Verbal score stuck

Question

Hi guys. I have given gmat multiple times,but i am not able to improve my verbal timing. 
My first gmat score was quant 41 verbal 21
I gave gmat yesterday and i improved my quant from 41 to 50 but my verbal is stuck.

Now i am planning to give gmat in another 20days. Though i have the ability to solve verbal questions but when clock is ticking,i tend to forget my basics and i mark random answers.

Please recommend me some time management strategies on verbal.

I have attached my esr. I will be giving another gmat within this month.

PS- I already have 32 on verbal but this time i got 27 . If i would have got 32 this time as well ,i would have been very close to 700(my dream score).

Please check my esr and help me overcome my low verbal score.

Thanks

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi navjot177,

Before we discuss the data in your ESR, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) How long did you study before each of your Official GMATs and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
5) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi navjot177.

When a person's verbal score is "stuck," generally the issue is that the person is not training for verbal optimally.

Each level of verbal score indicates a level of sophistication of verbal thinking. So, to make your verbal score increase, you have to increase the level of sophistication of the thinking that you are applying when answering GMAT verbal questions.

For example, one can score in the upper 20's to low 30's in verbal by using some simple strategies, such as looking for grammar issues in Sentence Correction answer choices and eliminating extreme or seemingly irrelevant choices in Critical Reasoning questions. At the same time. there is no way to consistently get verbal questions correct by using such strategies. Questions above a certain difficulty level become too sophisticated for such strategies to work. Sentence Correction questions can have multiple choices that are basically grammatically flawless. More difficult Critical Reasoning questions have correct answers that may seem unrelated to the arguments presented. Reading comprehension questions have multiple answers that are very similar and seem to match what the passage says.

So, you won't get higher-level verbal questions correct by training to use basic strategies. You have to learn to use more sophisticated approaches.

So, to drive your verbal score higher, you need to slow way down when practicing and learn to see more clearly what's going on in the questions. In order to train to see what's going on in questions, you have to carefully analyze questions and seek to CLEARLY AND THOROUGHLY DEFINE why every wrong choice is wrong and every correct answer is correct. You could use for this purpose even questions that you have already seen, because you won't be merely seeking to determine which answers are correct. You will be carefully analyzing each choice to determine what exactly about that choice makes it correct or incorrect.

Do you see why doing this type of work will drive your score up?

By training to clearly see the logic that makes each wrong answer wrong and each correct answer correct, you won't be at the mercy of GMAT verbal, seeking to use gimmicky, basic strategies to find correct answers. You will become a master of GMAT verbal who sees exactly what's going, avoids trap answers, and uses sophisticated thinking to consistently arrive at correct answers.

At first, it may take twenty minutes per question to do this type of analysis. You'll speed up though. If you can see what's going on in twenty minutes per question, you can learn to see it faster.

It can take a lot of work to move the needle in GMAT verbal. You won't increase your score much by using half measures. At the same time, if you carefully and thoroughly analyze every choice in dozens of verbal questions day after day, learning to get close to 100% of verbal questions correct in practice, you can drive your verbal score as high as you want.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi navjot177,

I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. So first off, I’d like to address your timing issues with GMAT verbal.

The first thing to understand is that timing on the GMAT, as in life, improves as your knowledge, understanding, and skill improve. Timing does not improve simply by “trying to go faster.” In fact, when people try to force speed before they’re ready to go faster, they tend to end up making a significant number of preventable mistakes. Sometimes these mistakes badly erode people’s test scores. In addition, when people rush learning -- a common pathology of those trying to force speed -- they actually never end up developing the speed they seek. One of the great paradoxes of learning is that to develop speed, a student must slow down to ensure that he or she masters the material. Consider the following examples, which hopefully will bring you some more clarity:

Imagine your goal were to run a mile in four minutes, a difficult feat even for professional athletes. So, you get yourself a running coach. You show up on the field and ask, “Coach, how do I get faster?” The coach responds, “Well, just run faster.” So, you try your best to “run faster,” but you can't; you’re running a 12-minute mile. Out of breath, you come back to the coach and say, “Coach, I stink. How do I get faster?” Again, he says, “Just run faster.” So, you try again, but this time you fall and skin your knees. You keep trying to run faster. On the tenth attempt, you pull your hamstring, falling to the ground in pain. Over your next four months of recovery, you ponder why you couldn't run faster.

That situation would be insane, right? No qualified running coach would ever provide you with that advice, because the coach would understand that no one gets faster merely by trying to run faster. Instead, the coach would set you up on a linear, comprehensive plan to make you a BETTER runner. He may have you run progressively longer distances at relatively slow speeds. He may have you run up and down the stairs at the football stadium. He may have you run up and down hills. He even may have you engage in strength training, yoga, or Pilates to make you a more fit athlete. After all of that training, he finally would bring you back on the field and time you running the mile. At that point, he’d coach you on how to push yourself through the pain of sprinting and help you to understand what a four-minute-mile pace feels like. He now could help you with those things because you would be in the necessary shape to be receptive to them. So, you begin your run, and BOOM! You run a 6-minute mile. What happened? Well, you became a better runner. You became a fitter athlete. You became stronger. Although you’re not yet at the four-minute-mile mark, your training has yielded considerable improvements.

