How to focus last 2 weeks after situational issue during rea

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Dear GMAT experts,

This is my first post here but I have followed this website since the beginning of my studies.

I wanted to share my experience and then get some advice on what to do next.

This last Saturday, I sat down to take the GMAT exam (my second re-take). I felt really confident going into the exam which started at 8 AM and had achieved practice test scores of between 710-720. Unfortunately, half way into the quant section, I felt an overwhelming urge to use the restroom. I will save you the details but basically too much water. I tried to shift away from thinking about it but then finally could not hold on anymore and had to end up randomly selecting C for the last 10 questions in Quant. After the break, I felt refreshed and felt good on verbal. My final score was a 650. I know I could have gotten to the 700+ level score I had wanted had it not been for the situation that arose during Quant.

Here are the details of my score:
IR 5, Quant 43, Verbal 36

I have scheduled to retake the exam on June 17th and really want to zone my efforts into verbal as I know my quant could have been much higher if it were not for the circumstances. In examing my ESR, my Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension were at 86 and 94 percentile, respectively. However, my Sentence Correction score was at 46th percentile which really surprised me since I had been doing well in SC in my practice tests and in problem sets.

How should I zone in to improve my SC score in the 2 weeks leading up to the test? I have gone through the Manhattan GMAT SC and all of the magoosh SC question banks. I am not really sure what area my issue is in. Would appreciate any help or advice you can offer me. Thank you!

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by ceilidh.erickson » Mon Jun 12, 2017 10:13 am
To improve in SC - and to get answers right consistently - you must make sure that you're not relying on what "sounds right" or "sounds wrong." https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... orrection/

You must have an in-depth knowledge of the rules that are tested on the GMAT, and recognize patterns in the ways that they manifest.

First step: keep a detailed Error Log / Review Log. Note exactly which piece of the sentence you got wrong / overlooked, then try to find other sentences with similar constructions. https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -studying/

For example, if you miss an OPENING MODIFIER question, flip through the OG to find as many similar constructions as you can. Then you'll begin to recognize that if a sentence begins with -ING, then the underline begins after the comma, the sentence is almost certainly testing opening modifiers.
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education