770(Q50,V45) from UZBEKISTAN

Note: Although I took the GMAT several months ago, I would like to share my verbal strategy to help current test takers.

MY VERBAL PREP STRATEGY

Background Info: I was good at Quant, but weak at Verbal, as is case with a lot of test takers. So I devoted a lot of time to improve my Verbal skills.
Contrary to popular belief, my gmat experience proved that one can improve one’s verbal skills, even RC skills, significantly in a relatively short time through proper approach and prep strategy. Guys, Believe me, at the beginning of my prep, my RC, CR and SC skills were in the 50% s or in the 20s out of 51 scale. At the end, they were in 45-47 s or in 95 % (my actual verbal score is the proof)

Guys, I am so sorry for the delay. I was very busy and could not update my post.

Here comes my Verbal Strategy:

Reading Comprehension

I would like to mention this section first, because it is the most important and the most influential on your overall verbal score. During the actual test, a RC mistake much more weighs than a SC or CR mistake and decreases the score significantly. However, a lot of guys neglect this section during their prep.(This can be proved from the very passiveness of the RC section on the forum) Many believe that RC skills can not be improved in a short time. But this is not necessarily true. My case totally proves this.

General Strategy
(I have learned this strategy from different test experiences and found very useful)

A key point about RC is that you need to understand the text.

Do NOT skim and scan. You are being tested for your understanding and comprehension of the text, not for your ability to pick details out of paragraphs without really knowing what the full story is. Questions like "what do you think that author would most agree with" can NOT be answered without REALLY understanding what the story is about. With time pressure it will be very tempting to rush to the questions and think you'll read the relevant passage when they ask about it, but I believe this is exactly the trap you want to keep out of.
What I do is I read the first paragraph twice, maybe three times, because it often sets the tone (which you'll be asked about) very quickly. Summarize the first passage -- out loud but quietly -- in very simple laymen terms, if necessary in your own language, as if you're explaining it to a child. The GMAT tests your ability to filter the wordy mumbo-jumbo, awkward sentence constructions, and understand in Sesame Street terms what is being said.
If you come across an important paragraph that gives a new side to a story, read it and make absolutely sure you understand what is being said. Read it twice. Read it three times if necessary. Your body will scream no because that clock is ticking, but if you understand the text well, the questions will mostly be a walk in the park. If you don't, you'll be spending a lot of time trying to get the pieces of the puzzle to fit, and doing what you should have done in the first place -- trying to understand the text.

Do not try to bluff your way through the questions by scanning text fragments for clues or words that correspond to an answer item. Those answers are often traps, and the real answers are often hidden in overly simplistic or overly complicated answers that, if you're bluffing, look like unlikely answers, but, only if you really understand the gist of the story, you can recognize as being correct.

Timing, of course, is still key here. Practice a text and its questions in e.g. OG11 and time how long you took on average for each question. If it's more than 1 3/4 minute per question, you need more practice. But first and foremost, make sure you understand the text. Do not skip to the questions if you don't understand the text, you will be punished for that.

In addition to the above mentioned, I developed my own approach :

From the beginning of the passage, I, as a detective, carefully follow author, determine her or his position (agree or disagree, tone) on the given theories or phenomena and find out her or his main conclusion (usually this will be expressed at the end of first paragraph or at the end of the last paragraph). Fully aware of main idea and author’s position, I rarely miss main idea, main purpose questions or inference or tone questions. I developed this approach, following Kaplan’s explanations and instructions

Sources:

1) The best RC prep source I have ever had (even far better than OG) : LSAT sets(or tests) and Kaplan’s explanations to them ( around 30 sets, each with 4 passages).

Why:
• Long and tough passages in a variety of topics. Very useful for time management.
• A lot of inference and other question types(the role of a detail or a sentence; tone qs; author agree ,disagree qs) which are being tested more frequently in Gmat.
• Awesome explanations which will teach you how to approach each question type.
• Very good passage paraphrasing at the beginning of each passage ( very helpful for self paraphrasing building skills)

If you have sufficient time, start with Lsat RC passages( do not get discouraged if your accuracy rate is low, keep practicing). At the beginning, work to improve accuracy and comprehension of the passage. After you increase your accuracy rate, deal with time. Keep in mind that The quality ,not the quantity, is what matters the most in Gmatland.

2) OG-10 then OG-11 RC passages and explanations. After LSAT, OG passages will become easy. But practicing OG will adapt you to GMAT questions

3) 1000RC GMAT Part (there are a lot of good passages)

Here are some RC tips and advices :

Stop after each paragraph of the passage and recap its key points. That way you’re less likely to forget them.

When you run across a “primary purpose” question, always ask yourself whether the author’s purpose is descriptive or argumentative. Then do a “verb scan” to eliminate those choices that are inconsistent with the author’s purpose. Usually, you’ll be able to get rid of at least two or three wrong choices this way, which will make your job of finding the correct answer that much easier.