Now imagine your goal were to play a complicated song on the piano. The tempo at which a pianist plays greatly impacts the way a song sounds. To make songs sound the way they should, often a pianist must play at a fast pace. But your experience with the piano is limited. Can you imagine trying to play the complicated song at full speed right at the outset? Doing so wouldn't be possible. Instead, you first need to master many aspects of the piano -- without really trying to get faster. In fact, you need to proceed slowly at first, sometimes very slowly. As you master the piano, you find that you’re able to play your song at progressively faster tempos. With time and dedicated, proper practice, you’re able to recreate the sound you seek. If in the early days of practicing you had tried to force speed instead of mastering your technique, you never would have gained that speed. You never would become truly accomplished at playing the song.

The process of getting faster at solving GMAT questions is quite analogous to the process of improving one’s running speed or ability to play the piano at the proper tempo! To get faster, you must get better. As you further develop your GMAT skills, you will get faster at a) recognizing what a problem is asking and b) executing the necessary steps to quickly attack the problem.

The key takeaway is that as you develop stronger GMAT verbal skills, better timing will follow. In fact, a great way to know how well you have a mastered a particular topic is to be cognizant of how you react when seeing a question involving that topic. For instance, consider the following simple question, which might be challenging for someone just beginning to work on Sentence Correction:

The researchers traveled into the rainforest to observe monkeys while swinging through the trees, using their hands, feet, and tails.
(A) traveled into the rainforest to observe monkeys while swinging

(B) traveling into the rainforest, observing monkeys that were swinging

(C) traveled into the rainforest to observe monkeys, swinging

(D) traveled into the rainforest to observe monkeys, which swing

(E) were traveling into the rainforest to observe monkeys in order to swing

Looking at this question, a test-taker might quickly see that choice (B) can be eliminated because the version created via the use of (B) has no main verb, and that choice (E) can be eliminated because the version created via the use of (E) conveys the nonsensical meaning that the researchers were traveling into the rainforest in order for the researchers to swing through the trees, using their hands, feet and tails.

Then, having eliminated those two choices, the test-taker could end up using a lot of time circling through choices (A), (C), and (D), not sure what’s wrong with any of them.

However, a person who has studied modifiers would know that, when a closing “–ing” modifier is preceded by a comma or begins with preposition, such as “while,” that “–ing” modifier targets the preceding subject verb combination. So, a person with that knowledge would quickly recognize that “while swinging …,” in (A), and “swinging” preceded by a comma, in (C), target the subject and verb of the preceding clause, which are “researchers traveled,” Thus, that person would see that (A) and (C) convey the illogical meaning that the researchers were swinging through the trees, using their hands, feet, and tails, and that, therefore, the only choice that works is (D).

Although this is just one example of many, you see that you must have many tools in your toolbox to efficiently attack each GMAT verbal question that comes your way. As you gain these skills, you will get faster.

With all that being said, you may need some more time to improve your GMAT verbal skills, but I’d consider taking your GMAT at a later date.

If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out.

Good luck!

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi Navjot, your performance in the second quarter of Verbal, played a major role in your eventual low score.

Also, it is clear that you had time management issues towards the end of the exam. Your average time per CR question (1:32) is lower than what we have normally seen for other candidates (approx 2:00). That might have played a role in your lowest percentile in CR.

How have you been preparing for Verbal?

Since you are planning to re-appear in a short duration of 20 days, at this point, I would not suggest any fundamental change in strategy; you might just want to work on arriving at a more optimum time-management for the next attempt.

p.s. Your improvement from Q41 to Q50 is just phenomenal. Kudos!

navjot177 · Answer

Hi,
Gmat journey has been really painful for me. Being a asian, i always faced difficulties in verbal. I have given 7 gmat attempts. Yes 7.
Now i think i will never be able to achieve 700. Though i was really close this time,a verbal 34 would have made it. But it was not my destiny.
I did a lot of hardwork to convert my quant from 41 to 50 ,but verbal killed all my dreams. I truly believe that i have mastered the wrong approach in verbal.
Having said that, i will give a last attempt as well. Because 8 is the maximum that i can give.

Probably i will hire a verbal tutor and will try my best to maintain my quant score and probably get more than 35 on verbal.

If any experts would like to give me a advice on how to kill gmat on my last attempt,it would be really greatfull. A 2 month verbal guide.

Probably, now i will give gmat after 2 months.

Lets hope i can maintain 50 on quant and get 35+ on verbal.
Fingers crossed

navjot177 · Answer

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi navjot177,

From your original post, it was not clear that you had taken the GMAT 7 times already. You seem to understand that this next attempt will be your last attempt, so you should not 'rush in' to retest. Before I can offer you the specific advice that you're looking for, I'd like to know more about your prior studies and Official attempts. If you would rather discuss that privately though, you can feel free to PM or email me directly.

Studies:
1) How long did you study before each of your Official GMATs and how did you score on EACH attempt (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?
2) What study materials have you used so far?

Goals:
3) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
4) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

navjot177 · Answer

I will definitely ping you within 2 months after i will get above 700 on my last (8th attempt).

harshutd1993 · Answer

Hi , can you please tell us how did you improve your quant score? I have given given GMAT twice and got 36 in quant both times. 
Thanks.

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