GMAT Strategy

My verbal was substantially lower than my math. I am a native english speaker and did not know a lot of the grammatical sentence corrections.

I am taking the test in early sept and have just purchased numerous study books (all the suggested one)

I thought my diagnostic would be in the low 600's, there were people in the room and maybe I just had a bad test. Off the top of my head I think my quant was 66% and Ver was somewhere around 30%

Is my goal of 700+, more closley 720, possible in the amount of time I have?

What are some suggestions?

Does 2-3 hours a day sound sufficient?

Get every book from MGMAT for Verbal, especially the SC guide. Know it front-and-back and there's not a grammar question on the GMAT you can't answer.

You have a goal and you know your weakness (Verbal). Just keep working on the weakness by putting in more time and effort and try to improve your Quant by practice. Use the official guides for this and you will be able to see significant improvement.

As for the weakness - Verbal, as the above post mentions, get the Manhattan GMAT SC guide and read thro' it and solve all the exercise questions at the end of each chapter. Dont forget to take notes or make Flash cards when you learn something new; for example if you didn't know that the correct idiom is "Not only........ but also..." take a note of it and review all these notes at the end of each week.

You can keep track of your prep. by taking a Practice CAT, at the end of each week, say every sunday.

2-3 hours a day would be good enough to reach your goals assuming that you have atleast 2 months for prep and dont loose focus.

One more tip, take one day off from studies every week. This would avoid burn-outs and will keep you focused. It worked for me.

All the best.

I've had students go from mid 500s to mid 700s, so it's certainly possible. But, as you know, it will require lots of work.

Since you have a long time until your GMAT, I'd recommend adding in 30 minutes per day of reading (non-GMAT related materials) to your study to set a better foundation in English. Look for well written and sophisticated stuff such as the Wall Street Journal or the Economist. You'll improve all three verbal sections without really thinking about it, which is always nice. It might even improve your math by making you a more careful reader (so you won't fall for tricky wording).

As mentioned above, 2-3 hours per day is a good amount of time. Be careful not to burn out, since you're studying for 5 months. Take a day off every week, and even take a week off now and again to refresh your brain. There IS such a thing as too much studying.

Good luck on your quest!

gr8 piece of advice.....i m also prep 4 GMAT and will be writing in mid July,my diagnostic too is not upto the mark but ur post has boosted my confidence.