help help help.... verbal...

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help help help.... verbal...

by suryapal » Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:50 pm
hi guys....
i scheduled my exam date on 31th march but then gave some prac test last week... n my scores were :

gmat prep 1 - 680 Q-49,V-32
gmat prep 2-670 Q-49,V-31
gmat prep !(2nd time) - 700 Q-50,V-34
gmat prep 2(2nd time) -630 Q-50, V25

but my target score is 740, so i have reshceduled the exam date and now i want to give the exam in june .. so please suggest me , what should i do to improve my verbal score ??? which study material i should prefer now???

i've done og11(twice) ,verbal review(twice) kaplan 800(twice) and my accuracy in all the three section of verbal in og 11 and og verbal review is approximatly 90% . and in problem solving my accuracy is 95% + and in DS 90%+.

so please sugges me, what should i do , what should i read.. i need to improve my verbal and to score aleast 41

regards
suryapal
Last edited by suryapal on Sat May 01, 2010 9:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by papgust » Fri Mar 26, 2010 12:48 am
What are your weaknesses in verbal?

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by suryapal » Fri Mar 26, 2010 9:03 am
SC- verb form and rhetorical construction.. and some times ...silly mistakes..
CR- Which of the following best completes the passage.... type question and silly mistakes...
RC- i don't know exactly but every time i got 4-5 question wrong...

most people suggest lsat material to improve CR and RC.... which LSAT material.. please specify...

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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Apr 05, 2010 10:58 am
Received a PM asking me to reply.

You talk about your accuracy in OG but you don't mention timing. What is your accuracy INCLUDING normal GMAT timing? Accuracy without timing tells you almost nothing at all, really.

I'm not familiar with Kaplan 800 - is that a book with just questions or does it actually include lessons on HOW to recognize and answer the various types of verbal questions (including grammar rules)? OG11 and VR are only practice books. They're very good practice books, but they don't teach you HOW to get better.

If Kaplan 800 is like OG11 and VR, then you are lacking materials that teach you how to do this stuff. It's not enough just to practice over and over. I could practice playing basketball all day long, but if I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing (and I don't!), I'm only going to get a little better. I'm not going to get 90+ percentile better. :)

Next, you started to discuss your weaknesses, but we need a lot more detail than that. (For instance, for CR you said "which of the following best completes the passage" - but that isn't a CR question type. CR questions can be written in a "fill in the blank" form, but many different types of questions can be written in this way. I have seen OG assumption questions, strengthen, weaken, etc., using a "fill in the blank" format.)

GMATPrep is great practice but gives you almost no data about your strengths and weaknesses. I would suggest that you take a test-prep company's practice test. You need something that will give you data about question categories, content areas, TIMING, and difficulty levels, and you need to make sure that the test is adaptive.

If you want to take a ManhattanGMAT test, you can sign up for one free test on our website. Take the test under FULL official conditions (including essays!), then read the following article and do the analysis described:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/09/23 ... tice-tests

Then come back here to post again. Describe your analysis of the test (using the steps described in the above article) and we'll help you try to figure out what to do!
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by FC » Wed Apr 07, 2010 6:41 pm
Stacey, come on, don't you know the Kaplan 800 ?! I know that the prep companies evaluate the books from one another in order to improve their next editions. I would bet that if the Kaplan 800 were a successful book, you would be one of the MGMAT instructors to write the MGMAT own version of the 800. :wink: Don't take me wrong, I am a big fan of the MGMAT books and I really appreciate your posts and articles, but your question above about the K 800 sounded funny. :D

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by suryapal » Wed Apr 07, 2010 10:37 pm
If Kaplan 800 is like OG11 and VR, then you are lacking materials that teach you how to do this stuff. It's not enough just to practice over and over. I could practice playing basketball all day long, but if I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing (and I don't!), I'm only going to get a little better. I'm not going to get 90+ percentile better.
for which material i should go then... ??

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by Stacey Koprince » Thu Apr 08, 2010 12:14 pm
Stacey, come on, don't you know the Kaplan 800 ?! I know that the prep companies evaluate the books from one another in order to improve their next editions.
I have heard of it, of course, because people mention it here. I have never looked at it - I've never even seen a copy of the real book! - and I don't know what it includes. I purposely avoid reading books from other prep companies because I do not want to be influenced by the IP (intellectual property) of another company. That's a legal thing. :)
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by kevincanspain » Thu Apr 08, 2010 1:58 pm
Stacey is absolutely right: practice does NOT make perfect unless you reflect on your mistakes and ensure that you learn from them. Sometimes mistakes result from carelessness but other times they are due to bonafide weaknesses in your skills.

If you routinely make 4-5 mistakes in RC , you are unlikely to reach the 90th percentile. When you make a RC mistake, try to identify the reason you made it:

I did not understand the text as a whole.
The vocabulary of the revelant excerpt prevented me from identifying the answer.
I relied too much on my recollection of what was stated.
I went to the wrong part of the text to justify my answer.
I did not understand the question.
I overlooked a key word in the answer I chose.
I did not REALLY understand the correct answer.
I could not identify the correct inference.
I lost sight of the main point of the passage


If you can categorize your typical mistakes, we may be able to suggest remedial action
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by suryapal » Thu Apr 08, 2010 8:08 pm
kevincanspain wrote:Stacey is absolutely right: practice does NOT make perfect unless you reflect on your mistakes and ensure that you learn from them. Sometimes mistakes result from carelessness but other times they are due to bonafide weaknesses in your skills.

If you routinely make 4-5 mistakes in RC , you are unlikely to reach the 90th percentile. When you make a RC mistake, try to identify the reason you made it:

I did not understand the text as a whole.
The vocabulary of the revelant excerpt prevented me from identifying the answer.
I relied too much on my recollection of what was stated.
I went to the wrong part of the text to justify my answer.
I did not understand the question.
I overlooked a key word in the answer I chose.
I did not REALLY understand the correct answer.
I could not identify the correct inference.
I lost sight of the main point of the passage


If you can categorize your typical mistakes, we may be able to suggest remedial action


I could not identify the correct inference.
I lost sight of the main point of the passage
and I went to the wrong part of the text to justify my answer.....

please explain ... how to rectify these problems....

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by Stacey Koprince » Fri Apr 09, 2010 5:27 am
This is easier to discuss if we have an example problem to discuss - then, you can explain what you did, and we can show you what you should have done.

Why don't you post an RC passage and a question or two from it (or pick one that's already been posted by someone else), write up how you did it / what you thought, and then send a link to the post to us via PM. Then we'll come in and start a discussion.

Note: if you want me to be able to answer, don't use OG or Kaplan (the former has invoked its copyright against posting questions online and the latter has asked MGMAT not to discuss Kaplan problems online). GMATPrep is the best source; you can also use MGMAT.
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