720 on the GMAT (Q51, V36), need help to improve verbal score

Question

Hi,

I gave the GMAT a couple of days back and ended up getting a 720 (Q51, V36). This is my first attempt.

Now, although the score might seem decent, I am disappointed because of two reasons:
   I feel let down by the verbal section. I believe I can do better than a V36 
  My target score is 740 and upwards. I did get this score in 2 of the last 3 GMATprep mocks I gave

ESR Analysis

Since I can't attach the ESR (I do not have 5 posts on the platform), I will paste the text version below

Your performance on Critical Reasoning questions was equivalent to a score of 34, which is better than 65% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years. The mean score for this sub-section is 27.75.
Your performance of 100% on Analysis/Critique questions is considered Very Strong.
Your performance of 80% on Construction/Plan questions is considered Above Average.
 
  Your performance on Reading Comprehension questions was equivalent to a score of 45, which is better than 95% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years. The mean score for this sub-section is 27.26.
Your performance of 83% on Identify Inferred Idea questions is considered Strong.
Your performance of 100% on Identify Stated Idea questions is considered Very Strong.
 
  Your performance on Sentence Correction questions was equivalent to a score of 35, which is better than 72% of GMAT Exam scores recorded in the past three years. The mean score for this sub-section is 27.51.
Your performance of 50% on Grammar questions is considered Weak.
Your performance of 83% on Communication questions is considered Strong.
 
  You completed 36 questions in the Verbal section.
 
  You responded correctly to 88% of the first set of questions, 100% of the second set of questions, 71% of the third set of questions and 63% of the final set of questions.
 
  The average difficulty of questions presented to you in the first set of questions was Medium, the average for the second set of questions was Medium , the average for the third set of questions was Medium and was Medium High for the final set of questions.
 
 The average time it took you to respond to the first set of questions presented was 1:51, the average time for the second set of questions was 2:25, the average time for the third set of questions was 1:35 and 1:05 for the final set of questions.

Some initial inferences made using other ESR analyses on GMAT Club:
  
I can make out that I made 6 errors in total out of the 30 questions that are scored - 1 in the first quarter (8 questions), none in the second quarter (7 questions), 2 in the third quarter (7 questions) and 3 in the final quarter (8 questions). Given the % of questions answered correctly, would I be correct in assuming that the breakup of 6 errors is as follows?
   1 error in CR 
  1 error in RC 
  4 errors in SC

Background on the mocks

I am comfortable answering questions in quant and I have consistently maintained a Q50 level but my scores in verbal have varied a lot

GMATprep mock 1 (26/05/22) - 710 (Q49, V37 with 13 errors - 5 in RC, 4 in CR, 4 in SC) - Did not have any timing strategy for verbal and ended up guessing the last 11 questions. Improved on that in the subsequent exams
GMATprep mock 2 (02/06/22) - 740 (Q50, V40 with 6 errors - 4 in RC, 0 in CR, 2 in SC)
GMATprep mock 5 (18/06/22) - 740 (Q50, V40 with 8 errors - 0 in RC, 3 in CR, 5 in SC) 
GMATprep mock 6 (19/06/22) - 710 (Q50, V35 with 7 errors - 5 in RC, 2 in CR, 0 in SC) - Completely stumped by what happened here

To the experts  bb ,  IanStewart ,  mcelroytutoring ,  MartyTargetTestPrep ,  KarishmaB ,  GMATNinja ,  souvik101990  and whoever can help me out here:
   If my analysis of ESR is accurate, does the difference between getting a V36 and V40 boil down to getting 2 more questions correct? If not, where am I going wrong? 
  The mocks are not really helping me understand the level of accuracy I need to maintain (quantitatively) to consistently get a score of V40 and above 
  What should I change to get a score of V40 in my next GMAT attempt?

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

Gratz on the Q51 and 720. Both are things many people would love to have. A positive way to think about this is that you already have a 720 in the bag and that you just need to work on the Verbal for a 740.

