Suggestions to increase my verbal score from 34 to 45.

Question

I finally took the GMAT, two days ago, and scored a 690 (Scores: Q49 and V34; IR:6). This was my first attempt after studying for a month and working side by side. I am unhappy with my score because I won't be able to apply (with the kind of ideal application with an above average GMAT score) to the top four universities in States. Considering the fact that I will be coming from a large pool of competitive applicants in India, I plan to take the exam again in a month or so, but I am apprehensive that I may end up missing the Round 2 (unless I take the exam on 15 Dec).

Quick background check: I have 5+ experience in the area of sustainability and environmental engineering. I have five policy paper publications and one publication in Science (second best to Nature), with field work in a non-profit organisation. I am confident that my experience is one factor that will help me stand out however I am really unhappy with the score.

My problem: Towards the end of the exam (last half an hour or so) it became difficult for my to actively engage with the passages and CR questions. Because of this I ended up re-reading CR and RC portions, wasting my time. At last, I had to randomly mark options for five questions in the Verbal section.

In the coming days, I plan to work on my essays and study side by side (besides working).

I am confused as to how should I proceed with my prep. I used Magoosh and the material is great!

I look forward to any suggestions to help increase my verbal score by 10 points.

Thanks.

xyeek · Answer

I suggest you don't just use 1 prep source to study. Often it helps to get different perspectives from different training resources.

One of things I found really useful for CR is the Powerscore Critical Reasoning Bible which had really useful strategies. For RC you need to practice skim reading. Just read for the structure to know what each paragraph is roughly about and then move on to the questions because you'll probably end up having to re-read for the questions anyway. I would practice with the OG. Do questions starting from the back and make sure you spend time understanding where you went wrong with the questions you answered incorrectly. You should be spending about 3 times as much time on reviewing answers as answering the question.

Good luck!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi Claptrap7,

First off, a 690/Q49 is a fantastic score (it's just shy of the 90th percentile overall), so you should apply to any Business Schools that interest you. Before you commit to retaking the GMAT, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile. There's a Forum full of them here:

ask-admission-consultants-124/

Raising a V34 to a V45 will take some considerable work. Beyond knowing the proper content and Tactics, you'll also have to learn to combat the fatigue that you've described. To score at that level, little mistakes CANNOT be allowed to happen (for any reason).

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

WayneHam · Answer

76th to 99th percentile is quite a jump. As someone who has scored high on the verbal without any real studying, I personally feel the verbal is much much much harder to improve than the quant.

The CR for me is basically logic or taking a concept and extending it one step further.

Claptrap7 · Answer

I agree! I am stuck with an impasse: spending a lot of time to get a good GMAT score vs meeting this year's deadline. I think I shall study a bit of verbal and re-take the exam while preparing my applications.. in case I get a good score, I will accept it else I will go ahead with the application with my current score. (Because, any which way, considering the worst case scenario I would have missed this year's admission to the top four.. so I suppose I shall try regardless of my grim hopes of succeeding...)

udaypawar · Answer

Hey congrats for a good score ! 690 is not bad at all ...

Frankly I believe the climb from 34 to 45 is very steep in a matter of one month. But I would suggest you look towards increasing your score upto 39~40 in verbal in one month of study. With that verbal score, you can hope to jump to 740 overall which should be quite competitive at your target schools. It's achievable with a bit of disciplined studying and methodical approach.
I would suggest you take out the error log of all your mocks and deeply delve into each question. Check for patterns of mistakes ? What is pulling you down -- SC / CR / RC ? It could be that you're getting only 30~50% accuracy in SC and getting around 70~80% accuracy in CR / RC. Find out the exact data from your mocks. Once you know where you're going down, 70% job is done. Then you need to pull out your study resources and work on ironing out the creases.
I would suggest e-GMAT for SC and Powerscore Critical Reasoning Bible for CR (In addition, attend a Prethinking Webinar by e-GMAT).

All the Best !

Claptrap7 · Answer

Thanks Uday! This sounds like a great plan, I shall definitely do that. I have to keep brushing up quant too..

egmat · Answer

Hi Claptrap7 , Assuming you are from Asia, you will most likely have to be at least a 740 to be competitive for these schools. That’s what our students have been telling us. Here is a recent article from Poets and Quants reporting the same: https://goo.gl/JBNNea. How to improve from V34 to V40+? Note that once you reach the V38 - V40 level, there is nothing new that needs to be learned. The difference between a V38 guy (or V34 for that matter) and a V40+ guy is the application of learned concepts. After crossing the V40 mark, your score is largely determined by your diligence and application skill level. A student should know how to apply the learned concepts properly to cross the V40 border. At this stage the tricks and shortcuts tend to fail and only students with a proper approach to questions succeed. This is what we do at e-GMAT. We teach our students a foolproof process to solve questions and make them follow the same . This is the reason for our high rate of success. Folks who were in your shoes Here are examples of few folks who were in your shoes and have accomplished their dream score using e-GMAT courses. 1. After scoring a 710 , Anuj planned his second attempt, methodically improving his verbal score from V36 to V44 (98 percentile) . Watch the interview to learn how he managed to get to 770 : https://goo.gl/JUUpPt. 2. Kinjal scored a 760 improving his Verbal score from 51 percentile to 98 percentile . In this detailed interview https://goo.gl/3Dm15n, Kinjal discusses how he approached GMAT Verbal to score V44. Click here to read his debrief: https://goo.gl/DrZvk7. 3. Arun Goenka ( 760, V42 ): He improved from V36 to V42 using Verbal Online. Click here to read his debrief: https://goo.gl/R5h6l2. 4. Anup Kapoor ( 770, V44 ): Click here to read his debrief: https://goo.gl/DSgANC. What to do in the next one month I would suggest you to take our Verbal Online course and start working on it. Verbal Online course is a self-paced course and there is no fixed schedule or batch constraint. You can access the course contents as per your convenience. You get a study plan as soon as you complete your purchase. The study plan outlines the order in which you approach concepts. Verbal Online requires 80 hours of effort and most people complete the course in <30 days. Ninety Nine percent of our students are working professionals and for that reason we have designed our courses in shorter modules. You can study in 15-20 minutes nuggets. Hence, you can easily complete a concept on your laptop and then move to start the corresponding quizzes on your tablet. Have a look some of the files from the links below and observe the duration o Bold Face: https://goo.gl/Jd96sK o RC Main Point Concept 1: https://goo.gl/Xay5X1 o RC Main Point Concept 2: https://goo.gl/CbN9LW We have 100+ such beautifully designed audio visual files in our Verbal Online course. To view more such content, just log in to our Free Trial https://e-gmat.com/login/. If you can spend 2-3 hours on the weekdays and 4-6 hours on the weekends, you’ll be able to complete the course before your target GMAT date. How to improve in CR and RC That there are two things you need to do to ace CR and RC: 1. Read the passage/argument once: Read slowly but comprehend what you read. Re-reading leads to wasted time and nervousness. 2. Prethink the answer before reading the answer choices. 90% of the battle is won if you can do #1 and #2. We explain both of these in great detail in our CR and RC courses. Lastly, you need to work on your test taking stamina. But once you master the process using our course, the stamina shouldn't be much of a problem. Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other queries. Regards, Rajat Sadana

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Suggestions to increase my verbal score from 34 to 45.

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