GMAT Strategy

Buzzing Stacey,

I have been studying for a month now and gave some practice tests, with the results given below. I realize Verbal is my problem area, but seem unable to improve too much. I have been studying using the Manhattan Verbal Guides, but it's lot of material and I am having trouble keeping it all in my head.

These tests are full-length tests but I didn't write the essays and arguments, so believe the scores are inflated. But I am not sure how much, since sitting and working for long hours is not a problem for me. For that matter I wrote the Kaplan and Princeton diagnostic tests within couple of hours of each other.


GMATPrep1 (1st Take) - 720 (4 weeks back) - Q 51 V 35

Kaplan Diagnostic - 680 (3 weeks back) Q 49 V 33

Princeton Diagnostic - 710 (3 weeks back) - Q 50 V 35

GMATPrep1 (2nd Take) - 740 (2 weeks back) - Q 51 V 39

PowerPrep 1 - 720 (2 weeks back) - Q 50 V 37

PowerPrep2 - 730 (2 weeks back) - Q 51 V 37

MGMAT Free Practice Test - 730 (this week) - Q 51 V 37 - Manhattan Quantitative seemed a lot harder than GMATPrep and I got more questions wrong, but my score was still good. Is that normal?

I am planning to write the first 3 of 6 MGMAT tests without writing essays to save time, but then write the rest of MGMAT and the GMATPrep 2 with essays.

How can I improve my Verbal to end up with a 40+ scaled score?

Thanks a lot in advance,