When you can pinpoint the exact part or ¶ of a passage where an answer is to be found, always skim or reread it before browsing among the choices. You’ll get distracted and misled less often. Base your answers on a review of the text, not on your memory of the text. Memories are faulty and can lead to wrong answers.

Always seek passage support for Inference and Detail questions. Never rely solely on your memory

Remember, when dealing with a question about the role of a detail, it's important to understand the context in which that detail appears. So instead of focusing on the micro issue of the detail itself, start with the macro issue of: Where is the author at that point in his argument?

When asked for the purpose or definition of a detail, stay as narrowly as possible to its use in the text.

The correct answer to an Inference question lives up to a very high standard: it must be true. So attack each choice boldly. Which one choice must be true based on the text? Which four choices either could or must be false?

Use the clues! Skim the passage for words used in the question stem key words) that hint at where the right answer is to be found.

Remember, the answer to Reading Comp. questions can always be found in the passage. Keep your personal opinions to yourself!

Your first step with a Reading Comp. question that asks about a portion of the passage should be to ask: Where in the passage is this to be found? Next, go back to the text and reread what’s relevant. Finally, prephrase an answer.

When the testmaker blatantly points you to a particular ¶, it’s a gift horse you don’t want to look in the mouth. Don’t dally! Get back to it, skim it quickly for its essentials, and then proceed confidently to the choices.

A question that points you to a specific phrase or line reference is really testing your command of immediate context. Study it all.

When you believe that you’ve found the correct answer, by all means look at the other four, but not with respect. Check them quickly and boldly, making sure that they’re as bad as they need to be. If any choice doesn’t strike you as awful, analyze further: Maybe it’s right. In sum, then, be thorough, but don’t agonize over the other choices once you think you’ve found the right one.

In questions asking for a passage’s organization, summarize in your own words the major elements of the passage before looking at the choices. You’re not likely to guess every word of the correct choice, but a clear understanding of the basic building blocks should help you to eliminate the wrong choices and to latch onto the right one when you see it.

Questions that ask you to sum up the Main Purpose in a few abstract words may be more difficult than questions whose choices are lengthy. In situations like this one, you have much less to work with! One useful approach may be to ask: What would the passage have to look like if each choice were correct? Remember, only one will match up to the passage you actually get.

Though it says “The passage...[does] which of the following,” we know what that really means: “The author does.”

The correct answer to a Point-at-Issue question must satisfy two criteria: First, does each speaker have an opinion about the topic or issue in the choice? If so, are their opinions different? When you can answer yes to both questions, then you’ve found the winner.
• Conversely, the wrong choices in Point-at-Issue questions often involve points on which the speakers would or might agree, or issues about which we cannot determine how one or both would feel.

Keep holding the answer choices to the same high standard: For every given question, exactly one choice has been set up by the testmaker as correct, and exactly four are demonstrably faulty. As a rule, don’t compare the choices to each other; instead, compare each choice to the text, looking for the one and only one that the testmaker has deemed CORRECT.

Sentence Correction

This is the verbal section in which one can improve the most.

Description of current actual SC questions: A lot of test takers have recently observed that actual SC qs are becoming much different from those in Gmatprep, OG or other sources. In Gmatprep or OG, the SC questions test the proper usage of an idiom or an obvious grammar mistake. In actual test, this is no longer the case. Actual SC questions are getting trickier and testing a lot of stuff all together. Unlike old questions, they are testing idiom, grammar, style, clarity, intended (logical) meaning at the same time. Intended meaning is playing more important role. Grammar mistakes are not obvious. SC questions are getting more complicated structure (mixture of modifiers both at the beginning and at the end of the sentence)

General strategy:

Start with Manhattan SC. Learn common grammar mistakes and frequently tested idioms. After Manhattan Sc guide, start OG-10 SC section. Read every explanation very carefully. That explanations are from the real test makers makes everything clear. Read OG-11SC . If you have time, Read OGs twice or three times until you totally understand the rules.

Other sources:
1) 1000 SC: good for practice but no longer highly representative.

2) Forum discussions

3) Manhattan SC question bank: Good qs and good explanations

4) 800Bob’s explanations. You can find them in one of the GMAT forums.
These explanations are the best.

CRITICAL REASONING[/b]

Description of current actual CR questions: They are harder than those in OG or in Gmatprep. They have become like LSAT CR questions in both logic and structure. One will get stuck between two, very close answer choices if one does not understand the argument thoroughly.

General Strategy:

Those who really want to understand thoroughly the structure of formal logic and line of reasoning or who think they should learn the formal logic can read Powerscore CR bible. This book gives detailed description of and explanation for each CR question type, along with CR set and explanations.

Those who have little time can choose and study chapters of question types at which they are weak.

