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Improve verbal skills in 30 days

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Improve verbal skills in 30 days

by bkw » Sun Jan 09, 2011 11:19 am
Hi all,

I have made the gmat once and got the lousy verbal score 13. However my q was 45 and awa5.
my goal is now to improve the verbal from 13 to 25-30 in a month. is this a realistic goal?

I am a bit worried about my verbal skills, in all sections SC, CR, and RC. I'm a non native american I probably read too slow, my grammar skills are/must be poor :(

and the worst thing is that, I think most often i end up reading the question, and then, in for example SC, pick the one that sounds best. i know this is completely wrong approach. but by starting to look for all the grammar rules I have read about, verb tense, pronoun, idiom, misp. modifier, parallell constr, subject-verb, it would be impossible for me to finnish in time.
pacing is already a big problem for me and I use to have to guess on the last 10 verbal questions.

how to best prepare?
i do have many gmat books, e.g. og, og-verbal, og-quant, manhattan books etc. but I don't know how to best practice to improve my score in so short time.

do you think I should:
-practice more timed online drills and CATs?
-study more theory in the books?
-...?

thanks for any suggestions!
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by rishi raj » Sun Jan 09, 2011 8:23 pm
I think your goal is not unrealistic. Attaining a 25 on Verbal in one month is quite realistic .However, you'll have to very disciplined in your studies and you need to adopt the right strategy. Firstly, I will not suggest you to take practice tests until and unless your concepts are not clear. Think about it, if your fundamentals in a particular area are not clear,so what's the use of taking practice tests because in the end you'll keep on making the same mistakes .
Talking about sentence correction,you're correct that searching for errors maybe tedious. but ONLY in the beginning. Once you'd have grasped the concepts well and these concepts would have seeped in your unconscious mind, you'll be easily able to apply the concepts.
Secondly, tackling sentence correction questions on the basis of what sounds right is not a reliable strategy. Though it might work for some, but for most others it's quite a dangerous strategy because the options on the GMAT tend to be quite close and even you'd have observed yourself, more than one option in a questions usually sounds right.
The right way to approach sentence correction is to firstly go through a particular concept,understand the concept well ,practice a sufficient number of questions testing that particular concept and then move on to the next question. This strategy ensures that you grasp the concepts well and you also see the applications of those concepts in questions.
Hope that helps!
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Mon Jan 10, 2011 12:43 pm
Hey bkw,

I feel your pain about how difficult it can be to just "study" all of those grammatical rules! In fact, I think you can have more success by combining those rules with what you're already doing. You've read through those rules, so at least you're familiar with them. For now, I'd suggest:

1) Go back to those SC sets you've done and the answer choices you've eliminated because they "sound wrong". Ask yourself "why?" - why did they sound wrong? Try to use those grammatical categories to classify what sounded wrong, and you may well find that a few error categories come pretty natural to you; in doing so, you'll also get a feel for what "sounds wrong" but is not, and train yourself to look for the bigger-picture errors.

2) Pick 2-3 error categories per few hours of study and try to make them strengths. Say that you want to become really comfortable at Subject-Verb agreement, Modifiers, and Verb Tenses - then find a set of 20-30 problems and scan through them to find those categories.

By doing this, you're not trying to learn "all grammar" (which is impossible) at once - you're training yourself to "seek and destroy" those errors that you can master. Hopefully you can find a few error types pretty quickly that you look forward to seeing - that you know you'll eliminate wherever they may lie. Once you have a few strengths, then add 1-2 more categories and try to make them strengths.

3) With your strengths, pay attention to the ways in which they tend to be presented. For example, Modifier errors very often appear in the first line of a sentence like:

Modifier that has answer choices, fixed noun that it must modify...

Fixed modifier, noun that has answer choices...

Flexible modifier, with a flexible noun and you have to pick the choice for which the two match...

The more that you're looking proactively for errors and not reading-and-reacting with your ear, the quicker you'll be and the more time you'll save.
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by bkw » Mon Jan 10, 2011 1:51 pm
Brian, and Raj: Thanks for getting back to me!

