NEED HELP with VERBAL increase from 27 to 38-40

Question

Dear Gmatclub community,

i need your help. The problem is that today i had my official GMAT and i merely scored 27 on Verbal. Please help me to increase my score to 38-40 or guide me in the right direction.

What i did and my strategy:
1. SC - average number of correct responses among all level is 75% (easy - 91%, Med- 74%, Hard - 64%) - i did all problems in your course. Average score using other resources is around 80%. Approach was: Read, understand the meaning, look for mistakes in original sentences, scan the rest of the choices keeping in mind the mistakes from original and eliminate wrong choices.
2. CR - average score 72% ( Easy - 86%, Med- 76, Hard -50%) , average score using other resources around 75%-80%. Approach: Read Question, Read Passage, Read question again and pre-think answer, eliminate wrong asnwers.
3. RC - 58% (Easy - 52%, Med- 64% , Hard - 55%), average scores using other resources near 70%. Approach: When i see passage first time, i read question first, then use active reading mentally summarizing after each para, after that answer Main point - based on my summary - and Specific - find the answer in the text.

Please help me and guide me, how to reach my target score of 38-40.

Also, i took following cats and those are results and dates:
8/02 - 640 Q48/V30 - GMAT PREP 1
8/25 - 660 Q48/V33 - 800 Score
9/01 - 700 Q47/v38 - 800 Score
9/08 - 720 Q47/v42 - 800 Score
9/14 - 650 Q49/V29 - GMAT Prep 2
9/21 - 640 Q49/V27 - Official 
All the CATs i took under real gmat conditions including AWA and IR. Last 2 cats i had taken at the same time i took official GMAT. GMAT prep 2 low Verbal score i account to the fact that i didn't sleep well. That being said i don't know what to do and how to move forward towards my target score.

Resources used:
  E-gmat Live Verbal prep + Scholarium
GmatClub tests
GmaClub questions by directories
OG 13
Official GMATPREP collection of SC, CR and RC.
Manhattan.

PLEASE, help me!!!

ske · Answer

try to work on basic concepts and practice full og's. Problem is that you are not working on basics and running on questions. At end clear your concepts and manage time under pressure. if you need more help kindly pm me.
thanks

aniteshgmat1101 · Answer

Hi mika84,
At this point in time you will have to be really honest with yourself.
After every set of questions whether its SC, CR or RC, ask yourself: 
Q: "Have you really followed the process you learnt in e-GMAT course?"

Try to judge your internal tendency while solving the problems. Is it a knee jerk reaction to come to an answer option and move on, or is it a well thought process to reach the correct answer? 
Some introspection is required.

Remember, GMAT is about following the correct PROCESS under limited TIME. You cant separate the 2 things and reach to a great score. Also, practice to make table of options (A, B, C, D and E) and strike-out the wrong options while you do POE. This helps a lot in pressurized situations and saves time on re-reading the options.
I would recommend you to practice more on process than on huge number of problems, to gain confidence.

Best of Luck Buddy.!!

mika84 · Answer

Hi,
thank you for suggestions, i will do try those more thoroughly. 
More or less i do follow e-gmat process of elimination - sometimes i end up with 2 options and i choose wrong one.
I just can't understand my mocks besides GMATprep showed consistently good Verbal scores above 30+.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi mika84,

With the drop you saw in Verbal Scaled Score, there are a few likely causes:
1) Something about Test Day was surprising, so you were not properly prepared to face it.
2) Some of the materials you used were not realistic, so you were not properly trained for Test Day.
3) You mis-used some of your materials, so you received unrealistic score results during practice.

From a Tactical standpoint, the 'steps' that you describe for SC, RC and CR seem a bit problematic (and by extension, you could be using different Tactics and you'd likely see a better score result).

1) Have you scheduled your next GMAT yet?
2) When are you planning to apply to Business School?

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

mika84 · Answer

Thank you for your help. I do feel that my preparation wasn't efficient enough, but i don't know where. 
About your comments: 
1) Something about Test Day was surprising, so you were not properly prepared to face it. - I didn't sleep well, but i don't think that influenced that drop in score
2) Some of the materials you used were not realistic, so you were not properly trained for Test Day. - Could be, there are not so many Official Problems, but i used GmarPREP everything official collection here on Gmat forum. Also my score for 800score GMAT were good in verbal section, so assume the score isn't representative of real score one may get on GMAT.
3) You mis-used some of your materials, so you received unrealistic score results during practice. - I've tried not to use the same material in preparation, when i see the problem that i recognize and if remember how it was solved i just skip it, thus my preparation wasn't influenced.

