to improve

Question

Hi,

I am a non-native speaker and I need to get an overall 550 from GMAT to get admission to my master's program. I took the exam 2 times in the last month and in both of them I scored a 540.
First: V24 Q41(540) IR4 AWA5
Second: V23 Q42(540) IR6 AWA6

I studied from numerous sources and I'm an industrial engineering graduate so my math is good. I bought official practice questions 1 from GMAT and solved them all. Also I bought official practice tests 3 and 4.
My scores were:
First: V32 Q43(620)
Second: V28 Q42(580)

It seems that my quant is very stable(always scoring between 41-43), however I can't seem to score good in the verbal in the real exam. I get stressed out because of the clock and can't read the passages or questions clearly. My English is quite good, I scored an overall 8/9 on IELTS Academic.

Any suggestions to improve the score in verbal section are welcome since it seems it is the key for a better score.

pintukr · Answer

A topic-wise practice using Forum Quiz will assist. The Quiz is replete with several explanations posted by the experts.

All the Best.

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Rod9374.

Honestly, if you do some topic by topic prep for Quant, you can probably increase your Quant score a few points pretty readily and achieve your score goal. To better understand how to increase your Quant score, see this post.

GMAT Quant Preparation: Top 10 Tips

That said, you could increase your Verbal score as well with effective prep. To understand exactly how to increase your Verbal score, see this post.

How to Score High on GMAT Verbal

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Rod9374,

With a 540, you likely already have the skills to score 550 (and possibly into the high-500s) - and you do not need to correctly answer any questions that are too hard or too weird to earn that type of higher Score. That having been said, if "your way" of approaching the Exam involves lots of 'guessing' (such as narrowing the answers down to 2 choices before you lock-in your final answer) or leaves you open to making certain types of mistakes, then you will have to make some fundamental changes to how you approach the overall GMAT before you will be able to consistently score at a much higher level.

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What specific study materials have you used so far?
3) On what dates (or approximate dates) did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) Is your overall goal score a 550 or something else? When you say that you "need" a 550, what does that mean exactly? Will scoring a 550 guarantee you entry into a particular Program or is that just a minimum Score needed to apply (meaning that you might actually need to score higher)?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

If you took either of your Official GMATs at a Test Center, then you might also choose to purchase the Enhanced Score Report. While the ESR doesn’t provide a lot of information, there are usually a few data points that we can use to define what went wrong on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Contact Rich at: [email protected]
www.empowergmat.com

Rod9374 · Answer

Hello Rich,

Thanks for your reply.
I already applied to my master's program in Netherlands, Tilburg University. However this is a type of program does not require GMAT score while applying. After you apply, they send you a condisional admission and to turn the conditional to unconditional, they require you to send the GMAT score to them that meets their minimum. The minimum is 550 in this case and the deadline is very close, its one month from now. If I cannot get a 550 until deadline, I won't be able to start the semester.

I have been studying for GMAT for 2 months now. I practived using the youtube videos of GMAT Ninja for my knowledge gaps and I solve GMAT official practice questions 1. Also I took offical test 3 and 4 in which I scored as I indicated in my previous post.

For my case, I think I don't need an ESR because I know why my score is low. It's because of the verbal section. I can't seem to get a good score in verbal section for 2 reasons. 
Firstly, I think its because of the time constraint. Since I know only 1 minute and 48 seconds are alloted for each questions, I think it's extremely hard to finish this test on time.
Each question is a big time consumer on its own, even the SC question type. I can spend more than 10 minutes on each question easily if I was given the time. 
As a result, I can't think clearly and read the passages in a way that I can comprehend the given information. I try to skim it and I get the question wrong in the end. This is a vicious cycle that keeps on going the entire test. I try to force read fast, then I can't understand clearly, I think I can't spend any more time on this questions and nearly guess it and move on.

Secondly, I find the passages extremely long and I can't seem to focus enough to understand it throughly. The language that they are written in also makes them very hard to comprehend. So many words with unusual vocabulary are always inside them. CR questions are like mind games and SC is also extremely hard.

I think that studying to this section doesn't make any improvement. After I scored my first 540, I studied for 4-5 hours everyday, solved official questions, watched videos etc. for 2 weeks, but in my second exam I saw 0 gains. Literally 0. It was waste of time.

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

For SC, memorizing commonly tested idioms could help boost that part a bit. For RC, becoming familiar with how INFERENCE questions work could be useful as well. If you find CR assumption questions a bit slippery, the negation technique may be worth checking out.

SC Idiom list

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi Rod9374,

You may want to work on your quant as well, as both your quant (Q41~30% and Q42~33%) and verbal scores (V23~29% and V24~33%) are actually quite similar.

Rod9374 · Answer

Thanks for your reply but my English level is already good and I already know those idioms you listed. I don't think improvement in this exam can be achieved by memorizing anything because of the time pressure.
Even if I memorize lots of stuff, I won't be able to utilize them in the exam since I won't have enough time to dig into the question.
Also I know how inference works. You infere stuff from the passage that is implied. The problem is not about infering or not infering anything, its about the time pressure and the exam not giving us enough time to read the material properly. Noone can read a 500 word passage about some stupid creature or an asteroid or anything in 1 minute except you are lawyer or anything and all you did all your life was to read stuff in English. It's not the case for many us. The problem with this exam is that passages are delibaretely written in a language that will frustrate the exam takers and make them unable to understand it properly.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Rod9374,

Since you are so close to your Score Goal already, you do not need to necessarily pick up those additional points in the Verbal section (re: you could pick them up in the Quant section). It's worth noting that you do NOT need to be a 'fast reader' to score at a high level on the GMAT and you do not need to understand every word that you read in the Verbal section to perform well on RC and CR. However, you do need to approach prompts in a specific way (including doing some basic note-taking) because you do not have time to read every prompt over-and-over-and-over.

From what you describe, "your way" of studying has been inefficient - but the GMAT is the same consistent, predictable Exam that it's always been, so you CAN train to score at a higher level. The question now is how able you are to make the necessary changes to how you "see" (and respond to) the Test.

1) For your next attempt, are you planning to take the At-home GMAT or are you planning to take your GMAT at a Test Facility?
2) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?
3) What 'deadline' are you facing to submit your GMAT Score?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Contact Rich at: [email protected]
www.empowergmat.com

Rod9374 · Answer

How exactly am I supposed to read a 500 word academic/thesis level material in 2 minutes by not reading fast? Sorry but your suggestion doesn't even make sense. Yes I tried your method of not reading fast in one of my mocks. Guess what happened? I run out of time in the 26th or 27th question and I had guess the rest of the questions. Is thıs how it is supposed to be? Like, I don't even understand the mindset of the exam creators in this GMAT exam. First of all, why there are 4 sections and only 2 counts to our final score and the rest are like outsiders? I can't even make sense out of this. For instance, in my last attempt, I scored a IR6 and AWA6. Can you believe it? I didn't even prepare for IR or AWA but my percentiles are %64 for IR and 87% for AWA.

I didn't even write one practice essay. And none of these scores count towards my final score. For the ones that count toward the final score, verbal is purely made to frustrate the exam takers, it's nothing more. It doesn't measure anything. It doesn't even make sense to allocate 1 minute and 48 seconds to 500 word long passages. Noone can read that fast or understand anything in that time frame. And how am I supposed to "not need to understand every word" and get those inference etc. questions correct? Sorry but it's not possible. At least you have to understand 80-90% of it. Also while reading, I don't like to take notes because it distracts me. For my next attempt, it will be 11 August in test center, and it will be my last chance in this exam.

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Stuck at 540 because of verbal(V23-24) can't seem to improve

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