GMAT VERBAL

Question

Hello All,

Need help from all of you to improve my verbal score.I have been enrolled at E-gmat and going through its topics since last 2 months.I am really sorry to say that my verbal score is not at all improving.I wrote recently my CAT and scored horribly bad in verbal part as i was not able to understand most questions.I scored 37 in quants though in mocks i was scoring 45-48.There was some issue day before the exam as i could not sleep out of tension.I have to anyhow score around 650 in my next GMAT exam which i have scheduled next on Oct 5 2018.Please guide how do i need to improve in this short period.I am really fed up now

Regards

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Hi Although EGMAT is a good rated Verbal score but if it did'nt benefits you, Try Empower GMAT free SC Course, if you find it helpfull you can subscribe for monthly or a full course Here is the Link for FREE SC Course https://gmatclub.com/forum/free-sc-cour ... 70961.html PS: This offer is limited for GMAT Club Members Good Luck

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi KABIRD,

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?
2) What study materials have you used so far besides the Course you listed?
3) How have you scored on EACH of your practice CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

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

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

souvonik2k · Answer

Hi In order to improve in Verbal, the following post will help you. https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-impro ... 42361.html Alternatively, you may enroll in any other course. Read the course reviews on Gmatclub and ensure to take a free trial before you enroll. A course might suit you considering you have less time for the test. All the best.

rohan2345 · Answer

Hi KABIRD, You can try out the MGMAT guides they are phenomenal and cover the entire syllabus really well. MGMAT foundation of GMAT Quant anf foundation of GMAT verbal will particularly help you solidify your base. I must add that if you are particularly looking to discover and improve on your weak areas in Quant; a subscription to GMATCLUB tests is the best way to do that. They are indeed phenomenal and will not only pinpoint your weak areas but also help you improve on them. Please Note, that you should only do GMATCLUB tests once you have covered the base and looking to further enhance your concepts as GMATCLUB tests are a bit more difficult than the actual GMAT. Further taking multiple mocks might help. Apart from the GMATPREP, Manhattan GMAT tests and Veritas Prep Tests in my experience have good verbal and Quant section and will certainly help you point out and improve your weak areas. Further another advantage of taking many mocks is to build up your stamina. Apart from the GMATPREP tests, taking practice tests of any major GMATPREP company ought to do that. Lastly I would also encourage you to purchase the GMATPREP QP 1 for some great additional practice. Here is a link that will help you with your decision. https://gmatclub.com/forum/best-gmat-ve ... ml?fl=menu Hope this helps. All the best.

GMATPill · Answer

Here's a brain hack for verbal that might help you: Force yourself to be SUPER EXCITED about a really BORING CR/RC passage . That's right -- your level of excitement actually affects your brain's ability to remember! Just think back to all the memorable moments in your life -- a nervous first date, graduation, driving for the first time, getting your first job, etc.. These are all memorable because of emotions.

Now apply emotional spikes

to your GMAT studying! If you have no emotion when you study, then you will not remember anything by the time you finish the next few sentences! So do yourself a favor and force yourself to get excited -- yes, this is actually a skill in and of itself. Get EXTREMELY super excited -- keep asking yourself what the HECK is this author trying to say? OK, so what's the point of this next sentence? What in the world did you just say? All these questions will force your mind to be super excited -- and as a result, you will actually remember because you were reading with a specific PURPOSE and INTENT. So in summary, force yourself to be super excited about boring passages -- and this will help improve your reading comprehension. This is the tip we've recommended for students at https://www.gmatpill.com Best of luck!

GMATbuster92 · Answer

just to add , you can check below post : https://gmatclub.com/forum/what-to-do-i ... l#p2108758

TheGraceful · Answer

Although, that has worked for many, I did NOT like it when I took free trial - and yes, I was interested in Verbal part only - Hence I didn't brought it.

Here is my post about similar thing:

I would suggest - Give a try for Aristotle books. (e.g Wiley's Wiley's Gmat sentence correction Grail 2017 Aristotle, CR grail) 
I have all the praise for the SC Grail. I really like the SC Grail’s focused approach wherein it only teaches you concepts and questions that you are likely to see on the GMAT.
And yes, for self study as well as with the course, you should use that.
So far, working for me.

egmat · Answer

Hi KABIRD , I am sorry to hear that your improvement is not in line with your expectations. I would request you to write to us at support@e-gmat.com from your registered ID so that we can look and Scholaranium and course dashboard data to guide you further. Looking forward to your e-mail. Regards, Aditee

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi KABIRD,

I’m sorry to hear how things have been going with your GMAT. A major improvement in your verbal skills likely will take longer than just one month. Thus, you may consider pushing your exam to a later date. Regardless, I’m happy to provide some advice on how to improve your verbal score.