First begin learning the structure of the CR(conclusion, evidence..) from a good book. Powerscore’s beginning chapters are the best to do so.
Familiarize yourself with the common CR question types. Practice some of them.
Start LSAT sets and refer to Kaplan explanations. Unlike those in OG , the explanations of Kaplan are clear and not so formal. Kaplan explanations are helpful in that they provide complete explanation and teach how to approach each question type.
LSAT CR questions are much more difficult than those on the GMAT. They are extremely nitpicky, so practicing them helps you become very logical and helps you spot the errors in GMAT arguments in a second. The reward of this practice is that Gmat CRs start to appear simple. In fact the answers will start to strike immediately as soon as you finish reading the argument in GMAT.

I also followed the following approach suggested by top scorer(790:V51,Q50) and found very useful:

“The way I approached CR problems was much different than the way Kaplan (and most books) recommend it. Unlike most people, I don't read the question stem before I read the stimulus. Rather, I read the stimulus first, trying to get a thorough understanding so that regardless of what the question is, I'm ready to attack it. I really think that this helped build my logic skills, so that I was better prepared for any kind of CR question than I would have been if I had a more question-type-specific approach. I feel that had I tried to read the question first, I'd be so focused on trying to find the assumption/implication that I wouldn't understand the argument as a whole intricately enough to analyze the answer choices appropriately. One reason I trusted this approach is that TestMasters, the company known for being the best LSAT prep course, recommends it (and the LSAT is 1/2 CR, so you figure an LSAT prep course would be particularly privy to how to approach the problems). However, each person should take the approach they feel is best!”

Resources:
1) Power score LR Bible ( if necessary)
Note: Powerscore LR Bible and Powerscore Gmat CR Bible are almost the same.
1)As mentioned above, LSAT sets and Kaplan’s explanations to them.(I personally highly recommend them)
2) OG CR sections (both OG-10 and OG-11(the latter has a very good explanations))
3) 1000CR

These sources more than suffice to master your CR skills and ace the GMAT CRs.

OTHER SOURCES:
PowerPrep tests: very good for practice. But note that OG-10 has many overlapping qs with Powerprep. So take these tests before practicing OGs.

Gmatprep tests: the best practice tests so far. They have a rich Quant database but limited Verbal database. Practice on these tests as much as possible.

Manhattan online tests: they are said to very good. I personally did not practice them.

Timing (quote from larzke )

You'll find a time when you're getting questions right but are taking too much time. Certainly, with enough time I'll answer EVERY question correctly! In fact, I have found that the true challenge of the GMAT is not *whether* you can solve a particular problem, but *how quickly* you can do it. You will need to train yourself to see through wordy and concept-stacked GMAT questions quicker and quicker as you progress. Learning to apply the theory is one thing, getting it internalized so well that you can apply it without thinking (like tying your shoe laces) is another.

Secondly, when you have read through and have interpreted the question stem, it is tempting to rush to doing a calculation, but know that you usually have enough time for only ONE calculation approach. If you screw up, decide to re-read the question, and then find out you actually need to calculate something slightly different, you will probably already have blown your 2 minute average for the question. Train yourself for the mindset that you get ONE shot at answering each question, so make sure your question interpretation is right the first time.

Timing is one of the most difficult things to get right, and it is one of the most important things for a good score. If you blow the average of two minutes, you won't have time to think about the next question, which on the test means your getting the answer wrong. Screwing up your timing on the GMAT will without a doubt destroy your score.

Improving your timing is perhaps as time consuming as mastering the underlying theory. Everyone can rush through a math calculation, but can you rush without making mistakes?
To master this, you need to practice, practice, practice. After a while you'll start to recognize common GMAT patterns just as you can name colors -- without thinking.

Also, very important, you need to start to develop a feel for when your two minutes for a question are up without constantly looking at the clock. Learn to make a choice at that point. If you're confident you'll be able to answer the question correctly with one more minute, and you've been doing ok on timing so far, by all means, go for it. If you're still struggling with finding the right approach, if you're stuck, or if you don't have the faintest idea on how to do the question, guess and move on.

Final Words(quote from imjimmy)

Think of GMAT as an opportunity and NEVER as an obstacle for doing your MBA. Preparation for the GMAT, while sometimes tiresome, has considerable benefits. It will help you develop skills that help later in life: in B-school and beyond.

GMAT is not inherently hard and just requires a planned and dedicated effort. The test is very balanced and is not geared to favour anyone with specific demographics or with specific abilities.

Low proficiency in English will not necessarily preclude you from cracking the GMAT verbal. Similarly the fact that you may be from a non-mathematical background will not prevent you from getting a perfect score in the quant part.

Take my case: I am not a native speaker of English and even with careless mistakes still managed to get a 45 in Verbal.On the flip side, I am from a tech background and fancy myself at quant, yet I fell short of getting a 51 in a quant.

So go ahead and crack the test. If I can do well, so can you!

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