The "Getting Started On Verbal" Starter Kit

Question

Hey gang. "Any tips on verbal?" is a pretty common question around here. I just answered one such post, and figured I'd put them all in a topic so that they're all in one place for students to find over and over.

I think the videos below cover a *huge* amount of valuable ideas regarding GMAT Verbal. I do recommend picking up our "All the Verbal" manual, as well, but a lot of what you need to ge a 700 on the GMAT can be found here.

I also recommend, before you dive into this, watching the '24 things every GMAT studier needs to know' video in my signature, and reading this post regarding how one improve on the test, generally:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-you-impr ... 61074.html

The thing about Verbal is that it's not as clearly tied to concepts as quant is (though as I've emphasized before--even quant isn't *really* about 'concepts').

SC has some concepts, but more than that it's how you read, interpret, and think about sentences based on structure and meaning. Here are several videos that cover, I think, a huge amount of SC topics (I also very much recommend picking up an MPrep manual. I was recommending MPrep for SC long before I taught at MPrep).

Reading like a Robot for meaning and structure:

The Three Pieces of Sentence Structure:

Modifiers and Sentence Structure:

Everything you could know about Parallel Structure:

Sentence Correction Comparisons:

Become a Pronoun Pro:

SC Mixed Review:

For RC and CR...

These are trickier.

After all, there aren't any... *rules*. Or formulas to memorize... There's just the text in a passage/paragraph, what you read, and what you're thinking about it. When you miss these, you really, really have to dig to figure out why. These are the questions student *think* are 'more subjective' than others, but the truth is, they are as objective as any other problem on the test. However, there tends to only be *one line of reasoning* that makes the right answer right.

Here's a tactic that forces you to think deeply about why you might have missed or struggled on a question:

The thing about verbal, also, is that you might need to really shift your reading habits. Here are some videos on that:

How to read RC (part 1):

How to read RC (part 2):

How to passage map for RC:

RC Question strategies:

Some drills to get you thinking deeply about RC:

When it comes to Critical Reasoning, a deep understanding of how arguments work and what 'assumptions' are is hugely important.

CR FAQS:

CR overview:

Argument Deconstruction:

The Assumption Family

Three Key Questions for Critical Reasoning:

Value of Pre-Thinking (Mostly DS, but the last question is CR):

Critical Reasoning Games:

(Note: I made that a few years ago. There are some things I've changed about how I teach this stuff, but the general message, I stand by).

Inferences (starts with quant but gets to CR inferences for the last 2/3):

Reading for the Simple Story
(Note: this video was made for our Free GRE Prep channel, but I think it's lessons are broadly applicable to verbal on both tests)

Twitch the GMAT: An Expert Takes the Verbal Section

So. There's several hours of viewing for you to get you started! My biggest advice as you start digging into verbal: do not expect to learn a few rules and see a score increase. Reflect deeply about how you read, interpret, and think about the ideas imbedded in written language. It's called Verbal 'reasoning' for a reason.

Dinesh654 · Answer

All these videos are good to revise concepts and to have some great additional insights such as- how to actually review CR, how to read for core of the sentence, how to focus on sentence structure to save time in SC, left to right reviewing strategy in Cr is really nice, How to track logic in CR and how to read for simple story.

I think I have a different prespective now, which is good.

Also, I noticed, when I was watching- read for simple story (the GRE video), I was struggling in unpacking the dense sentences, not all but some, the reason was, I am not aware of such phrases as- "at odds with", "on a par with" etc. Hence, when I don't even know their meaning, How can I relate that information back to the whole passage. I want to know what are these kinds of phrases called so that I can practice these phrases specifically?

eventually I did unpack them, but I realised I was taking 2-3 minutes to unpack a single sentence. In this time, I am supposed to read the whole passage. So, I have found the problem, but how to fix it now? where can I practise 20-30 of such sentences every day, in doing so I can buid a habit to get aware of these kinds? This fix can help in SC as well.

I am attaching screenchots of samples, on which I faltered.

Looking forward to a response

Thank you.

ReedArnoldMPREP · Answer

Hi Dinesh,

So for things like "on par with" or "at odds with," these are something like 'idioms.' If you come across something like this you don't immediately know the meaning of, do your best to get the meaning from other context clues. This is also good reason to read english every day, so that you are exposed to more and more phrases like this.

In the screenshots you provided, which words were the ones that got you the most stuck?

Dinesh654 · Answer

I was able to do second one, But I was slow. I was getting lost in between the text while reading. First one, I could not understand the text “ the most far-reaching campaign finance reform will fail to ______ the influence of money,”. Far reaching like in terms of what? far reaching in terms of money or distance, then how it connects with influence? Campaign that goes at its peak in terms of money?

I don’t know I couldn’t break it down. I understood the later half but not first. This happens with me occasionally in RC. Because of some part of a sentence, I don’t feel comfortable in that RC. I miss one link, I miss the whole passage. Or I interpret wrong meaning. 
As you said, I need to read a lot. I have been following The Economist recently. But where can I find good gmat like content for humanities and social science?

ReedArnoldMPREP · Answer

First off, don't even worry about reading 'gmat like' things for now, Dinesh. Read novels, read stories, read articles--just read anything to get your thoughts 'into English,' every day, so that turns of phrase like this become more familiar to you. You don't need GMAT texts for this, you just need English texts.

But regarding this sentence you referenced here--my old advice applies. If you don't know a word in a sentence, look at the words you do know, and break down those meanings to see what you can get from context. (Note also, this sentence is from the GRE, in a question type that has students choose a word to fill in the blank. So the fact that you don't have a word there is an added challenge).

But look at the sentence. Ignore the 'far-reaching' part for now.

“the most far-reaching campaign finance reform will fail to ______ the influence of money,”

What thoughts can I pull from the sentence? Start with the VERB. I know that   will FAIL to   the influence of money. So, in general, there's *something* the writer thinks could   to the influence of money... but it won't.

What is the 'something?' Well, the "most   campaign finance REFORM."

So some kind of REFORM (the 'most   campaign finance reform') WILL FAIL TO   the INFLUENCE of money.

I have a pretty dang good idea what this sentence means now, without knowing the specifics.

With a few more context clues, I could figure out what 'far reaching' means. For one, the full sentence starts with 'even': "EVEN the MOST far reaching campaign finance reforms WILL FAIL TO _____ the influence of money." That word 'Even' means that the writer is trying to show 'HOW CRAZY THIS IS!'

'HOW CRAZY IS IT that the MOST far reaching campaign finance reforms WILL FAIL TO _______ the influence of money.'

If it's 'crazy' that these finance reforms WILL FAIL, that means they are the ones MOST EXPECTED NOT TO FAIL! So 'far reaching' must be something like 'does the most to achieve the goal.'

So now I can untangle most of this sentence (except the blank word).

There are some campaign finance reforms that are most able to DO   to the influence of money...
Even those reforms will fail at DOING  .

What that 'something' is a GRE question, not a GMAT question. (I suspect it's a word like 'diminish.' The GMAT would not leave this verb out, but even without it, I can get the gist).

Start with VERBS of a sentence. Understand what that verb is. What SUBJECT does that verb? This will be a huge part of the battle.

Nkathiyawadi · Answer

When I read difficult passages it has many unknown words, too many nouns, adverbs etc. which makes it difficult to understand and remember the contexts. It feels difficult to hold all those information in the mind. These is particularly happening for difficult and dense paragraphs. My question is how do I improve my ability to read and comprehend/retain information in mind for this kind of passages ? How do I improve my abilities ? Will reading more books will help ?

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