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Verbal-how to crack it successfully and effectively?

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Verbal-how to crack it successfully and effectively?

by hitmewithgmat » Sun Oct 18, 2009 6:27 pm
Hi everyone,
I have hard time getting scores from Verbal. This is very annoying. I am determined to excel on Verbal. So, please share your comments/experiences how to crack Verbal successfully and effectively on a daily basis.

1. How many questions do you dive into? I know it's not about quantity but I would like to know how many questions/concepts you study on a daily basis.

2. What materials do you use? pretty much OG books?

3. SC- I use manhattan GMAT as a guidebook. However, I have this retired Gmat SC questions and I solve 20 SC questions everyday but always hit rate is 67%. If you were in my situation before, how do you overcome?
I decided to print out SC resources and jot down important rules on the side. That way, I won't make any mistakes again. I even go over before I go to bed. Eash to carry since it's a loose paper, not a computer monitor. I hope this endeavor that I put in will pay off...Of course, I study OG. Please comment if you need more thoughts on this matter.

4. CR-I study OG book and some retired Gmat questions. If I do not understand, I rely on websites because most of times, I dcan get answers and clear explanations. But,....I don't know why when I took a test, I feel I go blank. very uncomfortable feeling.. I start use POE method more efficiently by jot down every reason why the answer can't be right or wrong. Tired of reading "how to attack CR questions" guide thing from other books..

5 RC- I think I am short this part. I do jot down each pasaragrah. How do you minimize time when you do this part? I think I spend too much time on this when I took the test even though I had a minute left overall. Hm...Is it because I get nervous? yes, I do. I do get nervous when I do verbal part...roar..like how many sentences do you need to summarize per paragraph? Maybe I am jotting down too much..



Overall, I am suck at Verbal. the score is so bad. How do I overcome this?

I used OG materials and Mgmat books but since I read so many times, now I can even recite the answers... How do I zero in on this situation??

Please shed more bright lights on this matter.

I hope you would contribute your thoughts and strategy. Thanks.
Last edited by hitmewithgmat on Tue Oct 20, 2009 12:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Disclaimer-I am not a GMAT savvy yet, but I am learning everyday with my fellow beatthegmat citizens.

I AM DETERMINED TO CRASH/NIX OUT/ATTACK BRUTALLY/CRACK VERBAL PART OF GMAT. ROAR!
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Re: Verbal-how to crack it successfully and effectively?

by papgust » Sun Oct 18, 2009 10:52 pm
hitmewithgmat wrote:Hi everyone,
I have hard time getting scores from Verbal. This is very annoying. I am determined to excel on Verbal. So, please share your comments/experiences how to crack Verbal successfully and effectively on a daily basis.

1. How many questions do you dive into? I know it's not about quantity but I would like to know how many questions/concepts you study on a daily basis.

2. What materials do you use? pretty much OG books?

3. SC- I use manhattan GMAT as a guidebook. However, I have this retired Gmat SC questions and I solve 20 SC questions everyday but always get 67%. If you were in my situation before, how do you overcome?

4. CR-I study OG book and some retired Gmat questions. If I do not understand, I rely on websites because most of times, I dcan get answers and clear explanations.

5 RC- I think I am short this part. I do jot down each pasaragrah. How do you minimize time when you do this part?

I hope you would contribute your thoughts and strategy. Thanks.
Hi mate,

These were the questions for which i was looking for the answers in this forum months back. Let me help you with my opinions,

1. As far as i've read in this forum, i completely understood that its not just doing 1000-2000 questions in your complete prep or 100-150 questions per day. I would suggest you to cover everything in a day like SC=10 qns, RC=2 passages atleast, CR=10 qns, Quants=15 problems. you can probably do more questions in weekends. But remember after working out the questions, analyze why the answer choices are wrong or correct. That is very important!

2. Basically, i feel that OG questions are pretty easy to me. But it is a must and better in fact to work out each and every question in depth. You can try other books like MGMAT and Kaplan.

3. Personally, i have not tried Manhattan SC book yet. Have you studied this book in detail without just skimming through? Many say that you need to study this book in depth without any hurry. If you are still not convinced with this book, try Wren & Martin grammar book. Some say that this book is very comprehensive w.r.t grammar. Your accuracy will definitely improve after building your grammar.

4. Do you mean to say that you don't get clear answers and explanations in OG for CR? CR questions are pretty good in OG, closer to actual GMAT exam and explanations i feel its good. If you want to strengthen CR strategies, i would recommend to go for Powerscore CR bible which i feel is great. I was really struggling with CR and flopped in 1st attempt mainly due to CR. I went through the strategies and my accuracy is really going up.

