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verbal breaker

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kk12
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verbal breaker [#permalink] New post   12 Feb 2016, 02:48
Hi Mike,

I have been scoring abysmally in verbal ie in 22-24 range.

I am done with og 16. What else shall i practice. I have a month and a half in hand.

RC and SC accuracy is the major issue.

I dont follow any rules for sc though have egmat sc module with me. Whereas RC is concerned my accuracy is only 50 percent.

Kindly guide from where can i regularly practice both.

I can reschedule my exam as well.

I have never been an avid reader :(
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mikemcgarry
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Re: verbal breaker [#permalink] New post   15 Feb 2016, 17:17
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kk12 wrote:
Hi Mike,

I have been scoring abysmally in verbal ie in 22-24 range.

I am done with og 16. What else shall i practice. I have a month and a half in hand.

RC and SC accuracy is the major issue.

I dont follow any rules for sc though have egmat sc module with me. Whereas RC is concerned my accuracy is only 50 percent.

Kindly guide from where can i regularly practice both.

I can reschedule my exam as well.

I have never been an avid reader :(

Dear kk12,
I'm happy to respond. :-)

If I remember, you are a Magoosh customer. I don't know whether you have practiced every Magoosh question already. Also, I don't know if you have watched every VE, certainly for the ones you got wrong but even for the ones you got correct. If you really want to improve your performance, you have to embrace every kind of learning opportunity.

For each question in the OG, have you come here to GMAT club, searched for the question, and read all the explanations? Again, if you want to improve, the process of learning from your mistakes should be the highest priority.

I would not recommend having rules or a formula for GMAT SC. You have to think at several different levels at once to handle SC. You have to think simultaneously about the grammar, the logic, and the rhetoric: all three of those work together in a good sentence. One can attain mastery of GMAT SC only by developing an "ear" for English, and one does this through reading. Not surprisingly, the best way to practice for RC is to read as well.

You say that you have never been an avid reader. This is precisely why it's all the more important for you to push yourself everyday to do significant reading. No other source you could consult for GMAT RC would help you as much as reading for an hour or more each and every day. The only way you are going to get your performance into the elite territory is to turn every weakness into a strength. If reading has been your weakness in the past, then do everything you can to make it your strongest possible suit.

For more material, I would also recommend the MGMAT books and the MGMAT CATs, which are very good. Don't even begin those, though, until you have firmly established a habit of reading.

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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Alchemist14
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Re: verbal breaker [#permalink] New post   15 Feb 2016, 20:38
Hi Mike,

Hope you are fine. Thank you for providing great advice on the forum. Even I am premium member of Magoosh. I have already written the GMAT and have scored 710 Q48 V38. I am aiming for 740+ this time and thus bought the Magoosh Premium Account.

I am following your advice religiously. However, I am stilling facing problems in RC. Prior to my last exam on 17th DEC 2015 I did around 200 LSAT passages as I felt the explanation provided by OG was not that great and as there was a dearth of RC material available from OG's. According to my ESR I have a 84 percentile in RC and my mean time is 2 minutes per question. As I am targeting V44 my RC percentile should be 93+. I use conventional technique- read the first question of the passage, read the passage and then attempt the questions. This strategy has given benefits but I am not able to cut down on the time that I take to read a passage. While taking LSAT Prep Tests, I used to time 60 minutes for 27/28 questions. I want to ask are there any videos or materials I can use to learn POE in RC? I am good at pattern recognition but don’t know how to use POE.

Will reading the book 'How to read faster and better' by Norman Lewis help me? Or should I read 'Manhattan RC 6th Edition'? Which book is more suitable for GMAT RC? I want to cut down on my time and I want to combine conventional techniques with POE strategies. I know that I am asking the instructor of a another test prep company this question but you hardly market your products rather you give the best advice on the do's and dont's.
Please let me know how I should proceed further in RC.

