Need guidance for verbal

[joshi04]

Hello Stacey,

I am 27yrs old GMAT aspirant from India. My test date is in a month's time.

I would like to seek your guidance to improve my verbal score.
I have went through official materials and MGMAT books.

Also, I have given gmat prep 1, 2 gmatclub tests and economist free test till date
In mock tests, the verbal scores were in V30-V35 range.

My strength in verbal is SC and I hardly committed more than 2-3 mistakes during test.

My weakness is RC. I watched Ron videos and e-gmat tutorials for preparations and did timed practice from official verbal materials to improve RC. But the accuracy has never crossed 60% mark.

Now, I will share result of mock analysis.
In SC, the mistakes are 2 or 3. (mainly silly mistakes or modifiers)
RC contributes around 7-8 mistakes ranging from details type to inference type questions.
In CR, if I commit less mistakes (2-4) then score is towards V35. But, if I commit 5-6 mistakes in CR then score moves towards V30. Types of mistakes that I commit in CR are varying. (assumption, weaken, flaw, inference etc)

My target is to score minimum V40.

I work from 9 to 6 in the evening and take out around 3hrs for studies. Also, I have no problem with quant.

Please share for feedback and tips so that I can utilize remaining time efficiently for preparation.
If you need any other info, then let me know.

Thanks for giving your time.

Best Regards,

[StaceyKoprince]

Thanks for the detailed info. I do have some questions for you.

You mention that you want a V40 minimum and that you have "no problem" with quant. Does that mean you have pretty much maxed out your quant score? (Q50 or 51)

V40 is a very high score - it is the equivalent of about Q50. That combination will earn you about a 740 or 750 on the test - which is an amazing score, of course, but nobody needs a score that high in order to get into b-school. You may be spending a lot more time (and effort and money) than you need to if you keep your goal at that level - just FYI.

A Q50, V35 combo will get you about a 710, so if you can get yourself to 35+, you'll be fine for any school. (At least - as far as the GMAT is concerned. :)

So the focus is RC and CR - with a slight emphasis on CR. We shouldn't expect to turn RC into your strength, so the key is to solidify the CR performance and try to pick up just a few more points on RC.

Start here for CR:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... reasoning/

Work through the materials for the major question types, with particular emphasis on inference questions (which also show up on RC).

When you're feeling more solid with that material, use the below for RC:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... rehension/

Pay particular attention to the articles on what to read vs. what not to read. If you're struggling with detail and inference questions, then you're also probably at some points getting too far into detail and at other points not far enough.

Also, pay attention to the parts of the question-specific articles that talk about how to know where to go in the passage to figure out the answers to detail questions - that's half the battle on RC.

Check back in with me after trying the CR stuff for a few days / a week and let me know what questions you have. Also, take advantage of the forums to discuss problems. We can't host OG problems for copyright reasons, unfortunately, but we can discuss any of our own problems. If you have access to our GMAT Navigator program, you can find video explanations for about half of the OG13 / OG2015 CR problems (and for several of the RC passages as well, including the last two OG passages in that book).

[joshi04]

Thanks for your valuable inputs...
I worked upon my RC and CR skills as per your suggestion.
I could manage to improve accuracy in RC and CR.

Based upon all of these, I gave 5 mocks (gmat prep and 3 mgmat cat). Mock scores and details are as below:

Test.................Quant..........Verbal...........Remarks
prep1................. 50..............30
prep2..................49 ............. 33 ............14 incorrect
mgmat2 ..............47..............29 ..............21incorrect. 11CR incorrect
mgmat3...............48.............. 37.............14 incorrect
mgmat4...............46...............38..............14 incorrect

I have given mgmat tests with AWA.

I have worked upon my timing strategy. Till mgmat2, I used to have 3-4mins left in verbal. This meant that I was not giving enough time to each question. In mgmat3 and mgmat4, I improved my focus on each question especially CR and SC questions and divided verbal section (4 sets of 10 question each) across 75mins. I feel that this helped me in increasing verbal score in mgmat mocks.

In continuation of above, I have following queries:
1. How much reliable are mgmat verbal scores in judging current verbal level? I have spoken to people; they said that actual gmat verbal score are generally on bit higher side than mgmat verbal scores or more or less same.
2. I got around 35 questions of 700-800 level in each mgmat mock. Is it realistic?
3. Is there any correlation of number of incorrect answers with verbal score? I got 14 incorrect in gmatprep2 and scored V33, while equal number of incorrect answers lead to V37 in mgmat.
4. I found mgmat CR questions a bit trickier than official question.
5. I did last RC passage (between 28 and 38) completely wrong in all mock tests. How to improve that?

On the lighter note, mgmat quant is really very tough. I tried hard to score Q50 in mgmat3 but could score Q48. :-)

I have planned to review weaker areas in this week and give mgmat5 and mgmat6 by 28th Sept. After that I will give gmat prep.

I am not really very much confident of my verbal scores.
Please guide me to make out most from remaining 2 weeks.

Thanks.

[StaceyKoprince]

You took 5 tests in the past 2 weeks?

Stop!

Read this right now:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... many-cats/

Seriously - go read it and then come back here. Tell me why I had you read that.

You do not learn how to get better by taking a bunch of practice tests! This is how you learn to get better at the GMAT:
http://tinyurl.com/2ndlevelofgmat

Next, you mentioned that you did do the essay. Does that mean that you did not do IR? Don't skip IR in the future. That section tires you out mentally (in fact, I just finished answering a post from someone who wanted to know what to do because he's too tired out from IR and quant when he gets to verbal). That can bring down your performance on verbal. If you are not practicing with IR, then your verbal scores may be artificially inflated.

Some people score about the same on the real test; some people score higher or lower. There isn't a general trend or skew in one direction. It looks like your scores are moving in the right direction though.

Concentrating on either # correct or difficulty level of the mix of questions is not very helpful. In general, as you saw, most people answer about the same # of questions correctly even at different scoring levels.

Further, your performance is not based on any kind of average across the difficulty levels of the questions that you received. The scoring algorithm really is an algorithm - it's very complex.

In general, you're trying to answer the questions that you can answer in a reasonable amount of time, and you're trying to guess and move on when a question is too hard or will take too long.

The RC pattern you mention is likely a mental fatigue issue - and that will be exacerbated when you add IR into the mix. You are probably also spending too much mental energy on quant, by the way - when you hit something that is too hard, let it go. Save that mental energy for verbal!

I'm going to give you the same analogy that I just gave the other student asking about mental stamina.

You manage a division at your company. You have a quarterly budget. It has to last for the whole quarter, so you may decide not to send Sue to the conference in week 3 because you may have a better place to spend that money in week 8. You don't know for sure yet, but you don't just spend all the money right now.

Start taking this attitude toward the test, NOT the "old school" attitude of "I must get this question right."

Read this:
http://tinyurl.com/executivereasoning

You mentioned CR a couple of times, so here's something to help in general:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... reasoning/

And with mental fatigue:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/

If you'd like to get more detailed advice, use the below to analyze your most recent MGMAT CATs (this should take you a minimum of 1 hour):
http://tinyurl.com/analyzeyourcats

Based on all of that, figure out your strengths and weaknesses as well as any ideas you have for what you think you should do. Then come back here and tell us; we'll tell you whether we agree and advise you further. (Note: do share an analysis with us, not just the raw data. Part of getting better is developing your ability to analyze your results - figure out what they mean and what you think you should do about them!)