GMAT Strategy

I have been trying to improve my verbal but not with much of a success. I am able to narrow it down two answer choices and most of the times end up picking the wrong answer choices (40 % of the times). One thing might be that I need to spend more time on each question as I realized that when I do a practice test, I am not utilizing the complete 75 minutes finishing up at least 2 or 3 mins early.

Any other tips or approach I need to follow? I have the same problem across all the three question types.

Thanks

Amit

Hi Amit,
Could you tell what resources you've been using? Verbal requires a lot practise for non-native English people like you and I (assuming you are one). I've found Manhattan verbal books to be very helpful specially SC and RC. Go through explanations thoroughly for all the practise questions that you do even if you got it right.

I have been using all resources such as Manhattan SC ,and CR and Rc and I have gone through Powerscore CR bible , I have seen a improvement in verbal after going through these books, my verbal jumped from 22 to 31 on MGCAT exams within 20 days but it is kind a struck there for a while now not moving forward.

I am planning on using a error log from now to keep track where I am going wrong and try to improve in those areas.

Any more suggestions?

My only suggestion to you is to re-read it several times, I think reading the book once isn't just enough. Try to grasp the concept really well and then you'll do good on those questions. It takes time and practice I believe

Whenever I make a mistake, I always try and go back and see what mistake I made, and then take steps to learn the material so I won't make the same one again. It definitely helps to be cognizant of what you're doing wrong. What you said about your pacing is important, but 2-3 min at the end of practice exams really isn't that much time to have left. I would much rather have that than 30 seconds left.

Thanks for your inputs, I usually go back and check what mistake I made. But I think i need to go back to my error log and revise all mistakes I made once week and will through material again .

Hi Amit,

Great suggestions by everyone else thus far, and I have one more that you may find useful. If you think about it, when you narrow the answers down to 2 on any verbal question, by that point 4 out of the last 5 sentences that you've read will have been incorrect answer choices - just bad information.

Much like sushi restaurants give you the ginger slices and wineries give you soda crackers, in both cases to cleanse your palate of aftertaste so that you can appreciate what's next, you may need to cleanse yourself of the "aftertaste" of all of those incorrect answers. If you reread the question and the remaining two answer choices, treating it as a new question, you'll focus on the important components of your decision, and not be swayed or fatigued by the misinformation that you've read most recently.

In addition, you'll also find that, typically, GMAT verbal answer choices are usually incorrect for multiple reasons. 2-3 answer choices may, for example, be "out of scope" of the conclusion of an argument, but the last remaining answer choice will likely be wrong for a different reason. If you refresh the question and the remaining two answer choices before you make that final decision, you'll be more apt to recognize that a new thought process is required, and that the process you used to eliminate the initial answer choices won't work on the last one. Often times, students will narrow down to two and pick the one that "feels right" based on that current mindframe, but usually a second process is required.