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12 Jun 2022, 02:53
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Hi, I'm pretty shocked and disheartened after I took my first official exam and desparately need some advice on how to improve my verbal score.
I'm not a native speaker but studied (undergrad) in the U.S.
I just took my first official GMAT exam today and got an all-time low verbal score, which is 25. I took 3 GMAT Official Prep exams and scored (Q49, V33-35) on average. I expected my actual exam score to fall wihtin the V33-35 range but in reality, I scored V25. I've been studying for GMAT for the past 5 months but honestly, I think I was able to study consistently only for 2 months out of 5 because of my long working hours. The materials I used for verbal are OG 2021 and Target Test Prep (I decided to complete the verbal section of TTP because I was using it for the quant part and already had the full access to all GMAT materials. I'm not saying their verbal part is not good).
I reviewed each concept offerred by Taget Test Prep Verbal (e.g. Parallelism in SC) and completed the practice questions in each chpater as well. Once I completed the TTP verbal package, I started to practice with the questions from OG 2021. I didn't complete all the OG questions before I took my first exam and when I did the OG verbal questions, I usually got 70% of them right. After solving each OG question, I also reviewed each one of them carefully, including the ones I got correct but wasn't sure about. According to the three official mock exam results, it seems like I tend to get a similar number of questions wrong for each category: SC, CR, and RC. I believe I need to work on all 3 parts equally to increase my verbal score.
I personally think I got a very low verbal score in my actual exam because:
1. I didn't practice enough with the OG books. I only managed to finish 1/3 of the OG verbal questions. I put much more time into online modules like TTP because I thought I needed to learn about fundamentals first before I dived into the OG questions.
2. I haven't trained enough for the verbal part of the exam. If I don't time myself, I usually get 80% of questions correct but if I time myself, the accuracy rate decreases to around 50%.
3. I always thought I wasn't good at numbers/math and put about 70% of my GMAT study hours into Quant and neglected Verbal.
I'm planning to retake it in 5-6 weeks and would appreciate any advice on how to improve my verbal score to high 30 (38+). I know I have a long way to go but I'm determined to to put as much effort into the verbal section. My questions are:
1. To have a strong foundation, would you recommend me to stick with OG books or should I use other resources such as books on specific topics and online lectures? Even if I choose to use resources other than OG, I'm planning to complete all OG queststions before I retake the exam.
2. For books, it seems like Manhattan Prep SC and PowerScore CR are mentioned frequently in ths forum. I've also heard e-gmat offers good verbal trainings.
Could you recommend any verbal resources you found great, especially in terms of increasing low verbal score to high 30?
3. In general, I'd appreciate any advice on how to improve a verbal score drastically, including study plan, materials to use, time management, etc.
Thank you so much.
I'm not a native speaker but studied (undergrad) in the U.S.
I just took my first official GMAT exam today and got an all-time low verbal score, which is 25. I took 3 GMAT Official Prep exams and scored (Q49, V33-35) on average. I expected my actual exam score to fall wihtin the V33-35 range but in reality, I scored V25. I've been studying for GMAT for the past 5 months but honestly, I think I was able to study consistently only for 2 months out of 5 because of my long working hours. The materials I used for verbal are OG 2021 and Target Test Prep (I decided to complete the verbal section of TTP because I was using it for the quant part and already had the full access to all GMAT materials. I'm not saying their verbal part is not good).
I reviewed each concept offerred by Taget Test Prep Verbal (e.g. Parallelism in SC) and completed the practice questions in each chpater as well. Once I completed the TTP verbal package, I started to practice with the questions from OG 2021. I didn't complete all the OG questions before I took my first exam and when I did the OG verbal questions, I usually got 70% of them right. After solving each OG question, I also reviewed each one of them carefully, including the ones I got correct but wasn't sure about. According to the three official mock exam results, it seems like I tend to get a similar number of questions wrong for each category: SC, CR, and RC. I believe I need to work on all 3 parts equally to increase my verbal score.
