GMAT Strategy

shikhargmat wrote:Hi,

I m a non-native English speaker with Software Engineer Degree n over 5yrs of work-exp.
I started preparing for my GMAT exam 1 month back using OG and Manhattan Sentence Correction. While I m doing ok with Quant, verbal score is still pretty low.
Within verbal, the main problem I m facing is time management and lack of accuracy.
To be specific, RC n SC are the main problematic areas for me.

For example in RC, I tend to read the passage first which takes around 4mins. Along with this, I sometimes loose the context and the passage is not comprehended well. So, when I go back to the questions, I again have to refer back to the passage for the answer, which takes 1-2mins more mins and finally builds pressure n hence affects accuracy as well.

For SC, while I have been able to grasp many of the concepts of the Manhattan Sentence Correction book, I m not thorough with them. Along with this, doing a SC problem takes 1.5-2 mins which is quite a lot for sentence correction. The approach I take here is read n understand the original sentence and then read all the answer choices n pick the wrong ones out.

I want to go for the test in around 40days from now and I m not seeing myself anywhere near it as far as RC n SC are concerned.

Will any expert here will be able to suggest me the best approach to go about these things. Maybe some old articles which addresses these issues or few new lines of advice. Some particular book that I should buy. One more question is whether doing some classroom prep course such as Veritas, Kaplan, Manhattan will be able to help me in this.

Thank you so much in advance.

Regards,
Shikhar

I'm not really sure where to begin so I think I might just give you some general advice. First, you should read the Manhattan SC book several times, and make notes to really get the grammar rules down. Then you have to do hundreds and hundreds of problems. As for reading- you might want to check on the reading tips documents on this site under the resources tab. It sounds like you really need to practice reading more (and perhaps you aren't reading correctly- regressing, subvocalizing etc..) You should read online newspapers everyday to help build up your speed, and work on RC passages everyday as well to learn what the passages are like.

Received a PM asking me to respond.

FYI: I'm leaving on vacation tomorrow (Tue) evening and won't be back until 5 July. While I'm gone, please talk to other experts; otherwise, I will reply after I return. (It may take me a few days after I get back to get through the backlog of PMs).

Your goal is 730+ and your latest practice test score was 610. You say that you lost confidence somewhere in the middle of verbal - that could also happen during the real test, so we will have to assume that 610 is an accurate reflection of what might happen on the real test (at least as far as that variable is concerned).

I'm glad you took the practice test under official conditions, including essays. For others reading this: if you deviate from official conditions, your score may be artificially inflated. Skipping the essays, for example, often leads to an artificially inflated score. If you did not take the test under full official conditions, please make sure that you do so in future - including the essays. (I know you don't care about the essay score, but you do care that your multiple choice score is as reflective as possible of your current level - and you need to do the essays in order to ensure that.)

You have about 40 days and you want to improve your score by more than 100 points and, in particular, your goal score is a VERY high score. Most people need more time to achieve that kind of improvement - I would say the average time needed is closer to 10 to 15 weeks. That's not to say that it can't be done in 40 days - but most people would struggle with that kind of timeframe.

For verbal, I'll link to some articles down below on RC and SC that may be helpful. If you can provide us with a more detailed analysis of your strengths and weaknesses, then we can do more to advise you. If you have taken or plan to take an MGMAT practice test (note: you can sign up for one free test on our website), you can use this article to assess your strengths and weaknesses in much greater detail:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/a/2009/09/23 ... tice-tests

Here are two articles for RC. The first talks generally about how to read the passage, which should help you with your timing issues. The second talks about how to analyze and learn from RC questions (using an RC inference question as an example).
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... mp-passage
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/02/ ... e-question

Here are two more for SC. The first talks generally about how to work through any SC question so that you are working as efficiently as possible - again, this process should help with your timing. The second talks about how to analyze and learn from SC questions (using a GMATPrep SC question as an example).
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/06/ ... on-problem
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/03/ ... c-question

These should give you a good start in both areas. If you'd like to discuss more, take one of our tests and do the analysis described in the first article above.