I just Beat The GMAT!

Ian Stewart wrote:First, keep in mind that GMAT test takers are, in general, very motivated, intelligent and hard-working people, and to finish the test with an above average score is an accomplishment you should be proud of.
There are many good suggestions on this forum about study approaches, and I think you may want to try a new approach to Verbal questions, since your Verbal scores did not rise appreciably over the course of your preparation. In general, you're likely to see the most rapid improvement by focusing on Sentence Correction; improving in CR and especially RC takes longer.

hk wrote: All the very best with your preparation and i'm sure the next time GMAT is going to be sorry for messing with the wrong person!!!!
So lets do this!!!!

Stacey Koprince wrote:
When studying any verbal problem, here are the things you want to analyze:

- why would someone choose each wrong answer; what would lead someone to think it's right even though it's wrong?
- which is the most tempting wrong answer? why is it so tempting even though it's wrong?
- why are the wrong answers actually wrong? (be able to articulate well enough that you could explain to someone else)
- why would someone eliminate the right answer; what would lead someone to think it's wrong even though it's right?
- why is the right answer actually right? (again, be able to articulate well enough that you could explain to someone else)

- how will I recognize a similar problem in the future? (either an SC that tests a grammar rule in a similar way or CR/RC question that tests a certain pattern of analysis / critical thinking in a similar way) Literally, what are the clues that I should remember, so that, if I see something like this again in future, I'll remember - oh, this is testing XYZ, and this is how I should think about that.

- Can I do this question within the given timeframe (see below)? If not, what else should I do to get myself to an answer and move on without spending too much time? (Recall, as others have said above, that you are going to get questions wrong on the test - the key is to recognize when something is just too hard for you and make sure you don't lose time on that question that you could better spend elsewhere.)
SC - about 60-75 sec; max of 90 sec
CR - about 2m; max of 2.5m
RC - about 2.5m (short) to 3.5m (long) to read; about 1 min for general purpose questions; about 1.5 to 2 for everything else

- "What else should I do" = "how should I make an educated guess?" On SC, this typically means dealing with the one or two things you do know in the sentence and then guessing from among the remaining choices. On CR and RC, there are additional things you can do to identify likely wrong answers even when you don't know the right answer. Here are some ideas to get you started: https://www.beatthegmat.com/verbal-strategy-t14035.html

So there are some things to get you started as you dive deeper into verbal.

I also want to mention that all tests have standard deviations. As some have mentioned above, the SD on the real test is about 30 points. The SD on our practice tests is about 50 points. The SD is not consistently high or low for everybody - for some people, their score is higher on the real thing and for others, their score is lower on the real thing. The lesson here is that we can't expect to score exactly the same when we take the real test (especially when we get nervous because we know the real test counts).

Good luck - let us know how it goes!