Unexpected and painful 630 (Looking for a tutor in Verbal!)

Question

Hi everybody,
Today I took Gmat Online and scored 630 (Q48V28).
I have devoted 3,5 months of intense (3-4 hours a day) preparation predominantly to the Verbal section. I completed all RC, CR, and SC both OG and Review for several times. I definitely know the majority of questions by heart. At the final stage of my preparation, I also did a lot of questions from Gmat Prep and LSAT. Moreover, I completed the whole Verbal course from TTP with an accuracy of 80%.
 Overall, you can see my stats on the screenshot. In the last 3 months, I solved roughly 1800 Verbal questions of only medium and high difficulty (500 questions from TTP are not included). Not to mention, I have always timed myself. 
 My mock results are as follows: 
1) Gmat prep 4 October 3 - 610 (Q48, V27) 
2) Gmat prep 5 October 31 - 660 (Q48, V34)
3) Gmat prep 6 November 21 - 720 (Q49, V40)
These are mocks 4-6, the first 3 were wasted.

The most difficult part for me is RC, but I have invested a lot and felt significantly better in it in the last month. For example, I got only 2 mistakes in RC during the official mock n6. On the real exam, everything was completely different. I got a really difficult passage in the middle of the exam and It knocked me off completely. I panicked and probably did not manage to get any of the questions correct. Do not get me wrong, I think I have comprehensive reading skills as I read "the economist" on the regular basis, practiced RC every day, and had a thorough and conscious preparation.
 I did not practice a lot for a few days before the exam, slept well, and was generally well-rested. 
I do not have any more official practice tests, I know by heart all OG and review questions, spent approximately 400 hours for Gmat, but completely do not understand what to do further.
I have only a month to retake Gmat to apply in R2. 
I definitely need some tailored advice, and  I am looking for a tutor who could help me to reach V36-37 within this month. 
Thank you all very much.

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi imangulov

Here's what jumps out at me.

By doing all your verbal practice timed, you didn't give yourself time to learn to see what's going on in the questions.

This is a common issue - people answer many verbal questions but don't develop strong skills because they do all their practice timed.

To get a clearer sense of how to prepare for GMAT verbal and get the most out of your verbal practice see these posts.

How to Score High on GMAT Verbal

Three Key Practice Tips for Mastering GMAT Verbal

JamesFranco · Answer

MartyTargetTestPrep

Hi Marty, thank you for your response. 
I have read these posts several times and we even had a call in September. I followed your advice and spent a lot of time first to get the conception clarity. I am sure that I do not have any gaps in knowledge, I understand how the rules work. I had a well-structured and conscious prep, and I think 80% accuracy in medium and high-level official questions is a reliable indicator. During the exam, everything seemed different and unfamiliar in Verbal, though Quant seemed standard.
I do not really what to do. Could you give me some more advice? I am really pressed for time. 
Thank you.

sritamasia · Answer

Hey.
I'm sorry about what happened with your GMAT. 
If it matters, I was in a similar position a month or so ago. V40-V42 in mocks and V32 in the real deal.
After my test, I realized that there was a dearth of Easy and Easy-Medium questions in my 2 months of practice. The ESR never moved beyond the Medium mark.
I did everything you have mentioned. TTP, Hard Verbal Questions, LSAT, what not!

But, before my second attempt, when I went down to Easy and observed that I was making some mistakes at this level. See, the GMAT algorithm always wants to make sure that you are worthy of your score. For High Scorers, the GMAT wants to make sure that they get ALL EASY and MEDIUM ones correct. It randomly puts in some easy questions. If you make mistakes in those, your score SEVERLY goes down. This SEVERITY is absent in the mba.com mocks.

Lastly, just make sure to get a near-perfect accuracy in the Easy questions and medium questions, if you're aiming for a high score. I made some mistakes in the easy-medium questions in my second attempt too, so my average mock score of V42-44 went down to V38. Nevertheless, it didn't go too below.

