I just Beat The GMAT!

Hello,

I gave my GMAT (first attempt) couple of days back and got a score of 660 (Q50, V28, IR2).
Quant comes naturally to me and the only mistakes that I was making in it were silly mistakes such as reading question incorrectly or wrong calculations. I was able to overcome these mistakes during my practice tests.
However, I am highly disappointed with my verbal score.
During the test, I felt like I was doing well and still got such a low score in verbal.
I got much higher score than this in almost all of my mock tests.
I am unable to understand where my verbal skills are lacking. While giving the test I didn't feel much time pressure as it seemed to be going at right pace, only last couple of SC questions I had to read quickly and mark. While giving the test I was getting confused between last 2 choices in SC. But CR and RC seemed fine. I was feeling that they were easier as compared to GMATPrep but I was shocked to see verbal score in the end. I guess I also got a bit nervous during verbal section (don't know why).
I now feel that I am missing something strategy-wise in verbal.
I want to improve my verbal score, experts please guide me.

My background: 30, female, engineer with 7 years of work experience

Preparation-
I purchased e-gmat Online course (Quant + Verbal) in June and went through it religiously.
I also went through all the GMATPrepnow videos. In addition to this I went through MGMAT SC guide.
I did all OG questions in timed manner and maintained an error log for it.
Then I gave mock tests. Below are my mock score with dates. I reviewed all these mock tests after giving them and maintained error log for them as well.

Test Date Score Quant Verbal
800 score test -1 13-Oct-15 600 48 25
800 score test -2 14-Oct-15 660 47 33
800 score test -3 15-Oct-15 610 47 27
MGMAT1 (without IR) 17-Oct-15 580 42 30
Economist GMAT 21-Oct-15 670 49 34
800 score test -4 22-Oct-15 740 50 40
MGMAT2 (without IR) 23-Oct-15 630 45 32
MGMAT3 (without IR) 28-Oct-15 660 44 36
GMATPrep1 (with IR + AWA) 1-Nov-15 650 48 31
MGMAT4 (with IR) 4-Nov-15 680 47 35
MGMAT5 (without IR) 7-Nov-15 680 48 34
MGMAT6 (without IR) 9-Nov-15 680 46 37
GMATPrep2(with IR + AWA) 12-Nov-15 720 50 38
GMATPrep1 (Repeat) (without IR or AWA) 14-Nov 730(Q50, V38)
GMATPrep2 (Repeat) (without IR or AWA) 15-Nov 750(Q50, V40)
Final GMAT 17-Nov 660(Q50, V28)

Thanks.

april24 wrote:Hello,

I gave my GMAT (first attempt) couple of days back and got a score of 660 (Q50, V28, IR2).
Quant comes naturally to me and the only mistakes that I was making in it were silly mistakes such as reading question incorrectly or wrong calculations. I was able to overcome these mistakes during my practice tests.
However, I am highly disappointed with my verbal score.
During the test, I felt like I was doing well and still got such a low score in verbal.
I got much higher score than this in almost all of my mock tests.
I am unable to understand where my verbal skills are lacking. While giving the test I didn't feel much time pressure as it seemed to be going at right pace, only last couple of SC questions I had to read quickly and mark. While giving the test I was getting confused between last 2 choices in SC. But CR and RC seemed fine. I was feeling that they were easier as compared to GMATPrep but I was shocked to see verbal score in the end. I guess I also got a bit nervous during verbal section (don't know why).
I now feel that I am missing something strategy-wise in verbal.
I want to improve my verbal score, experts please guide me.

My background: 30, female, engineer with 7 years of work experience

Preparation-
I purchased e-gmat Online course (Quant + Verbal) in June and went through it religiously.
I also went through all the GMATPrepnow videos. In addition to this I went through MGMAT SC guide.
I did all OG questions in timed manner and maintained an error log for it.
Then I gave mock tests. Below are my mock score with dates. I reviewed all these mock tests after giving them and maintained error log for them as well.

Test Date Score Quant Verbal
800 score test -1 13-Oct-15 600 48 25
800 score test -2 14-Oct-15 660 47 33
800 score test -3 15-Oct-15 610 47 27
MGMAT1 (without IR) 17-Oct-15 580 42 30
Economist GMAT 21-Oct-15 670 49 34
800 score test -4 22-Oct-15 740 50 40
MGMAT2 (without IR) 23-Oct-15 630 45 32
MGMAT3 (without IR) 28-Oct-15 660 44 36
GMATPrep1 (with IR + AWA) 1-Nov-15 650 48 31
MGMAT4 (with IR) 4-Nov-15 680 47 35
MGMAT5 (without IR) 7-Nov-15 680 48 34
MGMAT6 (without IR) 9-Nov-15 680 46 37
GMATPrep2(with IR + AWA) 12-Nov-15 720 50 38
GMATPrep1 (Repeat) (without IR or AWA) 14-Nov 730(Q50, V38)
GMATPrep2 (Repeat) (without IR or AWA) 15-Nov 750(Q50, V40)
Final GMAT 17-Nov 660(Q50, V28)

Thanks.