I personally think I got a very low verbal score in my actual exam because:
1. I didn't practice enough with the OG books. I only managed to finish 1/3 of the OG verbal questions. I put much more time into online modules like TTP because I thought I needed to learn about fundamentals first before I dived into the OG questions.
2. I haven't trained enough for the verbal part of the exam. If I don't time myself, I usually get 80% of questions correct but if I time myself, the accuracy rate decreases to around 50%.
3. I always thought I wasn't good at numbers/math and put about 70% of my GMAT study hours into Quant and neglected Verbal.
I'm planning to retake it in 5-6 weeks and would appreciate any advice on how to improve my verbal score to high 30 (38+). I know I have a long way to go but I'm determined to to put as much effort into the verbal section. My questions are:
1. To have a strong foundation, would you recommend me to stick with OG books or should I use other resources such as books on specific topics and online lectures? Even if I choose to use resources other than OG, I'm planning to complete all OG queststions before I retake the exam.
2. For books, it seems like Manhattan Prep SC and PowerScore CR are mentioned frequently in ths forum. I've also heard e-gmat offers good verbal trainings.
Could you recommend any verbal resources you found great, especially in terms of increasing low verbal score to high 30?
3. In general, I'd appreciate any advice on how to improve a verbal score drastically, including study plan, materials to use, time management, etc.
Thank you so much.
12 Jun 2022, 04:22
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi mariav1202.
I'd like to see your TTP analytics page to get a clearer sense of what's going on, but it appears that you have done a pretty good analysis of why you didn't score higher on verbal, and the main issue appears to be that you haven't yet learned to execute well when answering verbal questions. Basically, you need a lot more practice.
As you surmised, you did need to focus on learning the fundamentals, but at the same time, learning the fundamentals isn't sufficient for achieving an upper 30s verbal score goal. So, learning the fundamentals is just the beginning of what you need to do to master GMAT verbal.
Here's a key thing about GMAT verbal. It's different from GMAT quant, in that, when you learn a quant concept or strategy, you quant performance often improves right away, but in verbal, learning a new concept is often just the beginning of the process, and you need a lot of practice applying the concept to see improvement.
That practice has to start out untimed, and get this. To score in the upper 30s in verbal, you need to get 75 percent or more of medium and hard questions correct. So, when you're doing untimed practice, you need to get close to 100 percent of easy questions correct, 80 to 90 percent of medium questions correct, and even close to 80 percent of hard questions correct. Furthermore, you have to get so good when doing untimed practice that, when you speed up, you continue to get 75 to 80 percent of medium and hard questions and basically all easy questions correct.
Also, you have to be super clear regarding why each choice is correct or incorrect. In other words, if you get 80 percent of the questions in a set correct but fully understood why you got them correct in only half the cases, that performance indicates that anything can happen on test day, because your guesses or hunches may not work out.
You can see from the difference between what I just described and your accuracy rates. In fact, since many OG verbal questions are relatively easy, getting 70 percent of OG questions correct means that you're getting under 70 percent of medium and hard questions correct. In quant, getting 70 percent of questions correct can mean that you're ready to score in the 40s, but in verbal, getting 70 percent of practice questions correct means that you could score in the 20s or low 30s on test day.
So, the upshot is that you weren't ready to score in the upper 30s on verbal when you took the test. You have to practice a lot more, and achieve much higher accuracy when practicing.
You may also have to review fundamentals as your practice reveals any knowledge gaps you have.
So, to achieve your verbal score goal, continue practicing untimed by carefully analyzing questions choice by choice and achieve the accuracy rates I outlined above. Even better would be to shoot for streaks of 15 or more verbal questions correct in a row. If you can get 15 easy, 15 medium, and 10 hard questions of a category correct in a row, then you are performing at the level you need to perform at to score in the upper 30s or low 40s in verbal. After all, you may be able to semi-guess your way to getting 70 percent of questions correct, but if you get 15 correct in a row, then you have things under control. As you come upon knowledge gaps when practicing, go back and review the relevant concepts. Then, once you're achieving that kind of accuracy, seek to speed up to test pace while maintaining that level of accuracy. Once you're getting around 75 to 80 percent of medium and hard verbal questions correct at test pace, you're ready to score in the upper 30s on test day.
