Tips and strategies for the verbal section

Hello everyone,

I recently sent a private message to a member of the forum explaining my tips and strategies for the verbal section. I thought it might be helpful to post that information here.

I haven't yet taken a GMAT exam, but I've taken seven GMATPrep tests, and I tend to do very well on the verbal section. I tend to get 4-6 questions wrong and finish with 10-15 minutes to spare. My GMATPrep test scores are (from earliest to most recent):

1. Quantitative 46, Verbal 44, Total 730
2. Quantitative 44, Verbal 45, Total 720
3. Quantitative 49, Verbal 41, Total 740
4. Quantitative ?, Verbal ?, Total 740
5. Quantitative 45, Verbal 44, Total 720
6. Quantitative 49, Verbal 47, Total 760
7. IR 5, Quantitative 47 (76th percentile), Verbal 45 (99th percentile), Total 740 (97th percentile)

Here are some of my tips and strategies for the verbal section:

The thing that helped me most with the verbal section was simply practice. I completed the practice questions in the official guide (the GMAT Review 12th edition) 3 or 4 times. Each time, I reviewed the questions I got wrong. My review focused on figuring out why the right answer was right and why the answer I selected was wrong. I also took the GMATPrep practice exams seven times. In addition, I recently started working through practice questions in the Verbal Review (2nd edition) for the first time. So far, I've completed about one-third of the questions (and reviewed my wrong answers). That's literally all the preparation I did.

For critical reasoning (CR) questions and reading comprehension (RC) questions, it's important to make an effort to understand the passage before reading the answer choices. Also, practice is very helpful. I found that once I worked through a certain amount of questions and gained experience, for some CR and RC questions I developed a "feeling" (intuition) for what the correct answer was before looking at the answer choices. It's almost as if I figured out how the test-maker thinks. I also developed a feeling for which answer choices discuss things that are irrelevant (usually 1 or 2 choices are like this) and which answer choices look very appealing but are incorrect because a part of the choice is incorrect (usually 1 choice is like this). In short, focusing on understanding the passage, developing experience through practice and trusting my intuition made a big difference for me.

In terms of strategy, for the CR section, I read the question first, then read the passage, then reread the question and then work through answer choices. Of course, for tough questions, I may read the passage more than once and read the question more than twice.

For the RC section, I read the whole passage first. My focus is on understanding the passage. However, I also put a little effort into remembering important stuff (stuff that will likely be asked about in the questions), or I put effort into remembering where in the passage the important stuff is located. I know what's important because I did a lot of practice, and through that practice I gained a feeling for what the test-maker thinks is important. As I work through answer choices, I reread 2 to 4 relevant sentences (or on rare occasions, a whole paragraph). For "purpose-of-the-passage" questions, I'll quickly scan the whole passage. My scan focuses on the first and last sentences of each paragraph. These sentences usually summarize the topic of the paragraph. I prefer to reread/scan parts of the passage before looking at answer choices. I think I am less likely to be fooled by appealing but incorrect choices if I already have an idea of what the correct choice is before looking at the answer choices (even if it's a faint idea).

For the sentence correction section, the process of elimination is a very helpful tool. I usually narrow down my choices by eliminating wrong choices. In fact, for the verbal section in general, when I'm stumped, sometimes the best thing I do is that I eliminate choices that sound bad, so that I'm left with the best sounding choice. This strategy is very helpful for the verbal section.

Keep in mind that I don't always apply these strategies. Just like everyone else, I come across hard questions and passages (which is probably why I get 4-6 questions wrong) where I'm not able to successfully apply my strategies and have to... improvise .

My last tip is to read a lot. I don't read novels. But aside from reading textbooks or class notes, I spent a considerable amount of time reading articles about the NBA (the American professional basketball league) or video games. Reading makes me a better reader, and it is very helpful to me in the verbal section. Good luck.