Events & Promotions
|
|
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Apr 2308:00 PM PDT
-09:00 PM PDT
Video explanations + diagnosis of 10 weakest areas + 150+ short videos + study plan!
Apr 2301:30 AM EDT
-02:30 AM EDT
Struggling with GMAT Verbal as a non-native speaker? Harsh improved his score from 595 to 695 in just 45 days—and scored a 99 %ile in Verbal (V88)! Learn how smart strategy, clarity, and guided prep helped him gain 100 points.
Apr 2512:30 AM EDT
-01:30 AM EDT
At one point, she believed GMAT wasn’t for her. After scoring 595, self-doubt crept in and she questioned her potential. But instead of quitting, she made the right strategic changes. The result? A remarkable comeback to 695. Check out how Saakshi did it.
Apr 2610:00 AM EDT
-11:00 AM EDT
The Target Test Prep course represents a quantum leap forward in GMAT preparation, a radical reinterpretation of the way that students should study. Try before you buy with a 5-day, full-access trial of the course for FREE!
Apr 2711:00 AM EDT
-12:00 PM EDT
Prefer video-based learning? The Target Test Prep OnDemand course is a one-of-a-kind video masterclass featuring 400 hours of lecture-style teaching by Scott Woodbury-Stewart, founder of Target Test Prep and one of the most accomplished GMAT instructors
Apr 2808:00 AM PDT
-11:00 AM PDT
Whether you are just beginning your MBA journey or fine-tuning your path to a 700+ score, GMAT Day is designed to give you a competitive edge.
05 Mar 2025, 05:54
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hello GMAT Club Community,
I have been prepping for GMAT for about 4 months now. I wrote a mock today (set 3). I had taken mocks before, but they were from Set 1 and Set 2, so thought of taking an entirely new mock with different question set to get a fair idea of my preparation.
I got a score of 575 - Very disappointed!! My previous mock score was 675. [From Set 1 - taken the third time on 27th Jan 2025. I do not recollect seeing any repeat questions in the third attempt, barring 1 question in DI section.] So my score dropped by 100 points between last attempt and this one.
My analysis - Quant - found questions to be tougher, made some silly mistakes. Out of the 7 questions I got wrong, 6 were silly mistakes. Felt time pressure.
Verbal - Immense time pressure, need help and guidance here on how to manage time better. Couldn't finish the section. Last 2 questions left unanswered.
DI - Again, I felt time pressure.. and found Questions to be tougher.
Here are the screen shots of my mock. Order of attempting sections in the mock - Quant, Verbal, DI
QUANT
VERBAL
DI
Would request, experts bb Bunuel GMATNinja KarishmaB to please take a look and share your valuable recommendations.
My target score is 705+ and I feel totally lost.
Thanks!
GMAT-Club-Forum-gra8fkdj.png [ 39.67 KiB | Viewed 382 times ]
GMAT-Club-Forum-h5l3gusj.png [ 115.15 KiB | Viewed 382 times ]
GMAT-Club-Forum-32rjvabe.png [ 117.02 KiB | Viewed 382 times ]
GMAT-Club-Forum-kmssxetx.png [ 113.91 KiB | Viewed 385 times ]
I have been prepping for GMAT for about 4 months now. I wrote a mock today (set 3). I had taken mocks before, but they were from Set 1 and Set 2, so thought of taking an entirely new mock with different question set to get a fair idea of my preparation.
I got a score of 575 - Very disappointed!! My previous mock score was 675. [From Set 1 - taken the third time on 27th Jan 2025. I do not recollect seeing any repeat questions in the third attempt, barring 1 question in DI section.] So my score dropped by 100 points between last attempt and this one.
My analysis - Quant - found questions to be tougher, made some silly mistakes. Out of the 7 questions I got wrong, 6 were silly mistakes. Felt time pressure.
Verbal - Immense time pressure, need help and guidance here on how to manage time better. Couldn't finish the section. Last 2 questions left unanswered.
DI - Again, I felt time pressure.. and found Questions to be tougher.
Here are the screen shots of my mock. Order of attempting sections in the mock - Quant, Verbal, DI
QUANT
VERBAL
DI
Would request, experts bb Bunuel GMATNinja KarishmaB to please take a look and share your valuable recommendations.
My target score is 705+ and I feel totally lost.
Thanks!
Attachment:
GMAT-Club-Forum-gra8fkdj.png [ 39.67 KiB | Viewed 382 times ]
Attachment:
GMAT-Club-Forum-h5l3gusj.png [ 115.15 KiB | Viewed 382 times ]
Attachment:
GMAT-Club-Forum-32rjvabe.png [ 117.02 KiB | Viewed 382 times ]
Attachment:
GMAT-Club-Forum-kmssxetx.png [ 113.91 KiB | Viewed 385 times ]
05 Mar 2025, 12:06
Kudos
Bookmarks
Your score would have been about 40 points higher if you had just marked and confirmed answers to the last two Verbal questions. So, we can say that you're at more like 615 than 575.