Brian, concerning specific practice:

I know I have to check for
-Verb tense
-Pronoun
-Idioms
-Misplaced modifier
-Parallel agreements
-Subject-Verb

But if I want to get better at each of them as you suggested, and thus practice one error type at a time. Are there any practice lists for OG, OG-Verbal, MHGMAT-SC, that will e.g. only treat Verb tense. So I have chance to get familiar with 20-30 verb tense problems before moving to Pronoun.

I think it would be most efficient to do e.g.
Verb tense, 20-30 problems one day
Pronoun, 20-30 probs day 2
etc...

I hope I can find such problem list soon,

thanks!
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Mon Jan 10, 2011 4:45 pm
Hey bkw,

Realistically, you won't find very many questions that only have one error, so it's tough to find chunks of questions that are broken down that way (most questions will have two errors...one that 3 sentences make and another that one of the remaining 2 makes, for example). There are definitely some lists out there that categorize the Official Guide and other volumes by question type, though...

But, honestly, I don't even know how helpful it would be to focus on 30 of one type at a time. What I'm suggesting is to go back to questions you've already done, first, and find the Verb Tense errors - train yourself to spot errors when you haven't been explicitly told that they're there.

Then, once you feel pretty comfortable with a few error categories, attack some fresh problems and see how you do at finding those errors. The key is to be able to spot them in context of a problem that doesn't tell you what the catch is. So while you may want to focus on a few errors at a time to get really good at them, it's still good practice to not know which error is coming at what time.
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by rishi raj » Mon Jan 10, 2011 6:58 pm
@bkw,
Good tips by Brian. If you'll see that's what even I said-firstly get comfortable in a particular topic and then move ahead. If you're looking for becoming good at SC concepts and for practice problems associated with that particular concepts, I'd highly recommend SC Grail. That's a very neat book and will surely help you crystallize your concepts. And unlike MGMAT SC Guide,which can be a little confusing sometimes, it flows in a very systematic manner. You can finish the book in 2-3 days and then practice the 100 SC questions given at the end of the book and categorized across error types.
After having done that when you move to OG12, you'll see quantifiable improvement not only in your SC accuracy but also in the overall understanding of SC questions.
Hope that helps!
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by hja379 » Thu Jan 13, 2011 6:54 pm
rishi raj wrote:@bkw,
Good tips by Brian. If you'll see that's what even I said-firstly get comfortable in a particular topic and then move ahead. If you're looking for becoming good at SC concepts and for practice problems associated with that particular concepts, I'd highly recommend SC Grail. That's a very neat book and will surely help you crystallize your concepts. And unlike MGMAT SC Guide,which can be a little confusing sometimes, it flows in a very systematic manner. You can finish the book in 2-3 days and then practice the 100 SC questions given at the end of the book and categorized across error types.
After having done that when you move to OG12, you'll see quantifiable improvement not only in your SC accuracy but also in the overall understanding of SC questions.
Hope that helps!
I agree with Rishi. MGMAT SC Guide can be intimidating. Get the Aristotle SC Grail. It is pretty good. I've seen a big improvement. Once you nail it, you can move to advanced material, time permitting. For RC, keep reading as much as you can. Start with some interesting topics and then move to areas completely alien to you. When you sit with your buddies for a cup of coffee try to bring up that random, abstract topic you might have read earlier. Do it a couple of times and without your knowledge you'll start reading the next passage - looking for the main point, the twists and turns, pros and cons, disappointments, opinions, etc.,

My 2 c.
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by bkw » Sun Jan 16, 2011 10:49 am
rishi raj wrote:@bkw,
Good tips by Brian. If you'll see that's what even I said-firstly get comfortable in a particular topic and then move ahead. If you're looking for becoming good at SC concepts and for practice problems associated with that particular concepts, I'd highly recommend SC Grail. That's a very neat book and will surely help you crystallize your concepts. And unlike MGMAT SC Guide,which can be a little confusing sometimes, it flows in a very systematic manner. You can finish the book in 2-3 days and then practice the 100 SC questions given at the end of the book and categorized across error types.
After having done that when you move to OG12, you'll see quantifiable improvement not only in your SC accuracy but also in the overall understanding of SC questions.
Hope that helps!
Hi Raj,

I am working on SC Grail now, it is indeed a well organized book! The have a RC99 too, do you recommend that one as well?