It looks like you've worked through a lot of material, so more drilling doesn't seem to be the answer. A few easy tweaks that you can make to your regimen:

- Read voraciously everyday for two weeks. (Anything challenging will do.) There's research suggesting that the physiology of our brains changes when we read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/ar ... in/282952/

- Consider incorporating some mindfulness meditation. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... on/275564/

Afterwards, review the official material you've worked through and see if there are patterns to the questions you've missed. Anything unclear, post here. Jot a few notes to yourself about simple adjustments you can make. Remember that for all the strategies/grammar rules we teach, the verbal section is primarily about logic and focus. Practice boiling everything down to its essence. Always ask yourself, before you select an answer in sentence correction, if the sentence, when read literally, is clear and logical. Before you select an answer in Critical Reasoning always take another moment and ask if your answer really does impact the conclusion. Before you select an answer in Reading Comp ask yourself if there's textual support for that answer. Be relentless. Then hit some fresh official tests: https://www.mba.com/us/store/store-catal ... ack-1.aspx

Thanks for the suggestions Dave.
I will try to incorporate your tips while preparing for second round.
I was also thinking of getting enhanced score report to understand what went wrong with verbal section.
Do you think it would help?

april24 wrote:Thanks for the suggestions Dave.
I will try to incorporate your tips while preparing for second round.
I was also thinking of getting enhanced score report to understand what went wrong with verbal section.
Do you think it would help?

In my experience the enhanced score report is sometimes moderately helpful and sometimes just telling us what we already know. If, for example, you tended to struggle a bit on Sentence Correction on your practice exams, it's not going to be terribly enlightening when the enhanced score report tells you that you struggled on SC on this test as well. The report tends to be most helpful either when it yields surprising information or when you genuinely don't have a sense of where the problems may have lay. Personally, I like to err on the side of more info, so if it were me, I'd probably get it - just know that the revelations are not likely to be earth-shattering.

Hi Rich,

Please find my replies to your question below:

1) What studying did you do in the last 3 days before your GMAT? My GMAT was on 17-Nov. On 14 and 15 Nov I retook two GMAT Preps, one on each day. On 16-Nov I practiced some AWA essays.
2) How did you sleep the night before the Test? About 7-8 hours
3) How long was the ride to the Test Center from your home? 20 mins (I went by car, so there no issue during ride, but it was raining so I got wet while going from car to test center)

4) What time was your Test? 1.30 PM (I reached the facility around 12 PM and they told me that there was 1 free slot available so I didn't need to wait until 1.30 and I can take test right away. So I took the test earlier.)
5) Were there any distractions at the facility or during the Test? No
6) What did you do during the two 8-minute breaks? Ate a banana/drank some orange juice and went to washroom during both the breaks.

Hi Celine.

Here is what I have seen cause surprisingly low verbal scores.

People often feel that what it takes to score high on GMAT verbal is learning certain strategies and reading a lot of explanations to learn how to get right answers. What can happen via this process is that a person develops formulaic ways of getting to verbal answers.

This can be dangerous. You look at the same verbal questions repeatedly and practically memorize the explanations, and you learn cookie cutter strategies for getting to answers. Then the test throws you a whole new set of challenges, and you think your strategies fit the questions you see, but they don't, and without your even realizing that it is happening, you get smoked right and left.

If this is what happened to you, you are not the first and won't be the last to experience it.

What can you do differently?

You can take a different approach to verbal, one that is actually closer to how you are probably handling quant questions. You can see each question as fairly unique, and rather than seeking to use "GMAT verbal strategies" to find the answers you can seek to really see the logic and details of each passage, prompt, sentence correction version, or other component of verbal questions.

I am sure that you can score much higher than you did on verbal. You said you that you are more comfortable with quant, but GMAT verbal is logic based and the questions are basically reasoning challenges.

So, probably by taking a different approach, one that is more holistic and logic based and involves noting key details, to GMAT verbal, you can both increase your section score and reduce or eliminate the risk of getting smoked the way you did on this occasion.

Your situation sounds similar. Do you have any updates? Thanks!