Regarding how to speed up in Verbal, possibly the most important thing you can do is learn to efficiently identify what's essential about each Verbal answer choice and use that to determine whether the choice is the correct answer.
Some other things you can do to speed up in Verbal are the following:
Develop Stronger GMAT Verbal Skills
When someone asks me how to complete the Verbal section faster, my first question is often "What are your typical accuracies for easy, medium, and hard Verbal questions when you answer them untimed?"
I ask that question to get a sense of the person's GMAT Verbal skill level, and often the answer involves accuracies that are decent but not particularly high, such as 80 percent of easy, 70 percent of medium, and 60 percent of hard questions correct.
So, here's the thing. The main thing that makes you fast at GMAT Verbal is skill, and if you're missing, say, 30 percent of medium questions, you have a lot of room for improvement in skill. Accordingly, in such a case, the main thing you can do to speed up in GMAT Verbal is continue to develop your skills.
And somewhat ironically, a key aspect of developing stronger Verbal skills and speeding up is practicing untimed until you achieve high accuracy. Yes, untimed Verbal practice is key to speeding up because the same skills that you develop in shooting for high accuracy untimed support speed.
Be More Precise
Another key aspect of speeding up in GMAT Verbal is to be more precise in every aspect of how you answer a question.
You can see how this is going to help.
In Critical reasoning, if you read a passage more precisely, you'll be in a better position to consider the relationships between the answer choices and the argument. If you identify the conclusion more precisely, you'll more quickly eliminate choices that relate to a somewhat different conclusion rather than the one stated.
In Reading Comprehension, the more precisely you understand the meaning of statements in the passage, the faster you'll see whether they support an answer choice. If you read a question precisely, you'll avoid spending time circling through choices that don't answer the question asked.
Conversely, missing a word here and there or getting only a vague sense of the meaning of a statement can dramatically increase the amount of time you need to answer a question.
So, in all types of Verbal questions, the more precise your work is, the faster you'll answer them.
For more on being precise in Critical Reasoning, see this post.
Look for Ways to Be More Efficient in How You Answer Questions
You can do this in untimed or timed practice. Observe how you answer questions and look for ways to do it more efficiently.
For example, if you're rereading unnecessarily, train yourself to read statements just once unless you really need to read them again to understand them. If you read the question stem of a Critical Reasoning question before reading the passage, try reading it only afterward because, when you read it before reading the passage, you'll probably reread it after reading the passage as well.
Other ways of becoming more efficient are learning what kinds of keywords are easiest to find in Reading Comprehension passages and eliminating easy-out answer choices to quickly give yourself less to think about when answering a question.
So, by observing how you answer questions and finding efficiencies, you can shave seconds off the time you need to answer each question and complete the section faster.
Reduce Note-Taking
Many test-takers find that taking notes helps them remain focused and keep things straight when answering Verbal questions. At the same time, taking notes takes time. So, often, test-takers find that a great way to speed up in Verbal is to take fewer notes.
Don't Seek to Remember or Process All Details of Reading Comprehension Passages
Often RC passages include a lot of detail. For example, as passage about agriculture may compare techniques used in different regions, as in "In region A, they use technique Z. Region B they use technique Y. In region C, they combine what's done in region A and B, and in region D, traditional methods are still used."
Even what those basic sentences say is a little challenging to keep track of, and in reading a passage with many such sentences, you could easily get bogged down and take a lot of time to complete it.
So, the move is to realize that you can always go back to the passage for such details if you need them to answer a question and not to bother trying to remember them or even fully process them if doing so takes much effort.
Instead, you can just get the general idea of what they are, as in "OK, different regions have different techniques," and notice where in the passage they are discussed so that you can easily find them if you need them.
Don't Take Time to Predict Critical Reasoning Answers
I know many people suggest predicting CR correct answers, but predicting answers takes precious time without adding much value.
For one thing, predicting an answer takes time just because it's another step to take.
For another, once you've predicted an answer, having that answer in mind can cause you to take longer to answer the question by distracting you from the answer choices that you have to choose from.
Sometimes, it's relatively easy to predict the correct answer to an easy question, but in the case of harder questions, the correct answer will often be different from anything you would have predicted. So, the time spent predicting an answer and then being distracted by your prediction is often an investment with little to no payoff.
Yes, it can help to think about the argument and what the correct answer has to do, but predicting a specific answer takes time and doesn't really help.
For insights into how to strengthen your GMAT Verbal skills, see this post.
