please help me figure out, how to proceed further

Question

First of all thanks all for taking time out to read

I am new to this forum.
I started preparing in March this year, prepared for one and half months and I gave 3 mocks and in the final mock, I got 650 (50Q,29V). Then I took a two months break due to my college semester exams and projects and started from 1st of June to prepare again. I know what matters is improving my verbal score. So I started working exclusively on verbal and I have devoted 2 weeks totally preparing for CR and SC. I have improved my accuracy to 75-80% when I am doing practice problems but, the moment I give any sectional SC or CR test like the free ones by E-Gmat or any others my accuracy falls to 50-60%. I have done CR from Powerscore GMAT and SC from Aristotle SC Grail. But I don't know how I have read so many articles about how to improve but I am not able to improve. I take average 2:15 mins to solve a CR question correctly and it takes me 1:10 sec for SC. I can't decide how exactly to proceed. Kinda stuck.
I am not able to comprehend where I am lacking and what can I do to improve. I have to give GMAT by the first week of august to submit my score. I am targeting to get 730-750.

Please suggest anything that could help in my case
Thanks all

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi nikita_khanna95,

There's a big difference between doing well on a 'block' of Verbal practice questions and performing at that same level during the Verbal section of an adaptive CAT (in the final 75 minutes of a 4-hour Exam). There's also a big difference between doing lots of practice questions and learn/practicing Tactics so that you can take advantage of the patterns that exist in all GMAT questions (and in the answer choices to those questions). This is all meant to say that you will likely have to make some fundamental changes to how you study and how you approach Verbal questions if your goal is to score at a much higher level in that section.

1) What 'steps' do you go through when dealing with a typical SC, RC or CR prompt?
2) When was the last time that you took a FULL-LENGTH CAT (with the Essay and IR sections) and how did you score on that CAT (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)?

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

nikita95 · Answer

Thanks Rich for responding to my query

1) The way I approach a CR question is- - Read the question just to know the type - Read the stimulus and then jot points out of stimulus on paper (this takes time) - Then I try to think the assumptions or flaws in the argument and proceed to the answer choices. - It takes me 2:15-2:30 mins on a medium level CR to get it right and 3:00 mins in case of EXCEPT WEAKEN. -Moreover, I am not able to weaken questions easily and it takes me a lot of time while jotting down points For SC (there is a difference in the way I approach when I do the question in practice and when I do it in timed environment) - Usually while practice or doing on paper, I read the question stem and try finding out errors and then eliminate the answer choices which I see have the same type of error. - But when I am doing it on screen things are different, I don't know how I end up not reading the question statement, even if I read the initially underlined part, I am not able to find the initial errors and I end up reading all answer choices, get confused in the closest two and end up marking a wrong answer. For RC it is been months that I have done an RC question. The last time I attempted an RC was in my full-length mock. This is the most dreaded part. 2) The last full-length mock that I gave was on 30/3/2016. It been two months : I scored 650 (50 maths, 29 verbal ,IR 4). NOTE: I had to take a break due to my college semester exams. I have started preparing again. I started from 1st June again and worked on CR one week, then one week SC now I am stuck and confused with the accuracy statistics. I am not able to decide how should I plan and work further. I have to submit my score by august 1st week to ISB. Thanks

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi nikita_khanna95,

Since you've been studying some Verbal material for the last couple of weeks, it would be a good idea to take a new, FULL-LENGTH CAT (with the Essay and IR sections) so that we can get a sense of your current skills. That score will help to define what you should focus on in the coming weeks. Once you have that score, you should report back here.

From what you describe about the 'steps' you use, your CR approach seems fine, but your SC approach seems questionable. Since you've studied each question type for such a short period of time, it's understandable that you would have some pacing issues (you're not familiar enough with the structure/style of those questions to know all of the little patterns and secrets yet). However, if you're continuing to work through blocks of questions without a clear set of Tactics, then you're likely limiting your potential improvement.

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

pwnuts · Answer

Hi nikita_khanna95,

I was facing a similar problem as yours until last week. 'Only' the SC Grail is not sufficient to go about SC, the back problems do give you confidence (I had decent accuracy in those too) but the content somehow doesn't match up to actual GMAT level prep.

I bought the MGMAT SC Strategy Guide, it is a great addition. They have explained every type in detail and explained how to go about every subtopic. You should check it out, sells for less than Rs. 1000 on Amazon.

Hope this helps.

nikita95 · Answer

Thanks, Rich...

I am going to give one FULL LENGTH exam on 18th or 19th and will report you the score, moreover, I checked out the empower great website the one month course seems pretty impressive. I am planning to take one next month to gear up my preparation. Moreover, if you could suggest me how to keep up to with RC...

I have also started working on Manhattan SC guide, I think SC Grail for not sufficient.

Thanks

nikita95 · Answer

Heyyy...

Thanks a lot

Your advice actually solved my dilemma of whether to start with Manhattan SC or not. The back questions on SC Grail were easy I feel. I was able to keep up with accuracy there.

I want to ask you a thing I have Manhattan SC guide 5th edition with me (borrowed from my friend). Are there any significant changes in the new one or should continue using this one ?

Also, as you have read both Manhattan and SC Grail what is your take on Manhattan in comparison to SC grail...

Thanks a lot for help

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi nikita_khanna95,

I still think that it's important for you to take a new FULL-LENGTH CAT, so that we can see how well you've improved. Given everything that you've described, I think that you would likely find the EMPOWERgmat Verbal Score Booster to be quite helpful, but the more data that we have to work with, the better.

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

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi Nikita, the time that it is currently taking you per question of SC (1 minute 10 seconds) is perfectly fine. So, it is not about time, but accuracy rate!

Thought I would also take this opportunity to mention that our sentence correction book  Sentence Correction Nirvana  is perhaps the  only  book that offers a score improvement  guarantee , and is especially designed for  non-native  speakers.

After reading the book  twice  (yes! it's an  academic  book, and so must be read twice in all seriousness, to  reinforce  the concepts), you will start looking forward to solving SC questions!

The book is available on  Flipkart  and  Amazon.in . You might want to refer to these sites, to also read testimonials of how readers have benefited.

See  here  how Mohit, who scored 750 on GMAT, vouches for our book.

If you want to  sample  a chapter before deciding to go ahead with our book, please PM me your mail-id (along with the chapter that you would like to sample) and I will be happy to send that chapter to you by mail. In addition, the entire Grammar section of the book is also available for free preview at  pothi .

please help me figure out, how to proceed further

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