Fine-tuning Verbal section

Question

My goal is to apply to a few of the M7 schools this year. I took GMAT twice:
first round: two months of self-studying part-time Q50 V30 total 680
second round: two weeks of self-studying part-time Q50 V34 total 700
I would like to re-take again, and I realize that I need to work on verbal. what do you recommend? I dont think the in-person live GMAT classes are going to work for me because they tend to focus on introduction to the test, quant, and other subjects that I am not interested in. What do you recommend that is really suitable to fine-tune the verbal section only?

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear HeartHaas , I'm happy to respond, but my friend, you have supplied exceptionally little information. For example, I have no idea whether you are a native English speaker or not. I have no idea where you live. I also have no idea how much time you have left before your next projected GMAT date. My friend, part of learning, especially at the high level at which you want to perform, entails asking extremely intelligent questions, questions that provide all the necessary context. Asking the best questions possible is one of the habits of excellence, and you need to practice the habits of excellence assiduously if you want to break through to the next level. You are pursuing excellence. The very first thing I will recommend is reading this blog: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2014/gmat-study ... 0-or-more/ As I am sure you appreciate, the best way to prepare for GMAT success is to focus on standards well above those of the GMAT. You need to have a serious habit of reading, at least an hour a day beyond any GMAT preparations. You need to read the most sophisticated material on which you can get your hands. First of all, see, this blog: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2014/how-to-imp ... bal-score/ The New York Times and Washington Post are better newspapers, and the Economist magazine is a sophisticated source of news on business & world events. For your goals, that's the bare minimum. Read classic literature & essays. Read essays of Thoreau, Emerson, and Montaigne. Read the poetical essays of Alexander Pope. Read college-level textbooks on subject you don't know well. For highly sophisticated sentences, look at the sentence in the US Declaration of Independence and US Constitution (I have no idea whether you are American or not, but the sentence structures in those documents are extremely sophisticated.) Read the essays of T.S. Eliot, that arch-conservative of grammar. Make yourself read the hardest stuff, the highest quality stuff, you can find. For GMAT CR, buy an LSAT book and practice the arguments in there. The LSAT Logical Reasoning arguments are a few notches harder than the GMAT Critical Reasoning. You can also practice the LSAT Reading Comprehension, for more RC practice. I would recommend this 3-month study plan. https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/3-month-gm ... l-focused/ I would also recommend reading, more than once, the three MGMAT volumes on Verbal: the volumes on SC, CR, and RC. Ultimately, you need to learn to think as the test-maker thinks about correct answers and trap answer for each question type. The MGMAT books and the Magoosh lessons are good sources for the test-maker's logic. Part of following that 3-month plan will involve buying Magoosh, at least the Verbal lessons: if you watch these carefully, you can learn a great deal from them. You will also learn a great deal from the video explanations (VEs) that follow each Magoosh question. Here's a sample CR question: https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/3746 Here's a sample RC question: https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/3621 When you submit your answer, the following page will have the VE for the question. This kind of immediate feedback, after each Verbal question, is precisely what can accelerate your understanding. That plan also involves a ton of math practice, to keep your math skills sharp. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

Fine-tuning Verbal section

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