Need help to improve my Verbal score!!

Question

Hello GMAT experts, I took the online GMAT last week and scored very poorly (580 - Q49 V21) . I am honestly shocked to see the score because in almost all mocks(Veritas, Kaplan, and official) I had scored between 28-32. I had never scored below 600 on any mock test

I knew that verbal was my weak point, hence I practiced it as much as I could in the past six months. I had completed OG 2019 and Verbal review 2019 almost entirely. I had a clear vision of my limitations in the verbal section and wasn't expecting more than V32 in any case. I was realistic and realised after taking over 15 mock tests that I could never improve beyond V32. I knew my best target would be a 700 in the GMAT. Obviously, I cannot even think of applying anywhere with such an awful score. But I am not backing down right now, instead, I am ready to take up this challenge and improve as much as possible in a month. So, I need your help and guidance to improve my verbal score. I am willing to give in a month of serious hard work and commitment. As GMAT experts could you please help me! Thanks in advance

plaverbach · Answer

I’m no expert, but have you tried mgmat for sc? This helped me a lot!

Posted from my mobile device

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi VerbalKnight,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as planned. When these types of score drops occur, the two likely "causes" involve either something that was unrealistic during practice or something that was surprising (or not accounted for) on Test Day. Before we discuss any of those potential issues though, 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 didi you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far? What 'brands' of CATs/mocks did you take?
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 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

VerbalKnight · Answer

Hi,

Here are the answers:

Studies:
1) How long have you studied? How many hours didi you typically study each week? - 
 5 months (I averaged about 20hrs/week). I spent the initial 2 months reading and practicing questions to understand the overall structure of GMAT and it's individual sections.

2) What study materials have you used so far? What 'brands' of CATs/mocks did you take? - 
 I have used the OG 2019, Verbal review 2019, PowerScore GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible and GMATClub grammar book. The mocks/CATs were by - GMATClub, Kaplan, Veritas, Princeton, and Official practice test 1&2 by GMAC. Over a period of time and practicing hundreds of questions, I realized my capability and consistently scored in the range as mentioned. Even if I gave importance to one section, say improving RC, it would so happen that other sections would pull me down. So, as you can see in my scores that I have consistently averaged the same score in verbal.

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)?
 I began taking the mocks from 15th Dec'20 till 8th Jan'20 on alternate days. I scored Q48 or above in all mocks but the verbal score ranged from 29-32 (4 tests with V29, 3 tests with V32, and the rest in between this range)

Goals:
4) What is your overall goal score? - My "realistic goal was a 700 but I obviously aimed for a 750 to get into the top B schools. 
5) When are you planning to apply to Business School and what Schools are you planning to apply to? - My plan is to apply in 2021 and my selection of schools would entirely depend on the score i.e 700+

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

I’m sorry to hear how things went with your GMAT. The good news is that you scored really well on quant, right? That said, I understand that you are not satisfied with your verbal score, so the question we need to ask is why you scored so high on your practice exams but lower on the real GMAT.

Assuming that you took your official practice exams under realistic testing conditions, the results show that, on a good day, you are capable of scoring higher than V21. Thus, it’s quite possible that nerves, stress, tiredness, or a combination of all three negatively affected your test-day performance. However, it’s also possible that you have some lingering weaknesses that were exposed on test day. Although I’m unsure of how you prepared, it’s possible that, in your preparation, particularly in verbal, you did not really learn to do what you have to do in order to score high on the actual GMAT. Rather, you picked up on some patterns that were effective in getting you relatively high scores on practice tests. So, for you to hit your score goal, your preparation, particularly for verbal, probably needs to be more complete, meaning that you have to go through the various types of GMAT questions carefully to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills.

For verbal specifically, you have to become more skilled at clearly defining the differences between trap choices and correct answers. Otherwise, you will get stuck guessing between two choices or be surprised to find that you incorrectly answered questions that you thought you answered correctly. Becoming more skilled in this way takes carefully analyzing all of the answer choices to lots of verbal questions to develop an eye for the logical differences between the choices. In other words, you have to go beyond answering practice questions and reading explanations to doing deep analysis of questions to learn to see everything that is going on in them.

In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new quant and verbal materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the  best quant  and  verbal courses .

You also may find it helpful to read the following articles:

how to score a 700+ on the GMAT

Why Was My GMAT Score Lower Than My Practice Test Scores?

VerbalKnight · Answer

Thanks, Scott

Yes, the quant section was really tough compared to official mocks but nevertheless, I managed to get a Q49. I can definitely improve the score with practice.
Coming to the verbal section, I am sure that I was exposed to almost all types of questions since I had completed OG and verbal review for SC and CR. I was quite shocked to see the results because I genuinely felt it was just like any other mock test where I would score around V30. But I guess you are right about traps! Maybe I got multiple incorrect answers that I felt were correct.

I honestly cannot afford courses but can you recommend any book/study material instead? I am ready to invest an entire month to improve my verbal skills.
I am sure that not everyone who got a good score needed a course right? Self-study should be possible (or am I wrong here? )

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi VerbalKnight,

A score of V21 indicates that you are having a few conceptual gaps and are struggling with the application as well. I would not be exaggerated to tell you to start the entire verbal prep from the scratch. Because you never know, you might have missed a few concepts. But this time, make sure you follow a structured process for your prep.

The right way to prepare: 
  Learn the concepts of a topic (For example, start with the subject-verb pair concept in SC module) 
 Then learn the right methodology to solve the question types from that topic (Learn the right methods to approach questions of subject-verb pair, how to identify errors and how to eliminate answer choices) 
 Practice a few questions to get used to the methodology 
 Move to the next topic only if you get a decent accuracy in the quizzes 
 Repeat the process for all the topics 
 Once you are done with all the topics, start taking timed quizzes

This is how you should go about your preparation. Learning the right methodology and working on your weak areas are the two important steps in the learning process. Make sure you to go through the solution of every question you solve. By going through I mean, analyze each step of the solution, identify at which step you faltered, compare your approach with the right one and then nullify the gaps if any. This is the best method to learn the right methodology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiQlDg0bhaI

I'm not sure which resource you are using right now. If it helps you with all the above steps, then stick with that. If not, I would suggest you to study using a resource which can help you with the methodology and weak areas. You can check out GMATWhiz for that matter. For the time being, you can check out the   webinars   on our youtube channel which help you understand the gist of the methodology.

Hope it helped. If you need any more help with the study strategy, you can get in touch with me using the below link.

Click here to schedule a call

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi VerbalKnight,

I've sent you a PM with some additional questions.

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

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Why don't you check out my course, Target Test Prep?

Need help to improve my Verbal score!!

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