oloman wrote:
Hello, I have been studying for the past 3 years on and off on the gmat, I have studied the past two months primarily focused on the verbal section which is my weakest link in the GMAT (im a non native).
Ive taken the real gmat 3, times, scoring a 22v, 22v, and 24v.
I have been studying with a private tutor from Vertias, and although I do "feel" that I have been improving in verbal ie: when I do drills from the
OG and so on I get a good accuracy rate (high 80s or 70s), I have not been able to get a "decent" score in verbal. I have taken 4 gmat exams since june 9 (vertias cat exams) and socred a 28v, 29v 30v and 26v (just today).
I think timing had a lot to do with my scores, the 30v score was an exam I paid a lot of attention to time/pace and I got to do the last questions, on all the other exams I had to guess the last 4 or 3.
As you can see I am extremely lost and do not know what to do going forward. I have read the mgmt SC book, taking all the lessons on demand of sc and CR on veritas, worked on RC in the
OG and problems from the VP site, and although feel that im learning more etc... I just cant get myself to score decently on a practice exam.
My goal is to get 35 in verbal, and what im most afraid is that I have tried literally everything to increase my score... done a lot of timed questions, practice the material etc...
Should I just leave the CAT exams for later and re read and do all the verbal lessons etc??
Can anyone give me a few recommendations? Has anyone else experienced something in the likes of this?
Reading comp and CR have been my lowest sections on the verbal part. SC I score quite good.
Should I just practice the verbal part of CATS and redo them on and on... until I start getting good scores? It seems that more time studying on the
og and veritas site does not correlate with good verbal score on a CAT....
Im seriously lost and in urgent need of guidance. I have tried the MGMT program, vertias etc...
Could it be that I just need a lot more time to get by verbal act together? and if so what should I do to prepare given that I have done pretty much everything out there that is recommended?
best
Oloman
Dear Oloman,
I'm happy to respond.
You have obviously put in tremendous effort so far, and I can appreciate how frustrating this is.
Here's what I'll say. First of all, you need to read. Over and above an GMAT-specific practice, you need to be reading for at least a hour a day, ideally more. See this blog article:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2014/how-to-im ... bal-score/I don't know where you are living and to what languages you are exposed on a daily basis. As much as possible, expose yourself to English. If it is possible to live without speaking to anyone in your native language, that would be ideal, at least for building your English comprehension. The more you can force yourself to consume information in English and communicate with native English speakers in English, the better off you will be.
On that same GMAT blog, there are many more articles on Verbal topics that could benefit you.
In addition, here are some free GMAT Idiom flashcards:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/flashcards/idiomsI know you have tried many companies already. Those
MGMAT books are excellent, and you may get more from re-reading them once you have advanced a little more. I will recommend
Magoosh. We have a large library of verbal video lessons. Here's a sample:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/lessons/932-str ... ing-splitsWe also have a full bank of practice questions. Here's a practice CR question:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/3799Here's a practice SC question:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/3586For each of those, when you submit your answer, the following page will have a full video explanation of the question. Each one of our practice questions has its own VE. This kind of immediate feedback, as soon as you are done with each question, accelerates learning. This is what has helped several non-native students rise beyond their expectations.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
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25 Jun 2015, 10:11