What should I change to get a score of V40 in my next GMAT attempt?

How to get a V40 or higher on the GMAT? What about a V51?

Based on your ESR, you may want to pay particular attention to your SC and CR. There may also be an issue of time management since your last Verbal quarter was done with an average of 1:05 per question.

desertEagle · Answer

I think you are already on your target level. I think you had a bad day. Study for a month and i think you will get ur desired score

Best of luck

KarishmaB · Answer

Akshay,

First of all, congratulations! I am sure you know that your score is good enough for most schools, but if you come from a competitive demography or have a higher target score in mind, there is only one thing for you to do - work on SC, especially grammatical elements. That is the foremost takeaway from your ESR. Rest all analysis, though interesting, do not lead to much value add.

Work on SC and that will not only improve your accuracy in SC but will also lead to a reduction in time consumed in SC questions, which you can then invest in other verbal questions. That will be enough to take you over 740, provided you maintain your performance in rest of the sections (keep practicing!)

Best wishes!

mcelroytutoring · Answer

Good morning and thanks for the shout-out, akshay9126 .

As you may know, I am always down for a good ESR (Enhanced Score Report) discussion. First of all, congrats on the amazing perfect Q51 score! As for the Verbal section: you are correct that you answered one question incorrectly in the first quarter, zero questions incorrectly in the 2nd quarter, 2 questions incorrectly in the 3rd quarter, and 3 questions incorrectly in the final quarter — for a total of only 6 wrong out of 30 counted questions (80% accuracy). As others have already noted, you also appeared to be rushing in the final quarter of questions, where you only spent 1:05 per question (you have an average of 1 minute, 48 seconds per Verbal question). Based on my extensive ESR research, a score of V36 (80%) with only 6 counted questions wrong is unusually low. For example, I have seen a score of V40 (90%) with 10 wrong: https://i.redd.it/qc0fl9dw73y31.png On the other hand, it might make you feel better to know that I have also seen scores as low as V35 (75%) with only 5 questions wrong: https://www.drivecms.com/uploads/mcelroytutoring.com/Screen%20Shot%202021-11-24%20at%2010.09.36%20AM.png So, thanks for sharing. Your Verbal ESR is indeed fascinating to me: it provides further evidence that Quant is much more "front-loaded" than Verbal, in terms of the first 10-12 questions having the strongest effect on your score. Even though you performed very well on the first half of Verbal (only one wrong!), something about the adaptive Verbal scoring algorithm must have penalized you more than most. You must have made an error on an easy Verbal question at some point, and/or answered 2-3 consecutive Verbal questions incorrectly toward the end of the exam, possibly due to your pacing. On your next attempt, try going a little faster through the first three quarters, so that you can finish the section strongly and avoid the penalty for getting an easy question wrong. I wouldn't overreact to the question-type percentiles for RC/CR/SC in terms of evaluating your strengths and weaknesses, either — since an ESR provides a very small sample size of questions from which to generate this data. Yes, 2/3 of your overall errors were on SC, and that's definitely worth noting, but it's also possible that this particular exam served you mostly hard SC questions, and that a mistake on an easy RC or CR question somewhere along the line was in fact the real problem. If you're looking for some encouragement, then you definitely got a little unlucky as far as the overall numbers go! Thus, it's time for you to dust yourself off and schedule a retake ASAP. Rest assured that most of the time , 5-6 questions wrong is enough to secure a score of V40+. Overall, your ESR provides strong evidence that leveraging the GMAT adaptive scoring algorithm — which takes into consideration the difficulty rating of each question — still matters to your score, even on Verbal. So, what's the main lesson here? Unlike Quant, where you can stumble to the finish line and still earn a solid score , securing a 40+ score on the GMAT Verbal section requires that you finish as strongly as you start. -Brian

akshay9126 · Answer

Thanks to everyone who replied! Will work on my timing and SC and schedule an appointment sometime in the next month.

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720 on the GMAT (Q51, V36), need help to improve verbal score

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