GMAT Verbal & Essays

Hey guys,

I just took the gmat last week and scored poorly on the Verbal section. I got 600 (Q 50 V 25) although I studied 3 months. I am very discouraged.

I wonder if any of u guys have experienced the same situation, and how did u overcome that?

I'm an international student, so, I guess Math is my strength but Verbal otherwise is my weakness.

I will be taking the exam again in June' 11 so have 2 months to study. My target is 700+.

Previously I studied the following books
1) OG 12th Edition
2) OG Verbal Review
3) Manhattan Sentence Correction
4) Manhattan 6 online test (I completed them all and my GMAT score was more close to the scores in these tests. Although i used to get in lower 30s in verbal and lower 40s in Quant in these tests)

English is my second language and no matter how hard I study I still make many mistakes. Any recommendations for good books? Will the classes like Manhattan, Veritas etc help in this regard?

I would appreciate if you please advise me what the best way is to study and what other books and online tests you would recommend...

Please help!!!

Thanks,
Sandy

Your quant score is excellent. Congrats on that. You can repeat that with ease.

For Verbal: For SC: MGMAT SC and SC Grail from Aristotle Prep should help. Buy their problems too.

Critical Reasoning: Buy the Powerscore CR bible. Available on Flipkart.com. Single most recommended book for CR.

Reading Comp: Practice. Veritas Prep has a good RC book. But if you can get RC 99 from Aristotle again, that should help. Also focus on your mistakes and learn from them.

You can see more book reviews here at https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/books.

All d best.

I also recommend Powerscore CR. Beyond more content-practice, I would refocus your RC and CR strategies and reevaluate how you are using your scratch paper. Here are two articles I think might help:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/03/ ... your-score

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/03/ ... ding-notes

Since English is not your first language, I would recommend reading for at least an hour a day to build your comfort level and to practice your RC skills at a challenging level:

- NY Times book review. This article describes how to make the most of this section: https://smartestprep.wordpress.com/2010/ ... rehension/)

- Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/

- The Economist: https://www.economist.com/

- The Spectator: https://www.spectator.co.uk/

- Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/

Here are some other articles/posts geared towards non-native speakers that I think will help:

https://grockit.com/blog/gmat/2010/02/08 ... -practice/

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/10/ ... e-speakers

Good luck!