How to Prepare for GMAT Verbal
Regarding how to speed up in Verbal, possibly the most important thing you can do is learn to efficiently identify what's essential about each Verbal answer choice and use that to determine whether the choice is the correct answer.
Some other things you can do to speed up in Verbal are the following:
Develop Stronger GMAT Verbal Skills
When someone asks me how to complete the Verbal section faster, my first question is often "What are your typical accuracies for easy, medium, and hard Verbal questions when you answer them untimed?"
I ask that question to get a sense of the person's GMAT Verbal skill level, and often the answer involves accuracies that are decent but not particularly high, such as 80 percent of easy, 70 percent of medium, and 60 percent of hard questions correct.
So, here's the thing. The main thing that makes you fast at GMAT Verbal is skill, and if you're missing, say, 30 percent of medium questions, you have a lot of room for improvement in skill. Accordingly, in such a case, the main thing you can do to speed up in GMAT Verbal is continue to develop your skills.
And somewhat ironically, a key aspect of developing stronger Verbal skills and speeding up is practicing untimed until you achieve high accuracy. Yes, untimed Verbal practice is key to speeding up because the same skills that you develop in shooting for high accuracy untimed support speed.
Be More Precise
Another key aspect of speeding up in GMAT Verbal is to be more precise in every aspect of how you answer a question.
You can see how this is going to help.
In Critical reasoning, if you read a passage more precisely, you'll be in a better position to consider the relationships between the answer choices and the argument. If you identify the conclusion more precisely, you'll more quickly eliminate choices that relate to a somewhat different conclusion rather than the one stated.
In Reading Comprehension, the more precisely you understand the meaning of statements in the passage, the faster you'll see whether they support an answer choice. If you read a question precisely, you'll avoid spending time circling through choices that don't answer the question asked.
Conversely, missing a word here and there or getting only a vague sense of the meaning of a statement can dramatically increase the amount of time you need to answer a question.
So, in all types of Verbal questions, the more precise your work is, the faster you'll answer them.
For more on being precise in Critical Reasoning, see this post.
Look for Ways to Be More Efficient in How You Answer Questions
You can do this in untimed or timed practice. Observe how you answer questions and look for ways to do it more efficiently.
For example, if you're rereading unnecessarily, train yourself to read statements just once unless you really need to read them again to understand them. If you read the question stem of a Critical Reasoning question before reading the passage, try reading it only afterward because, when you read it before reading the passage, you'll probably reread it after reading the passage as well.
Other ways of becoming more efficient are learning what kinds of keywords are easiest to find in Reading Comprehension passages and eliminating easy-out answer choices to quickly give yourself less to think about when answering a question.
So, by observing how you answer questions and finding efficiencies, you can shave seconds off the time you need to answer each question and complete the section faster.
Reduce Note-Taking
Many test-takers find that taking notes helps them remain focused and keep things straight when answering Verbal questions. At the same time, taking notes takes time. So, often, test-takers find that a great way to speed up in Verbal is to take fewer notes.
Don't Seek to Remember or Process All Details of Reading Comprehension Passages
Often RC passages include a lot of detail. For example, as passage about agriculture may compare techniques used in different regions, as in "In region A, they use technique Z. Region B they use technique Y. In region C, they combine what's done in region A and B, and in region D, traditional methods are still used."
Even what those basic sentences say is a little challenging to keep track of, and in reading a passage with many such sentences, you could easily get bogged down and take a lot of time to complete it.
So, the move is to realize that you can always go back to the passage for such details if you need them to answer a question and not to bother trying to remember them or even fully process them if doing so takes much effort.
Instead, you can just get the general idea of what they are, as in "OK, different regions have different techniques," and notice where in the passage they are discussed so that you can easily find them if you need them.
Don't Take Time to Predict Critical Reasoning Answers
I know many people suggest predicting CR correct answers, but predicting answers takes precious time without adding much value.
For one thing, predicting an answer takes time just because it's another step to take.
For another, once you've predicted an answer, having that answer in mind can cause you to take longer to answer the question by distracting you from the answer choices that you have to choose from.
Sometimes, it's relatively easy to predict the correct answer to an easy question, but in the case of harder questions, the correct answer will often be different from anything you would have predicted. So, the time spent predicting an answer and then being distracted by your prediction is often an investment with little to no payoff.
Yes, it can help to think about the argument and what the correct answer has to do, but predicting a specific answer takes time and doesn't really help.
For insights into how to strengthen your GMAT Verbal skills, see this post.
How to Prepare for GMAT Verbal
05 Mar 2025, 23:35
Kudos
Bookmarks
Thanks MartyMurray for going through my post and sharing your valuable insights. I will analyze and evaluate myself in each of the specific improvement areas mentioned and hopefully get to the finish line for verbal.