To improve your skills, you will want to follow a study plan that allows you to learn linearly, such that you can slowly build GMAT mastery of one topic prior to moving on to the next. Within each topic, begin with the foundations and progress toward more advanced concepts. For example, when studying Critical Reasoning, you need to ensure that you fully understand the essence of the various Critical Reasoning question types. For instance, do you know the importance of an assumption within an argument? Can you easily spot a conclusion? Do you know how to resolve a paradox? Do you know how to properly evaluate cause and effect? Do you know how to properly weaken or strengthen an argument? These are just a few examples; you really need to take a deep dive into the individual Critical Reasoning topics to develop the necessary skills to properly attack any Critical Reasoning questions that you encounter.

As you learn each Critical Reasoning problem type, do focused practice so that you can track your skill in answering each type of question. If, for example, you incorrectly answered a Weaken the Argument question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific question type? Were you doing too much analysis in your head? Did you skip over a keyword in an answer choice? You must thoroughly analyze your mistakes and seek to turn weaknesses into strengths by focusing on the question types you dread seeing and the questions you take a long time to answer correctly.

When practicing Reading Comprehension, you need to develop a reading strategy that is both efficient and thorough. Reading too fast and not understanding what you have read are equally as harmful as reading too slow and using up too much time. When attacking Reading Comprehension passages, you must have one clear goal in mind: to understand the context of what you are reading. However, you must do so efficiently, so you need to avoid getting bogged down in the details of each paragraph and focus on understanding the main point of each paragraph. That being said, do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can just read the intro and the conclusion and comprehend the main idea of a paragraph. As you read a paragraph, consider how the context of the paragraph relates to previous paragraphs, so you can continue developing your overall understanding of the passage. Furthermore, as you practice Reading Comprehension, focus on the exact types of questions with which you struggle: Find the Main Idea, Inference, Author’s Tone, etc. As with Critical Reasoning, analyze your incorrect answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. You can perfect your reading strategy with a lot of practice, but keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be stimulating. So, to better prepare yourself to tackle such bland passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as the Economist, Scientific American, and Smithsonian.
 
Sentence Correction is a bit of a different animal compared to Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions: what you know, such as grammar rules, what you see, such as violations of grammar rules and the logic of sentence structure, and what you do, such as carefully considering each answer choice in the context of the non-underlined portion of the sentence. To drive up your Sentence Correction score, you likely will have to work on all three of those aspects. Furthermore, the likely reason that your Sentence Correction performance has not improved is that you have not been working on all three of those aspects. 
 
Regarding what you know, to be successful in Sentence Correction, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not just a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning grammar rules is so that you can determine what sentences convey and whether sentences are well-constructed. In fact, in many cases, incorrect answers to Sentence Correction questions are grammatically flawless. Thus, often your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine which answer choice creates the most logical sentence meaning and structure.
 
This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and logical is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending under two minutes per question. For a while, anyway, you have to spend time with each question, maybe even ten or fifteen minutes on one question sometimes, analyzing every answer choice until you see the details that you have to see in order to choose the correct answer. As you go through the answer choices, consider the meaning conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does the meaning make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does the version really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do all pronouns in the sentence clearly refer to nouns in the sentence? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer to a Sentence Correction question is correct.
 
There is only one correct answer to any Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and those reasons are not that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct version often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answer were always the one that sounded right, then most people most of the time would get Sentence Correction questions correct, without really knowing why the wrong answers were wrong and the correct answers were correct. So, you have to go beyond choosing what "sounds right" and learn to clearly see the logical reasons why one choice is better than all of the others.
 
As for the third aspect of getting Sentence Correction questions correct, what you do, the main thing you have to do is be very careful. You have to make sure that you are truly considering the structures of sentences and the meanings conveyed rather than allowing yourself to be tricked into choosing trap answers that sound right but don't convey meanings that make sense. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question may take bouncing from choice to choice repeatedly until you start to see the differences between the choices that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices in a Sentence Correction question, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. It may take time for you to see what you have to see. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to be determined to see the differences and to figure out the precise reasons that one choice is correct.
 
To improve what you do when you answer Sentence Correction questions, seek to become aware of how you are going about answering them. For instance, are you being careful and looking for logic and details, or are you quickly eliminating choices that sound a little off and then choosing the best of the rest? If you choose an incorrect answer, consider what you did that resulted in your arriving at that answer and what you could do differently in order to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Furthermore, see how many questions you can get correct in a row as you practice. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could have done differently to extend your streak.

As with your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension regiments, after learning a particular Sentence Correction topic, engage in focused practice with 30 questions or more that involve that topic. As your Sentence Correction skills improve, you’ll then want to practice with SC questions that test you on skills from multiple SC topics.

Feel free to reach out with any questions.

Good luck!

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