Tensed and Confused , Expert advice required

Question

Hi all,

I m from India and 2 days back I got my CAT (Indian exam) score and it was not that good.
It was given without preparation and was my first attempt.

I got 98, 90 , 40 percentiles in Quant, DI/LR , Verbal respectively.I dont want to divert my gmat attention to any other Cat exam but my scores clearly depicts my level of verbal and quant.
I m quite happy with my quant score as without prep it is fine and with fine tuning according to Gmat and good practice can boost my quant score. But my biggest concern is Verbal, since English is not my first language I do struggle sometimes. I have studied English throughout my academics, but I m quite weak in that.

Now I m coming to Gmat, I have not given any diagnostic test, but till now I have brushed up quant for gmat. And recently I have purchased MGMAT SC and powerscore CR. I m curently doing CR bible and really its awesome book, m learning alot from it.
But when I try to solve a problem I m not able to do, I believe my retention power is quite weak and I have to re-read paragraphs several time. If I m able to understand the passage my CR answer is always right.

I want to improve my verbal, my vocab is quite weak, i do keep list of word-meanings to learn in an excel but after 2-3 days i dont remember 70% of them. I m quite confused and tensed, I m not sure what to do. Whenever i try to read something on screen it goes blank and i feel sleepy.
I just dont want this excuse to ruin my Mba dream. I m willing to learn and I will, just need your expert advice and some approx timeline as i was thinking of giving gmat this june and because of verbal it seems quite early.

I have won half the battle as I know my weakness but for later half I will have to work really hard as I m competing with biggest India IT pool.
I apologize for making it quite boring and bad English.
TIA

anstance5 · Answer

Heard that the IIM CATs are pretty hardcore. Then again, so is virtually every Board / Joint Entrance exam for the IITs, NITs, AIIMS, etc etc no? We got nothin' in the States on those Desi tests. You could probably crush the GMAT if you put in the kind of herculean effort overcoming something like that would take.

But to your point, Verbal is tricky / confusing as is the English language itself on many an occasion. But Gmat Club is awesome -- this forum's got your back.

- You should start here first and foremost.
nink-s-guide-on-how-to-navigate-through-gmatclub-for-newbies-76938.html
gmat-study-plan-for-gmat-novices-start-your-gmat-journey-80727.html

- The forum on Verbal is also quite useful.
new-to-the-verbal-forum-please-read-this-first-77546.html

- Founder bb has some pretty awesome posts for Verbal too (among all of his other innumerable awesome posts).
books-to-read-improve-verbal-score-and-enjoy-a-good-read-76079.html
best-gmat-math-prep-books-reviews-recommendations-77291.html#p588930

And that's just the beginning! And you have thousands of like-minded people to ask questions and get through the GMAT with. Be sure to search and explore these forums. Your own custom-made study guide / group wherever there's a net connection... anywhere, everywhere, and FREE to boot. :-D

adalfu · Answer

I would try spending about 30+ minutes everyday to read an American fiction or literature... if you can't get a hold of some of the classics out there, maybe try reading the Economist or The New Yorker or some other well-known publication/magazines.

The benefit to this is so that you can absorb some of the style (besides the grammar and structure) of the written English language, and as you do this consistently, I have no doubt that this process will strengthen your verbal score.

there's already a thread out there that lists some of the recommended books by gmatclub users... so take advantage of that list.

Also, (i know you read the MGMAT SC book already), but have you tried to approach your studying a bit different: i.e., instead of just reading and doing some of the back-of-book problems, try taking notes (on a separate notepad) and creating a lecture plan as if you're going to teach this subject to a student. Put yourself in a teacher's shoe and pretend teaching the subject.

an old professor once told me (obviously i'm paraphrasing here...) that in order to truly understand a concept, you must be able to teach that idea to a layperson.

adalfu · Answer

the reason you probably don't remember many of the vocabulary words you forcefully memorize is because you don't see the words in action... there's nothing in your brain to make these words concrete: you must build stronger synapses in your brain by associating stories (i.e., context) to those words... that's one of the tricks to better recollection: to build a string of stories to tie other non-related things together... or simply enough, sometimes this is dubbed mnemonics. (i'm purposely distinguishing recollection from memory... humans have great memory -- we only use less than 10% of our brain; we just lack the "habit" to recollect

)

gurpreetsingh · Answer

Thanks for the reply, so should I postpone my june-july plan? Though I have not booked the slot but I had plan to give the exam during june-july.

Biggest mistake is I have not given any diagnostic test. I wont waste gmatprep/Mgmat for this.
Will give Kaplan test today and update my stats.
Thanks again.

adalfu · Answer

i suggest taking your first one late june, so you have time to do 2 more (late july and late aug) in case you needed to.

you have about 3 months till june, so you'll have enough time to prep... just stay consistent and focused. spend 1 hour (or more if you have the time) each day till your test date. I recommend doing that instead of packing the weekends with 3+ hours.

gurpreetsingh · Answer

Thanks a lot for the replies. I gave knewton test recently and Following are the results. Quant 50 (93%), verbal 25 (35%) overall 640 (80%) In Quant I had only one incorrect ans which was a DS question reason : careless mistake. Now I have a doubt with just one ans being incorrect, is it possible to have Q 50? I think it should be Q51 and the question was 9th, thus level consideration cannot pull it below 750+ level. For quant : I have just completed theory from different sources( not gmat centric) and practice on gmatclub with 2-3 club tests as well. No OG's touched , no other diagnostic done. reason for not touching OG: I thought I should build concepts first and then I will book a date which will be followed by extensive practice of OG and timed tests of Gmatprep/powerprep/mgmat. In Verbal, shameful 25....out of 41 , 19 were incorrect, so no comments on scoring

4 consecutive RC ans were wrong at the end, as I was not able to concentrate. One of the ans of SC I submitted wrongly. rest of the wrong answers were evenly distributed among CR , RC and SC. I m assuming positive authenticity of the answers though I have not reviewed them and i trust knewton for that. But overall this was a shameful result for verbal. I have read mgmat sc and powerscore cr (read quite quickly), no practice done, just reviewed the theory and solved atmost 5-10 questions combined on gmatclub. No OG's touched , no practice for RC. This is really de-motivating and now i m more confused what to do. I do know about my weakness - Verbal. Something is really wrong with my verbal strategy and I m not able to find it. Pls spare a minute to help me out. I want to improve and will.

bb · Answer

Why is it demotivating since you have done your Verbal prep yet? it would be if you have read them methodically but a quick read is a quick read and produces the results above. So, dig in and don't be too shy to get dirty

gurpreetsingh · Answer

Thanks BB for this. But something is really wrong with my strategy and that's why I messaged you few days back. Please letme know when we can communicate one-one for better discussion.

But I m happy atleast 22/41 of verbal were correct.

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