I appeared for GMAT on 31st October. I scored 620 Q51 V23. I donot know how I fared so badly in Verbal section. In practice tests, I was getting ~30 in Verbal section and 50 in Quantitative section, but in actual test I performed horrible in Verbal section. During test, I could not feel that I was performing so bad in Verbal.
How can I do better in verbal?
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- subratan
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- jeromecukier
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Re: 620 Q51 V23 - How to do better in Verbal?
when I started training for GMAT I did much better in the quantitative section than in the verbal one. but after a while my verbal scores skyrocketed, I usually get around 50.
here's what worked for me.
at first I found verbal was difficult because of the time constraint. There's just not enough time to read those damn reading comprehension passages or to read every word from those critical reasoning arguments. And there's nothing worst than having to finish the 5 last questions in 1 minute.
So saving time is critical. And what really did it for me is sentence correction.
There are really not that many grammar rules involved in the SC phrases. Most of the phrasings that the GMAT finds incorrect are widely accepted, even in formal written English. So I (and I suppose many others) could spend a lot of time comparing 2 acceptable phrasings, since I wasn't aware of what GMAT considers correct.
But when you know that you must hunt parallelisms, pronouns without ascendants or ambiguous comparisons it's much easier to eliminate answers. Especially with a very strong Q score like yours, it's all about logic so once you know the rules, you can really deal with any SC question in seconds. And that's a huge time saver.
Once you master SC, the time constraint is completely lifted.
and that's good, because it allows you to do much better at RC and CR.
Here's how I do at RC. All the guides tell you not to read the passage in detail, but I do, because I can spend the extra minute or two. I write down: the theme of the passage and the role of each paragraph, which is often useful later. Then, I read the questions but NEVER the answers. I try to guess the answer before reading the choices. Reading choices first takes time and is always confusing. Also, in the question there is often keywords that refer to very specific parts of the passage, the answer is always nearby.
For CR, the problem is the wording of the arguments, with all those crazy country names and what not. at first, when trying to answer them I would always miss an important word and so get the wrong answer.
So what I do is that I write them down as I read them, in simplified version. I note the hypotheses and the conclusions. Likewise, I try to guess the answer BEFORE reading the choices.
For questions that ask to strengthen or to weaken the argument, I find that the answer is often something that links many elements of the paragraph.
best of luck to you, if you got such a good Q score no doubt your V will follow
here's what worked for me.
at first I found verbal was difficult because of the time constraint. There's just not enough time to read those damn reading comprehension passages or to read every word from those critical reasoning arguments. And there's nothing worst than having to finish the 5 last questions in 1 minute.
So saving time is critical. And what really did it for me is sentence correction.
There are really not that many grammar rules involved in the SC phrases. Most of the phrasings that the GMAT finds incorrect are widely accepted, even in formal written English. So I (and I suppose many others) could spend a lot of time comparing 2 acceptable phrasings, since I wasn't aware of what GMAT considers correct.
But when you know that you must hunt parallelisms, pronouns without ascendants or ambiguous comparisons it's much easier to eliminate answers. Especially with a very strong Q score like yours, it's all about logic so once you know the rules, you can really deal with any SC question in seconds. And that's a huge time saver.
Once you master SC, the time constraint is completely lifted.
and that's good, because it allows you to do much better at RC and CR.
Here's how I do at RC. All the guides tell you not to read the passage in detail, but I do, because I can spend the extra minute or two. I write down: the theme of the passage and the role of each paragraph, which is often useful later. Then, I read the questions but NEVER the answers. I try to guess the answer before reading the choices. Reading choices first takes time and is always confusing. Also, in the question there is often keywords that refer to very specific parts of the passage, the answer is always nearby.
For CR, the problem is the wording of the arguments, with all those crazy country names and what not. at first, when trying to answer them I would always miss an important word and so get the wrong answer.
So what I do is that I write them down as I read them, in simplified version. I note the hypotheses and the conclusions. Likewise, I try to guess the answer BEFORE reading the choices.
For questions that ask to strengthen or to weaken the argument, I find that the answer is often something that links many elements of the paragraph.
best of luck to you, if you got such a good Q score no doubt your V will follow
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