Verbal nightmare

Question

Hello All,

I started my preparations in October for gmat. I took the prep tests as follows:
1. 08-Dec-12 Score 520 - Q40 V20 (SC & RC pulled my score down - 50% correct answers, CR - 70%)
2. 20-Dec-12 Score 600 - Q44 V28 (SC improved - 70% correct answers, CR - 70%, RC - 30% correct answers)
3. 19-Jan-13 Score 640 - Q48 V28 (SC again improved - 77%, CR - 40%, RC - 60% correct answers)

I spend close to 4 hours studying per day (2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening)

I am targetting a score of 700+. I have been working on OG and concepts from Manhattan GMAT.
I have taken my actual test date in first week of March. I notice that in the verbal section, I lose out on Reading comprehension, with a fluctuating CR and SC.
Kindly advise how should I approach my verbal section. I am open to reschedule my test but not sure if I should do that. 
IR and AWA I am not concentrating much as my first aim is to build a strong verbal and then approach areas such as IR and AWA.

Thank you very much.

Regards,
Pritish

JimGMATAnswers · Answer

The good news is that you are improving, so I don't know that you have to jump to reschedule the exam... See how the coming weeks go. The best advice that I can give around the verbal side is to spend a lot of time reviewing the answer explanations. Try to understand each and every piece so that you truly understand the grammatical issues for SC, the logic for CR, and how the answers link to specific lines in RC (except for the broad based questions).

jumsumtak · Answer

No need to postpone the date, yet. See where you are 10-12 days prior to your test and then take a call.

What tests are you using?
I see a steady improvement in quant but you are all over the place with verbal. Was there any co-relation between the section that you practiced leading up to the exam and the section on which you scored well on the test (for verbal) ?

Yep. Don't fret too much over AWA and IR for now. Improve your verbal and quant first.

pritish2301 · Answer

Thank you Jim. This is a very good advice. I need to review my answer choices thoroughly!
Until today my focus was only to get the question correct. Perhaps GMAT does not work that way.

Hello Jumsumtak, honestly speaking for practice questions I am referring only the OG (10,12 and 13). Unfortunately, I am not able to establish a correlation between how I practice and how I score in the exam, perhaps I will start doing that now.
I am using gmat prep test standard software shared by mba.com

On all three occassions of my test, I noticed that the number of questions were not exactly 1/3rd.
I have written down my score in last test

CR - Total questions = 10, 4 Right and 6 Wrong
SC - Total questions = 18, 14 Right and 4 Wrong
RC - Total questions = 13, 7 Right and 6 Wrong

Actually I was surprised by my CR score, I thought I was not so bad. 
RC I am happy with the improvement, I was never a good reader and I am trying my best to overcome it.

JimGMATAnswers · Answer

Exactly! You need to start to recognize why things are wrong. It will help you eliminate answers, the preferred method for selecting verbal answers.

KarishmaB · Answer

To get to around 700, you should aim for V40 or so. For a V40, you need to be strong in at least 2 of the 3 sections and at least average in the third. 
With a Q 48, I don't think you should have any problem in getting CR consistently correct. There are a few question types and very standard ways of dealing with them. If you follow the right approach, barring very few questions, you should mostly get them correct. The strategy would be something like this: Focus on conclusions when dealing with strengthen/weaken questions; Identify clearly the 2 sides of the situation in a paradox question etc. Get solid basics and questions will start making sense on their own.
SC is a lot meaning based nowadays i.e. it doesn't test old arcane grammar rules - it tests whether you are capable of identifying the option that is grammatically correct and makes sense. 
RC is a little bit about the various question types and a lot about practice. Practice as many passages a you can from history, science, economics, business - anything and everything.

pritish2301 · Answer

Thanks Karishma.
I was never keen on reading but I realise its importance now. For RC, I am using OG-10, 11 question set. I get most of the answer choices correct the second time when I do the RC. Perhaps it is more of understanding problem at the first go?
My SC is improving and somehow I notice how question setter introduces error purposefully.
CR I face troubles after from question number 100 onwards on OG.
Regards,
Pritish

TGC · Answer

Although I am not a thread starter ,I am facing same issues but with a different mock series.

I have attached my mock_track excel sheet .

Issues:

(1). CR should be attempted by rules,or merely by intuition because I found that intuition helps more in CR than rules.
(2). Whenever I do SC questions in mock I found something new some new rule or so,and get stumped so easily.
(3). RC - sometimes right sometimes wrong, so that is why from the last 2 months I am concentrating on SC/CR because 29 questions are covered by them.

My past:

Started preparing : 21 Aug 2012
Planned GMAT : 10 Dec 2012

But due to poor mock scores didn't even think of appearing in exam.

I study daily for 2-3 hrs early morning sessions and give full weekends to study, as I am working .Going to get marry in Dec '13 so definitely wanna crack before it

Karishma your two cents on above please.

Attachments

mock.JPG [ 53.77 KiB | Viewed 2774 times ]

mock.JPG [ 42.72 KiB | Viewed 2752 times ]

Karishma your two cents on above please.

Sunil01 · Answer

hi tgc,
I am in the same position as you.
How you achieved 680?
could you help me.

Thanks & regards,
Sunil01

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