How do you IMPROVE Verbal Scores

Question

hi all

can any one suggest anything as to how in gods name do we improve The verbal part i mean i do SC get about 75% correct then wane out on CR then i do well on CR and do bad on SC its like a round robin schedule of doing bad in one or the other areas of th everbal section.

how do i be consistent in all the 3 areas and do good right now i am scoring in practice tests on an average 28-31 Final score of verbal section i am really feeling either i am stupid or i am missing some thing which i cannot seem figure out. 

please help !! and thanks for your time and effort! and thoughts

rxs0005

Praetorian · Answer

Its not easy at all to answer your question since you really give no info about how you prep. The best solution is to understand your problem and then try to eliminate it. if you tell us what you do in your prep, it might help.

Ok, since the topic is relevant, i will try to discuss a problem that i had with verbal.. 

Do you have a fixed strategy that you use for CR/RC/SC. Its very important that you do. Otherwise, your performance curve is gonna be unpredictable. 

When i started off with SC/CR/RC, i was too impatient to get on with it and never tried to develop a strategy. i often made mistakes i shouldnt have. mistakes like, misreading a question, not interpreting a passage sentence correctly etc. If i had developed a checklist of things to go through when doing the verbal, especially CR, i would have done much better on my verbal (39V). oh well, atleast i hope you guys do what i didnt. 

live and learn
Praetorian

rxs0005 · Answer

Praetorian

thanks for your reply well here is what i do to tackle verbal basically it comes down to the same logic POE. 

I woudl say about 80% of the times i am able to hone down it to two best answers but invariably i choose the wrong choice when i choose the one between the two i dont knwo how to handle it. Though i do think in terms of "BEST" answer for that Q based on ETS funda!! 

Also for RC / CR i have followed the kaplan method of answering though for CR i dont read the Q before because i will be thinking about the Q rather than focus on the stem so that does not work for me.

I think i need ti do is lot of practice from OG and also some other material do you kwno any material oher than OG princeton Kaplan verbal work out where i can find stuff that is not plagarized from OG!! or one of these places. 

thanks mate for your time and patience. 

rxs0005

WhartonPlease! · Answer

Praetorian,

It is so strange that you despise POE. Just about every prep book that serious students use as a foundation swears by that method. 

I agree that it should be a last resort, but sometimes it is just hard to paraphrase what you think the answer should be and match that to what the answer is in reality.

Any thoughts?

Paul · Answer

I would advise you to use POE during the exam as it certainly help your timing. However, during practice, do not resort too much to it. Instead, know your rules and why each answer is right or wrong.

Praetorian · Answer

hi

i dont despise POE. i dont want you guys to use POE for learning. for example, when you use POE in your prep, we might come across three choices out of the five choices that cannot be the solution.... out of the other two, only one comes close.. thats why its the answer... but that does not help us at all to learn. it only solves the given problem. 

On the test, sure go ahead use POE... but while solving problems in your prep, especially in the first few weeks, i would ask that you try to solve a problem in detail to completely understand a solution.

I hope i am making some sense here.. for the test, POE ok... not in your prep. you can even try and use POE in practise tests, but otherwise try to learn. as akamaibrah says, Knowledge is best retained when we struggle hard to learn it. 

thanks
praetorian

rxs0005 · Answer

i think i understand what pretorian is saying actually i did employ your way of thinking i got tremendous results. Actually POE is kind of based on that. As you will only be able to POE if you undestand what the answer choice means and in what context. 

thanks doode!! that was a big help 

see for some ppl it may work someit may not it the comfort level i guess and finally the %age of correct choices choose the strategy that works best for you !!

mba · Answer

rxs0005: I also had the same kind of problem that you are facing. Well first thing I would advice is to do Practice (Practice will resolve 95% of your issues). Second, It was happening to me also, I was able to cut down to two choices and in the end was picking the wrong one. What I have observed is normally people commiting such kind of mistake have some pattern. For example, in my case I was stuck up with a pattern of selecting the choice that was shorter than the other, once I corrected this issue I was able to achieve good results as far as SC is concerned.
Though I was not able to completely eliminate some of the issues I had with CR(V36) but still I feel practice is the key.

Hope this helps! All the best

myfrankenstein · Answer

Nice tip P.
Thanks

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