I was going to ask you about how to best continue to improve the verbal after the SC grail.
I have both OG-VERBAL, and OG-QUANT.

Do you think it is good preparation to simply start attacking the OG-VERBAL book by doing all exercises from first to last page?

Have any of you guys seen Topic organized problem lists? E.g. If I want to practice 20- SC-subject-verb problems, then I can easily do so in the OG12 or OG-verbal.

thanks!
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by rishi raj » Mon Jan 17, 2011 7:20 am
bkw wrote: Hi Raj,

I am working on SC Grail now, it is indeed a well organized book! The have a RC99 too, do you recommend that one as well?
I found RC99 to be immensely beneficial.Will definitely recommend it.

Do you think it is good preparation to simply start attacking the OG-VERBAL book by doing all exercises from first to last page?
No, it ain't at all a good idea to do the questions in the Official Guide sequentially until and unless you haven't mastered the concepts thoroughly and applied them in a good number of questions
Have any of you guys seen Topic organized problem lists? E.g. If I want to practice 20- SC-subject-verb problems, then I can easily do so in the OG12 or OG-verbal.
thanks!
I think that I had a document which categorized the list of OG12 questions topic wise. Doing questions topic wise is actually the right way to tackle sentence correction. Make sure that you spend sufficient amount of time on each question and although you may have the propensity to move ahead without doing a thorough analysis, tell yourself that it is futile and is not gonna help you at all. Spend a good amount of time on each question . At the end of each question, ask yourself what did I learn from this question which I can apply in similar questions. That is the right way to approach it.
By the way,I'll just see and let you know whether I have the document containing the topic wise break up of OG12 questions.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Mon Jan 17, 2011 10:19 am
bkw - I agree with Rishi Raj that you want to master the concepts before you start to attack the sentence correction in the Official Guide. You can do this with the various non-official materials. (I agree that you want your initial sentence correction study to be categorized but I am not use that you want to know what is coming when you do questions in OG since you will not have this advantage on test day) When you do move to OG I recommend that you use the OG in the following way:

Instead of doing the problems in order from front to back or doing large chunks of problems from a particular area of the book try the following technique instead:

"¢ Begin with a problem from 1 to 10 - say problem number 3. Then follow that same unit's digit throughout the book all the way back, so do problems 3, 13, 23, 33, 43, 53, etc. all the way to the end of the section or until you have completed a certain number of problems.

"¢ This will give you a wider variety of question difficulty during each practice session. It also makes your practice sessions comparable. If you are doing problems from all levels of difficulty each time then you will be able to track your improvement.

"¢ This does not work with reading comprehension! There you will need to pick two or three passages to do. Try to make these passages from different difficulty levels as well as a mixture of the three main categories (natural science, social science, and business).

"¢ You should also consider mixing up the questions as you practice - instead of doing say, 10 critical reasoning followed by 10 sentence correction, do 2 CR, 2 SC, 2 CR, 2 SC and then a RC passage. This is more realistic practice because you cannot settle in to one question type.


Good Luck!
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by mundasingh123 » Wed Jan 19, 2011 11:47 am
bkw wrote:
rishi raj wrote:@bkw,


Hi Raj,

I am working on SC Grail now, it is indeed a well organized book! The have a RC99 too, do you recommend that one as well?

I was going to ask you about how to best continue to improve the verbal after the SC grail.
I have both OG-VERBAL, and OG-QUANT.

Do you think it is good preparation to simply start attacking the OG-VERBAL book by doing all exercises from first to last page?

Have any of you guys seen Topic organized problem lists? E.g. If I want to practice 20- SC-subject-verb problems, then I can easily do so in the OG12 or OG-verbal.

thanks!
BTG Practice Quests can throw the desired sectional Quests .For eg u want Modifier Quests so u can customize the Engine in BTG Practice Quests.
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