Verbal Improvement

Hi Prateek, the more information you provide, the more customized the suggestions would be. For example, you could let us know the following:

i) How have you been preparing and for how long.

ii) Your scores in official mock exams.

Hi Prateek Saxena,

To start, a V40 is approximately the 90th percentile (so clearly most GMATers never score that high on the Official GMAT). Thankfully, the Verbal section is as consistent and predictable as the Quant section is, but Verbal questions have no 'safety net' - meaning that if you make a little mistake or miss a vital piece of information, then you will convince yourself that one of the wrong answers is correct (and not realize it). By extension, you have to develop a specific set of skills to correctly deal with the Overall Verbal section - and that training takes time.

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) How long have you studied? How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far? What “brands” of CATs/mocks have you used?
3) On what dates (or approximate dates) did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) What is your overall goal score?
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to?

If you took your Official GMAT at a Test Center, then you might also choose to purchase the Enhanced Score Report. While the ESR doesn’t provide a lot of information, there are usually a few data points that we can use to define what went wrong on Test Day (and what you should work on to score higher). If you purchase the ESR, then I'll be happy to analyze it for you.

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

Contact Rich at: Rich.C@empowergmat.com

Hi Prateek Saxena,
Once you are done with strategy guides, you can see video lessons 'Thursdays With Ron' for verbal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijvBigm ... RL&index=2
Best wishes!

All videos are located here gathered https://gmatclub.com/forum/mgmat-study- ... 09197.html

Here my Definitive guide to RC for those interested in https://greprepclub.com/forum/gre-readi ... tml#p61141

Most of the videos are no longer available overtime

Regards

Hi Prateek Saxena,
These link below might be useful for you;
https://www.gmatninja.com/gmat-verbal-experts
https://gmatwithcj.com/resources/critic ... questions/

Good Luck!

Hi Prateek,

First of all, a Q49 is a great score to secure in Quant Section. You clearly have almost mastered this Section. However, looking at your verbal score, you are surely on the wrong path for verbal preparation.

Your verbal score clearly indicates there are many conceptual gaps and you may need to start from scratch, revisit the concepts and get a clear understanding of them before you solve the questions. Verbal questions on GMAT are very tricky. Let me help you with the right way to approach your Verbal Prep.

How to Ace your Verbal Prep?

For GMAT Verbal, it is very important that you follow the right methodology and the logical approach. Your focus has to be on eliminating four incorrect choices rather than choosing the right one. The key is to develop a solid understanding of the concepts that are typically tested on the GMAT and master the process skills that are required to solve GMAT questions. Only then, you will be able to smartly avoid the traps set by the test makers.

Before you start learning, it's important to understand what is actually tested using the questions. Each module in Verbal (SC, CR and RC) has to be approached in a different way. For example, before you start learning the concepts of SC, you need to understand that SC questions on GMAT test your ability to convey the right meaning without any ambiguity. So, it's important to approach them from a meaning stand-point. You might have often come across answer choices which are both grammatically correct and convey a logical meaning but are indeed incorrect because they do not convey the intended meaning. So, the process to approach SC questions is to:
• Comprehend the original meaning of the sentence
• Identify errors if any (both grammatical and meaning wise)
• Eliminate answer choices which either are grammatically incorrect or do not convey the intended meaning

You can go through the link below to understand the process in a better way:
Once you start solving SC questions using a systematic approach as detailed above, you will be able to avoid taking too much time in SC questions as there will be no confusion in your mind regarding the approach. Also, improving in SC alone won’t fetch you the desired score. You need to prepare for RC and CR as well in a structured and efficient manner. You have to follow a methodical and systematic approach while solving the questions in order to work on your accuracy and increase your score. For example,
• In CR, you have to understand the argument, identify the premise and the conclusion and then pre-think the answer before looking at the solutions.
• In RC, you need to have the right reading strategies to understand the inferences which are not directly stated in the passage.

I’d recommend you to follow this order for the verbal part - SC->CR->RC. The reason for this is very specific. Each question type on the GMAT is testing a specific skill. SC tests your comprehension skills. CR tests comprehension & analytical skills. Finally, RC builds on the previous two skills and also tests your ability to be able to grasp the central point of the passage i.e. Your inferential skills. Thus, when you learn in this order, it's much more effective.

The importance of using a standard resource:

The only method to make sure that you invest your time, money and effort in an effective way is to use a standard resource which teaches you the concepts, strategies and also helps you work on your weaker areas. Studying using OG or a few random resources might help you to solve GMAT like questions but I’m afraid that they won’t be able to help you much from a strategy perspective.

I would suggest you to go for some standard course for your preparation which can help you prepare in a structured and efficient manner thereby increasing your productivity. It’s always better to spare some more time on your preparation until you are ready instead of missing out on your dream colleges/ b-schools in hurry.

GMATWhiz helps you with all these things as we follow a structured and methodical way of teaching things, which makes the learning process simpler and efficient. It also helps you to develop an understanding of the test maker’s intention behind asking the question. It uses an AI powered learning platform to provide you with real time improvement modules after every practice quiz. It provides you with additional concept videos and practise quizzes which helps you overcome your weaker areas in a specific topic right away without having to put in additional effort to identify your weaker areas.

You can check out GMATWhiz and go for it.

Here’s a link to our free trial – https://learn.gmatwhiz.com/?page=signup

Hope this helped and feel free to contact if you have any further queries.

You can always write back to me here or the better way would be to connect over a call and have a discussion. You can schedule a free consultation call using the below link.

Hi Prateek Saxena.

These two posts discuss in detail how you can increase your verbal score to V40+.

How to Score High on GMAT Verbal

Three Key Practice Tips for Mastering GMAT Verbal

At the same time, while anything is possible, going from V17 to V40 in two months would be a super fast increase. So, if V40 is your goal, you should probably plan to spend more than two months preparing.