5. You can find lots of RC strategies in this forum. Please invest some time looking for the strategies from many senior members here. As far as practicing RC's are concerned, try out LSAT passages which many people suggest here. These passages are very complex and difficult and the best tool to train for GMAT. But remember that before you try these passages, work on your strategies properly!

Hope these points guide you in right path! Good luck
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by hitmewithgmat » Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:42 am
thanks Papgust. Like other members, I use the same materials. I need to enhance my skills, which are very hard to do.

I went through Manhattan Gmat SC book and it is good so far. But there are always SC trick questions (at least to me)that I stumble upon. ---> sometimes those questions discourages me.

For CR, I had a powerscore book, but I think I need to go over again. (whew.... too long)

For RC, hm....Jotting down is a must. I think I am getting better, but I have to make sure I am on the right track.

So much work to do and this preparation starts to buggggg me.

Any suggestions?
Disclaimer-I am not a GMAT savvy yet, but I am learning everyday with my fellow beatthegmat citizens.

I AM DETERMINED TO CRASH/NIX OUT/ATTACK BRUTALLY/CRACK VERBAL PART OF GMAT. ROAR!
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by thexravenx » Mon Oct 19, 2009 8:26 am
One thing that I picked up on from another post was using a symbol system for each question.

Instead of using ABCDE and marking threw them, I used

_ for ones that I can't get rid of
X for ones that I can.

Normally this will reduce me to one or two choices. It also takes my eyes away from the screen for a few seconds between choices. This gives me time to think a bit.

On CR: I always identify what I am trying to solve. This is true of RC to some extent as well. If it is an assumption, I write down assu:. If it is weaken, strengthen I do the same thing; weak or stg. On inference I write: inf: SAFE! to remind myself to keep the answer as safe as possible.

SC: I go straight for the bucket method. I read the original sentence and look for obvious problems. I then bucket the answer choices. This works fairly often. I use the same X and _ method to keep track of my answers and normally I get down to one or two choices. At that point it is just knowing the proper grammar.
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by hitmewithgmat » Mon Oct 19, 2009 2:19 pm
thanks thexravenx for your thoughts.
Disclaimer-I am not a GMAT savvy yet, but I am learning everyday with my fellow beatthegmat citizens.

I AM DETERMINED TO CRASH/NIX OUT/ATTACK BRUTALLY/CRACK VERBAL PART OF GMAT. ROAR!
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by Stacey Koprince » Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:27 am
Received a PM asking me to reply.

In response to the original post:

1. How many Qs? In a 2-hour study period, I try new problems for 30-40 minutes and I spend the rest of the time reviewing those problems. (Most of my learning comes from the reviewing, not the doing.) This is for any topic / question type, not just verbal.

2. Materials? Generally, two different types of materials: things that give me really good practice problems and things that teach me how to get better. The best practice problems are OG, of course. How to get better comes from test prep books. I'll let you guess which company's books I use. :)

3. SC. SC is ultimately about two things: knowing the rules, and knowing how to recognize and test the rules on GMAT-format questions. A test-prep book will give you the rules, but knowing how to recognize is going to take more work on your part.

A useful study exercise is to take a file or notebook and make two columns. On the left-hand side, write down the name of a particular grammar error (eg, subj-verb agreement). On the right-hand side, write down what the splits tend to look like for that type of error (eg, nouns that sometimes include "s" and sometimes don't; verbs that sometimes include "s" and sometimes don't).

Another useful exercise: look at ONLY the answer choices, not the original sentence. Can you articulate which rules are being tested in this question, based solely on the differences you see in the answers? (If you want a really good score, you should be able to do this.)

4+5. CR+RC. You actually do need some consistent source that teaches you how to identify different CR questions, how to approach based on what they ask, how to identify wrong answers, etc. Ditto for RC.

Here's a link to an old post of mine summarizing some stuff from our RC book. https://www.beatthegmat.com/verbal-strategy-t14035.html
If that sounds good to you, there's more stuff like that in the book. :)

By the way, love thexravenx's suggestion about tracking what you think on the answers. This is critical! I have three symbols: one for "definitely wrong," one for "maybe, unless I find something better," and one for "this is it!" On my first pass, I'm just trying to eliminate all of the "definitely wrong" ones; if I see a "maybe," I quickly mark it as such and then keep looking through the rest - I don't spend much time (then) thinking about whether it's actually right.

Also, when studying, it's really important to understand certain thing about the answers:
- why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible) What was my error in thinking that those things were right?
- why was it actually wrong? what specific words indicate that it is wrong and how did I overlook those clues the first time?
- why did the right answer seem wrong? what made it so tempting to cross off the right answer? why were those things actually okay; what was my error in thinking that they were wrong?
- why was it actually right?
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

Stacey Koprince
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Manhattan GMAT

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