For even more detail on all of this, you could read the following posts.
How to Score High on GMAT Verbal
Three Key Practice Tips for Mastering GMAT Verbal
Also, please feel free to reach out to the TTP team to discuss your verbal performance analytics.
I'd like to see your TTP analytics page to get a clearer sense of what's going on, but it appears that you have done a pretty good analysis of why you didn't score higher on verbal, and the main issue appears to be that you haven't yet learned to execute well when answering verbal questions. Basically, you need a lot more practice.
As you surmised, you did need to focus on learning the fundamentals, but at the same time, learning the fundamentals isn't sufficient for achieving an upper 30s verbal score goal. So, learning the fundamentals is just the beginning of what you need to do to master GMAT verbal.
Here's a key thing about GMAT verbal. It's different from GMAT quant, in that, when you learn a quant concept or strategy, you quant performance often improves right away, but in verbal, learning a new concept is often just the beginning of the process, and you need a lot of practice applying the concept to see improvement.
That practice has to start out untimed, and get this. To score in the upper 30s in verbal, you need to get 75 percent or more of medium and hard questions correct. So, when you're doing untimed practice, you need to get close to 100 percent of easy questions correct, 80 to 90 percent of medium questions correct, and even close to 80 percent of hard questions correct. Furthermore, you have to get so good when doing untimed practice that, when you speed up, you continue to get 75 to 80 percent of medium and hard questions and basically all easy questions correct.
Also, you have to be super clear regarding why each choice is correct or incorrect. In other words, if you get 80 percent of the questions in a set correct but fully understood why you got them correct in only half the cases, that performance indicates that anything can happen on test day, because your guesses or hunches may not work out.
You can see from the difference between what I just described and your accuracy rates. In fact, since many OG verbal questions are relatively easy, getting 70 percent of OG questions correct means that you're getting under 70 percent of medium and hard questions correct. In quant, getting 70 percent of questions correct can mean that you're ready to score in the 40s, but in verbal, getting 70 percent of practice questions correct means that you could score in the 20s or low 30s on test day.
So, the upshot is that you weren't ready to score in the upper 30s on verbal when you took the test. You have to practice a lot more, and achieve much higher accuracy when practicing.
You may also have to review fundamentals as your practice reveals any knowledge gaps you have.
So, to achieve your verbal score goal, continue practicing untimed by carefully analyzing questions choice by choice and achieve the accuracy rates I outlined above. Even better would be to shoot for streaks of 15 or more verbal questions correct in a row. If you can get 15 easy, 15 medium, and 10 hard questions of a category correct in a row, then you are performing at the level you need to perform at to score in the upper 30s or low 40s in verbal. After all, you may be able to semi-guess your way to getting 70 percent of questions correct, but if you get 15 correct in a row, then you have things under control. As you come upon knowledge gaps when practicing, go back and review the relevant concepts. Then, once you're achieving that kind of accuracy, seek to speed up to test pace while maintaining that level of accuracy. Once you're getting around 75 to 80 percent of medium and hard verbal questions correct at test pace, you're ready to score in the upper 30s on test day.
For even more detail on all of this, you could read the following posts.
How to Score High on GMAT Verbal
Three Key Practice Tips for Mastering GMAT Verbal
Also, please feel free to reach out to the TTP team to discuss your verbal performance analytics.
12 Jun 2022, 20:35
Kudos
Bookmarks
mariav1202
Hi mariav1202,
The official practice tests are good, so unless you were already familiar with some of the questions you saw in those tests, you are clearly capable of a better score than V25.