1) Have you scheduled your next GMAT yet? - Not yet, But i believe in 1-1.5 month i will have next one
2) When are you planning to apply to Business School? - 2 round, although i wanted to apply in 1st round.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi mika84,

Your first and last CAT Scores (the GMAT Prep CATs) are remarkably similar to your Official GMAT Score. Since the Scaled Scores are so close, this implies that you continue to 'see' (and respond to) the GMAT in the same ways that you did when you began studying. To make that type of big improvement to your Verbal Scaled Score, you're going to have to commit to a particular set of Tactics and then practice enough so that they become second-nature.

1) How many hours do you think you'll be able to study each week?

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

mika84 · Answer

20-30 hours a week. What kind of tactics you are suggesting?

aniteshgmat1101 · Answer

Hi Mika,
I completely understand the situation you are going through, but the good news is you are not alone. Everyone has to go though this phase. My first attempt was disaster too (610- V22), but only after through introspection by writing down the exact experiences I could manage to get (700- V38) in my second attempt with a bad luck to get 3 out of 4 RCs on Humanity (I dreaded the most). There are following important things you should consider while preparation:

1) Write down the problems you were facing during your actual exams. For example: I faced problem to re-reading the options, time pressure, not cheerful during Verbal section. And also write the possible reasons why you faced such issues. My reasons were: Stressed during Quant section, Not practiced much on AWA etc. which increased stress level during verbal section.

2)Remember: Each section though separate but interrelated because its one person who is going through each section during exam and stress does carry forward. So, be sure that you have practiced the previous sections (AWA, IR and Quant) well enough so that you glide through them smoothly, and stress does not carry forward to hamper your performance in Verbal section. As you might know by now that we do bad in GMAT Quant because of silly mistakes not because of the sheer complexity of the problem itself. So, keep practicing and revising Quant concepts

3)As far as scores in verbal is concerned, you will have to make your own strategy based on your strong and weak areas. My strategy was as follows:
- I could realize that keeping RC or CR as weak area will get me anywhere even near 40, as I saw that some of my friends who scored good in verbal were good at RC and CR. 
- My weakest area was RC, I never practiced much on it. Strongest was SC. So, I decided to use SC questions for time savers diring exams by practicing to solve SC questions within a minute and saved time for RC and CR.

- To be good at RC, you will have to be good at CR also. Find a way that suits you in RC, don`t get frustrated during practice if you take time to find out the best suited way. I took 15 days to realize that making notes during RC does not suit me. Rather making maps in mind suited me well. Gradually, I had all most 3-4 out of 4 questions correct each time (if the psg is not on HUMANITY ). Practice on RC everyday along with some questions on CR and SC.

- Spend thorough time to see WHY you made the mistake, not only WHAT was the mistake. Reason your mistake with your behavior (I mean just by saying that I was feeling sleepy will NOT do). Go one level deeper and ask yourself: So what you were sleepy ? How less sleep effected you that you ended up making the mistake? 
Believe me, most of the time mistakes are made not because of external factors like less sleep, noise etc, but because actually we missed something in the stem.

- Always divide time for verbal exam keeping in mind that you will get RC in the last 6 questions (most stressed time period). Solve 1st 8-10 questions with due diligence. During my GMAtPrep mocks I saw drastic changes in marks if I made 2-3 mistakes in first 10-12 questions. I drains your score down. Assuming that first few questions will be comparatively easy, solve them with confidence and without making silly mistake.

Best of Luck...and dont loose hope.
Anitesh

mika84 · Answer

Hi,
yesterday i took GMAT test again and scored 680 (Q49,V33), which is below my target score of 720. Can someone please guide me in the right direction how to get 38 on verbal and increase my quant from 49 to 50 -51 (i scored 49 twice already)
What i did this time to improve Verbal:
1. SC - 80-85% accuracy on different sets including Everything official GMAT, had error log, every time tried to eliminate wrong answers spotting different errors in them. It did help to boost my score.
2. CR- 80% accuracy, tried to pre-think the answer for every question. For difficult questions have timing issue
3. RC- 75% accuracy, tried to solve at least 4 passages a day (12-15 questions). Tried to immerse in the passage and to understand the structure.

On my mocks: Kaplan, Veritas - i scored above 35 on Verbal.

Honestly,i'm exhausted, but need to hit my target score not only to get to my TOP Choice schools (Darden, Kellogg, Kelley,Emory, McCombs), but also to get decent scholarship. 680 is a good score, but it will not get me a decent scholarship

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NEED HELP with VERBAL increase from 27 to 38-40

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