Keep at it!
All the best

JamesFranco · Answer

sritamasia

Thank you for your response! 
I have definitely ignored some of the easy questions. I will focus on them. 
How much time did it take you to go from V32 to V38? 
thank you so much

sritamasia · Answer

It took me around a month. The said time is very subjective. 
I think you already have it in you. Do all the types of questions. Aim for 99% in Easy, 90% in Medium, and 80% in Hard. you'll good for a V40+

All the best!

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

OK, great. Now, you have just to improve execution.

80 percent practice accuracy does not necessarily indicate that you have things under control. You can achieve 80 percent accuracy in medium and hard official questions even if there are weaknesses in your approaches. Then, when you get to the actual GMAT and see questions that are structured in new ways, you aren't quite prepared to handle the questions.

Basically, at this point, you need to make your approaches robust enough such that you can handle questions with unfamiliar patterns and don't choose trap choices.

JamesFranco · Answer

sritamasia 
Thank you very much! 
Just one more thing, as I said, I have exhausted all official medium and high questions from official resources. What other resources would you recommend? Talking about RC, as I said during my prep I managed to solve both medium and hard RCs pretty well, but the one that I came across in the real exam frustrated me. Do you have any recommendations on how to come over it?

JamesFranco · Answer

MartyTargetTestPrep 
 
Thank you, very objective, as always. Do you have any ideas on how to achieve it having a lack of time and official questions?

sritamasia · Answer

I liked Veritas' CR Questions, Kaplan's RC Questions.
SC- Only Official Ones

JamesFranco · Answer

sritamasia

Ok, great, thank you. The last question about idioms in SC, did you drill them? Several gmat-experts told me that gmat does not check idioms anymore, but today it seemed to me that SCs were predominantly idiomatic. My friends who passed have passed the exam recently told me the same: you could easily eliminate 3 answer choices but the last 2 were different only in idioms. Do not get me wrong, I always look for meaning first, as it is the most important thing in SC, but I did not know what to do this time...
Therefore, I will appreciate it if you share your personal experience

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

You could use third-party questions. Particlularly in CR and RC, the better third-party questions will be good enough for you to learn to analyzie the questions, see what's going on, and avoid falling for trap choices.

You could also re-analyze questions you have already seen to learn to see more of what's going on in them.

To speed up the process, perhaps using a tutor as you suggested would help. There are sure to be aspects of your approach that a good tutor could help you tune up.

A month is a fair amount of time if well used.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi imangulov,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned. When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day. Before we discuss any of those potential issues though, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

1) You listed your 3 most recent CAT/mock results, but I'd like to know about ALL of your CATs. 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)?
2) What is your overall goal score?
3) What Schools are you planning to apply to and what specific application deadlines are you facing?

760+: What GMAT Assassins Do To Score at the Highest Levels

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

Contact Rich at: [email protected]

JamesFranco · Answer

EMPOWERgmatRichC

Thank you for your reply! 
My first official mock was in march 2021 and I got q45v16 (I knew nothing about Gmat). I studied for one month and got q48v17 in April. I still knew nothing about verbal. Than I abandoned my prep till August. Since august I started studying verbal thoroughly and got 620 (Q48V26) in September for mock 3. There were still many knowledge gaps as I had studied only SC. Since than my prep in Verbal was really intense (see attached screenshot). 
My fellow students put less effort but still got their v38s even in the shorter period of time. We have the same level of English. 
My target is 700.
Thank you so much !

Posted from my mobile device

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

imangulov

Hi, probably fair to say I'm approached more for Verbal tutoring than Quant recently. It can be great fun but it's also great you have analyzed where you issues specifically are in the section. Just linking a post of a recent Verbal student I tutored. There may be some helpful insight you can take:

Official V31 to V40 ~30 days:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-online- ... 68599.html

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  imangulov ,

The GMAT doesn't test "distinctively American expressions and usages", but it can (and does) still test (other) idioms.

JamesFranco · Answer

AjiteshArun 
Thank you for your reply!
Do you know where can I find an appropriate list of gmat idioms?

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi imangulov,

I've sent you a PM with some additional questions.

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

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  imangulov ,

I normally work through a set of idioms that the GMAT has tested in the past, but I don't have a list as such. That said, you are sure to find at least a few lists here on GMAT club.

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Unexpected and painful 630 (Looking for a tutor in Verbal!)

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