How do I improve my score from V41 to V50?

[PJ]

Gave my gmat on Friday and scored a V41.
I plan on retaking the exam in a month and am hoping to improve my verbal section from a V41 to V50 (actually aiming at V51)
Not really weak in any particular section. RC, CR and SC all at par (i.e make almost the same number of errors in each section)
Would really appreciate guidance in my endeavor.

[StaceyKoprince]

V50 / V51 is next to impossible to hit. The 99th percentile starts at V45. Probably 1/10th of 1% of all test takers hit 50/51.

Further, there is no practical advantage to lifting above V45. V41 is already more than good enough for any school program. It's true that lifting above V45 will lift your overall three-digit score, BUT schools do look at the subscores. If your quant score is too low, then it doesn't matter that your three-digit score meets their standards. So you don't want to use V45+ as a crutch to take the place of lifting your quant score.

All of which is to say: I don't have an answer for your question. But I can talk about how to get to, say, V44 or V45. (And that's already going to be pretty hard, but you're at V41, so maybe you can do it!)

First, to hit V45, you can't afford careless mistakes. You've got to enter verbal still relatively mentally fresh, which means having made good decisions during IR and quant about what NOT to do so that you're not burning too much mental energy before verbal starts. (Bonus: knowing what NOT to waste your time doing will also help lift your IR and quant scores.

See this for ideas about how to minimize careless mistakes:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/

Next, at V41, most of the time you are narrowing questions down to 2 answers (if not 1). In other words, it's rare that you see a problem and think, "Wow, I have no idea." So the real distinction is how good you are at tackling the right answer + most tempting wrong answer conundrum.

Here's how:
When you're reviewing, review everything. Identify ALL of the questions on which you narrowed to two and guessed, even when you guessed right. And answer these questions:
1) why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible; also, now you know this is not a good reason to pick an answer)
2) why was it actually wrong? what specific words indicate that it is wrong and how did I overlook those clues the first time?
3) why did the right answer seem wrong? what made it so tempting to cross off the right answer? why were those things actually okay; what was my error in thinking that they were wrong? (also, now you know that this is not a good reason to eliminate an answer)
4) why was it actually right?

What you're reallly training yourself to do here is to understand how the test writers make a wrong answer look good and a right answer look wrong. If you can understand how they set traps for you, you'll be a lot less likely to fall for them in future.

Do the above on official-source problems as much as possible, since verbal at this level is significantly impacted by the question writer's thought processes, writing style, etc. So you want to pick apart problems written by the same brains as the problems you'll see on the real test.

[PJ]

Thank you Stacy. I have been trying to understand why I end up selecting the incorrect option after narrowing it down to 2 options .
I scored a 720 Q48 which is 78 percentile and V41 which is a 94 percentile
I figured I should concentrate on verbal as It has greater scope of improvement.
My target score is 760+

[StaceyKoprince]

Great job! (I know you want more. But you've already done a great job. )

Okay, if your quant stays at 48, then you'd probably need a V47 to get to 760. If your quant goes to 49, you'd probably "only" need a V45.

If you really want a 760, then it's far more reasonable to try to lift both scores than to say that you're going to leave one score alone and try to completely max out the other one. The odds are just better if you go for both.

(Also, I'm curious: why do you want a 760? Do you want to teach for us? Re: schools, as far as I'm aware -- though admissions is definitely not my area of expertise -- somebody who has a 760 doesn't have any real advantage over someone who has a 730 or 740. At that level, they know you can handle the work, so there's no useful differentiation in going even higher, GMAT-score-wise. It's been my understanding that, once you pass the "hard" checkpoints of GMAT and GPA, they're really making the decision based on your essays, recommendations - the softer stuff.)

[PJ]

Thank you so very much for your guidance Stacy.
I reappeared for the GMAT and I scored a 760 (Q-49, V45) with an 8 in IR

Being a non-native English speaker, I found SC challenging. I would go by my 'ear' and pick an option which sounded correct and eventually would get it wrong. This time however I suppressed my 'gut feel' and went with the option that followed the grammar rules irrespective of how it sounded to my 'ear'. And lo and behold 99 percentile. WOW!!!!

I had set a 760 target because I do not have stellar undergraduate scores. I wanted to show admissions committee that I am more than capable of handling their academic curriculum.

Once again thank you for your valuable guidance Stacy

[StaceyKoprince]

Wow! Fantastic! Really excellent work - you are truly among the GMAT elite! And I'm glad we were able to help.

Good luck with your applications - let us know how it goes!