How can I push my verbal score to the next level? (V40+) Stuck at V37

Question

Hi Everyone,

Need some help with pushing my verbal score to the next level. Just took the GMAT last week for the second time and received a 720 (Q50 V37). Although I know this is a good score I am still disappointed in my verbal score as I am shooting for a 740 overall.

For reference here are my two official scores: 
Official GMAT 1 7/6 : 710 (Q49 V37) 
Official GMAT 2 7/29 (Online): 720 (Q50 V37)

What's worrying is that my first test I was in a bad head space (sleep deprived, tired, guessed most of the answers etc.) and the second test I felt I was at the top of my game and preforming at the best level I could and I am still getting the same verbal scores.

I feel that I have the ability to score V40+ based on my official GMAC tests (see below) and I just need to push harder in the actual test. 
Test 1: 710 Q46 V41
Test 2: 710 Q48 V40
Test 3: 740 Q49 V42
Test 4: 720 Q47 V42
Test 5: 700 Q47 V39
Test 6: 760 Q50 V44
Average: Q47.8 V41.3 ~720

Unfortunately I do not have ESR for my official scores as I cancelled the first and the second was online. Historically however, I have done better in RC (about 1 wrong per test if any) and do worse in SC (2-3+ questions wrong). My plan of action is to keep focusing on SC/CR and do more official problems while keeping an error log to see if I have any trends.

Do any of the experts on here have any advice on what else I could be doing to improve?

(Cross-posted to GMAT sub-reddit so sorry if you are seeing this twice).

Thanks!

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Generally, a person's verbal score reflects the level of the sophistication of the thinking the person is bringing to bear when answering verbal questions. So, probably, to drive your score higher, you have to notice more in the questions and increase the level of the sophistication of the thinking your are bringing to bear when answering the questions.

I realize that your practice test verbal scores are higher than your actual GMAT verbal scores, but that type of difference can exist for a variety of reasons, such as that, somehow, what you have done to prepare prepared you for the questions that appear on the GMAT Prep practice tests without your fully developing the skills you need to score in the mid 40s on the actual GMAT.

So, of course, the question becomes that of what you current move is.

Probably, to drive your score higher, you should carefully analyze both fresh practice questions and ones that you have already seen, untimed, to develop more skill in seeing everything going on in the questions. Timed practice won't do the job. Something about the way you are handling the questions has to be adjusted. You have to see more and consider the questions in more sophisticated ways, and you won't learn to do so by considering them on a timed basis.

As you analyze questions, seek to clearly and completely define what makes the incorrect choices correct and the correct answers correct. You could also analyze what the question writers have done to make incorrect choices tempting.

As you do this analysis, you have to be super self aware. To what degree are you REALLY defining why the choices are incorrect or correct, and to what degree are you coming up with vague rationalizations or gimmicky reasons for your choices?

Also, any time you don't get a question correct, consider both what you needed to see and what you needed to do differently in order to get that question correct. Did you fully analyze the choices, or did you "just go with" a choice? Did you get trapped? Why?

By being super thorough in your analysis, by learning to see more in the questions, and by taking your time and getting close to 100 percent of your practice questions correct, you'll develop the vision and logical skills you need to ensure that you score in the 40s or higher on test day.

gather44 · Answer

Hi Marty,

Thanks for the long and detailed reply, I appreciate it! I will definitely takes these things into consideration. Will try to tackle with the mindset of figuring out why I am am choosing the answer choices I am choosing and thinking about the philosophy behind each question. At this level do you have a recommendation of the difficulty level of questions I should tackle (medium vs. hard vs. very hard?) I will probably have limited time before my next exam so would like to maximize it as much as possible.

Thank you so much again!

unraveled · Answer

Although Marty has replied, I'm posting with what I understand till date why I or someone like you get stuck at a particular score. I see that you mention in your further comment that you are choosing answers. I sort of used to do that but I'm trying to evaluate every answer for its incorrectness, nonetheless, I still do it - bad habit take time to go away. Somehow you might also be going through the same thing. While choosing might work in lower level questions - can't guarantee that - it absolutely trashes you for that in higher level ones. I have seen in my case that choosing is not foolproof as i have made mistakes in even 15% level questions. Two reasons that i could figure out - one, of course, i was choosing and second i was doing it faster, aiming it in 2 minutes. Take for example https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-peaks-of ... 51948.html I made a mistake first time but second time i got it correct. We can be sure that only C and E are contenders but how do you decide over that. Deciding between the two costed me exactly 1 minute more than average time it has taken to solve. Hope you got the meaning behind the two choices. The above happen specially in meaning based questions. Tangibly, in parallelism and comparison questions i still face difficulty to figure out which elements are parallel or compared. Finally, as you are better verbal score than i am, the plateau might be because of strategy which depends on your current levels of each section. Congratulations for 720, by the way it's a great score.

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Medium and hard are probably ideal for your learning from at this point in your prep. That said, even easy questions can have a lot to see in them, and very hard questions can be valuable too.

The key for you is learning to see more about what's going on in questions regardless of difficulty level. Some are easy to answer, but the fact that you chose the correct answer doesn't mean that you fully understood why that answer is correct or exactly why the other choices don't work.

For instance, in CR, people often term choices "out of scope," but what does that really mean? Even the correct answer will often present information quite different from anything the passage says. So, for each choice, you need to come up with something more sophisticated than, for instance "out of scope" or "irrelevant," such as "supports a conclusion related to but subtly different from the conclusion stated in the passage."

How can I push my verbal score to the next level? (V40+) Stuck at V37

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