Thanks,
Rakshith

(PS I have seen all the SC videos on Magoosh, they are awesome. I watch them in the morning while going to work. Your voice is so husky that what you teach goes directly into my subconscious mind. Thanks for the amazing videos.)
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mikemcgarry
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Re: verbal breaker [#permalink] New post   15 Feb 2016, 23:20
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Alchemist14 wrote:
Hi Mike,

Hope you are fine. Thank you for providing great advice on the forum. Even I am premium member of Magoosh. I have already written the GMAT and have scored 710 Q48 V38. I am aiming for 740+ this time and thus bought the Magoosh Premium Account.

I am following your advice religiously. However, I am stilling facing problems in RC. Prior to my last exam on 17th DEC 2015 I did around 200 LSAT passages as I felt the explanation provided by OG was not that great and as there was a dearth of RC material available from OG's. According to my ESR I have a 84 percentile in RC and my mean time is 2 minutes per question. As I am targeting V44 my RC percentile should be 93+. I use conventional technique- read the first question of the passage, read the passage and then attempt the questions. This strategy has given benefits but I am not able to cut down on the time that I take to read a passage. While taking LSAT Prep Tests, I used to time 60 minutes for 27/28 questions. I want to ask are there any videos or materials I can use to learn POE in RC? I am good at pattern recognition but don’t know how to use POE.

Will reading the book 'How to read faster and better' by Norman Lewis help me? Or should I read 'Manhattan RC 6th Edition'? Which book is more suitable for GMAT RC? I want to cut down on my time and I want to combine conventional techniques with POE strategies. I know that I am asking the instructor of a another test prep company this question but you hardly market your products rather you give the best advice on the do's and dont's.
Please let me know how I should proceed further in RC.

Thanks,
Rakshith

(PS I have seen all the SC videos on Magoosh, they are awesome. I watch them in the morning while going to work. Your voice is so husky that what you teach goes directly into my subconscious mind. Thanks for the amazing videos.)

Dear Rakshith,
I'm happy to respond. :-) I don't know whether you have gotten yet to the Magoosh RC videos, done by my friend Chris Lele, but those are superb. Those tips will certainly help. I would also recommend the MGMAT RC book. I would not recommend any book on reading tips in general---anyone who doesn't know the GMAT would be preparing you for something other than what you need.

Here's the news that no one really wants to hear. The best way to increase speed, comprehension, and accuracy in GMAT RC is to read. It's that simple. Forget trying to arrive at mastery through some magical combination of tips. There is no collection of straightforward "tips" that will get you to a 740. If there were, everyone would follow them and get a 740! If you want to achieve excellence, you have to push yourself to read. Read hard challenging material in English. Read at least an hour a day, over and above any GMAT-specific preparations. As with anything, you get better by practice, practice, practice. No combination of tips will substitute for practice, practice, practice. That is precisely why you need to read every single day without fail. For more detail, see this blog and the links it contains:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2014/how-to-imp ... bal-score/

Does all this make sense, my friend?
Mike :-)
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kk12
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Re: verbal breaker [#permalink] New post   19 Feb 2016, 10:39
Hi Mike,

Hope you are great!

Thanks for the advice. I am working on reading comprehension and am making it a point to solve couple of rc's daily. I am solving rc specific magoosh questions aswell. They are excellent. Kindly guide some sources from where i can read gmat specific content daily.
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mikemcgarry
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Re: verbal breaker [#permalink] New post   19 Feb 2016, 12:24
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kk12 wrote:
Hi Mike,

Hope you are great!

Thanks for the advice. I am working on reading comprehension and am making it a point to solve couple of rc's daily. I am solving rc specific magoosh questions as well. They are excellent. Kindly guide some sources from where i can read gmat specific content daily.

Dear kk12,

I'm happy to respond. :-)

In this blog article, I give several very specific recommendations:
GMAT Reading List
In this blog article, which I believe you have seen, I give recommendations about how to use any piece of sophisticated reading to practice for the three sections of the GMAT Verbal:
How to Improve your GMAT Verbal Score
If you read those and still have questions, let me know!

Best of luck, my friend! :-)

Mike :-)
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kk12
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Re: verbal breaker [#permalink] New post   21 Feb 2016, 07:25
Hi Mike,

Thanks for the great sources. This is all i needed. :-D :-D
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Re: verbal breaker [#permalink]
21 Feb 2016, 07:25

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