Badly need help to improve my SC. any1 could suggest tips

Question

Hi,
I had taken my Gmat about 2 weeks back and got a pathetic score of 530.
Q 43 and verbal 22

I badly have to increase my verbal score.
Before preparing for GMAT i was under the impression that I am pretty good with my English.

I do have recognised my weak areas to be SC and RC. I am good with CR.
I know RC can be improved just by practice and patience to read long passages with full concentration.Something tht I am working on..

The main issue is with SC. I finished reading Aristotle SC grail, OG 12 and Manhattan verbal guide.
But the moment i start with the questions, i just go wrong..While reading the question , I try to figure out what could be the error like tenses,S-V agrrement, idioms etc.. But Still I just do mistakes like crazy
I am just not able to comprehend as to why am I not able to get a hang with SC.

Anyone out there with some good advise/tips/suggestions.
I am taking my GMAT again on 25th July...I just have to get 700 above and I know unless and untill my verbal score doesnt increase , I cannot even dream of 700 + score..

amreza · Answer

If you have gone through the SC grail and the MGMAT SC, I'm assuming you have a decent grip on the basics. However, in most cases the best strategies used for attacking SC problems are not just all about fundamentals. In your case, my recommendation would be for you to not think of "the type of error" there could be while reading the question.

I would rather do the following steps:

1. Just read the question in one go and try to get an understanding of what the author is trying to say/imply. 
2. Then scan the answer choices to find the pivotal points. e.g. that vs which, as vs like, pronouns etc.
3. Once you know the pivotal points in the AC, then you can try and make sense of the "grammar"...and narrow your choices down by elimination. Do not try to think of grammar when you've just started reading the question, this will only confuse you. Think of grammar/rules when you know the pivotal points.

Try it out on 20 sentence correction questions from the OG and let me know how it turns out. Hope this helps.

Thanks!

pallavisatsangi · Answer

Thank q so much for ure suggestion.
Will try out ure method and shall definitely get back to you.

KyleWiddison · Answer

It sounds like you would benefit from some topic-focused review on Sentence Correction. You need to make the transition from understanding the concepts that are taught in the study guides to recognizing the errors on GMAT questions. If you've studied with the Manhattan GMAT SC book, you know that it contains lists of questions on the various topics (SV Agreement, Parallelism, Modifiers, etc.). Take one topic at a time and work out the related OG questions. Try to make connections between theses questions of the same topic and take notes on any key points you feel you need to consider for the topic (ie watch out for "and" on parallelism, and "wh" words are common noun modifiers). Work on a topic until you feel confident in your ability to recognize the issue and answer it correctly. Then move on to the next topic.

Once you get through a few topics, do some practice without knowing the topics that are being tested. As you eliminate answers on these problems, try to categorize your reason for elminating the choice. For example, you may use a SV Agreement issue to eliminate 2 answer choices, but the other 2 eliminations come from parallelism (you can't use "it didn't sound good" as a reason!!!). Check with the OG explanations to see how accurate you are in your practice. Spend plenty of time reviewing the explanation to see what things you got right and what things you missed.

If you see yourself struggling to recognize or correctly deal with a certain topic, you have to go back to your study materials until you get mastery.

It's a bit of a laborious process, but that's what the GMAT requires! I've worked with several people who have been very successful in improving their SC performance using this methodical, topic-based approach.

Best,
KW

pallavisatsangi · Answer

Thank q so much for your inputs. Will try to work out your approach as well

Thank q ones again

egmat · Answer

I will add a slightly different take on the problem that you are facing. One of the key reasons that we see students struggle with Sentence Correction is because they don't have methodical approach to attack Sentence Correction problems. Somehow students have an impression that GMAT Sentence Correction is purely a test of grammar. Because of this understanding, students resort to a splits approach without focusing on the intended meaning of the original sentence.

We propose a slightly different approach - one that is centered around the intended meaning of the original sentence. Our students have had tremendous success with this approach. A number of our students have achieved accuracy improvements from 50% to 80%+ in their mocks using this approach and consequently have reported tremendous score improvements on the GMAT. We have 10+ application files in our course that help you follow this process and apply it to the easiest and the most challenging of problems. You can take our free trial to see if this approach makes sense.

Here are some success stories:

https://e-gmat.com/blogs/?p=1260
https://e-gmat.com/blogs/?p=972

Good luck!!

Regards,

Rajat Sadana

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Badly need help to improve my SC. any1 could suggest tips

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