GMAT Strategy

Received a PM asking me to reply.

I was very ANXIOUS before the test

Is this typical before a big test / nervous situation? Or were you extra nervous? Do you expect this to happen again next time?

Here are some articles on stress management; take a look and see if something might be of help to you.

https://www.manhattangmat.com/stress-tips.cfm
https://www.manhattangmat.com/strategy-series-stress.cfm

I've been more successful just reading through the passage slowly.

Define "slowly." If we have a short passage with three questions (one general, two specific), we should spend a total of about 6 to 7 minutes. For a long passage with four questions (one general, three specific), total time should be about 8 to 9 minutes.

If you can read slowly and yet still answer questions both quickly and accurately, such that your total time doesn't exceed the guidelines, then that's great. If one of those pieces breaks down, though, then there's a problem.

Something to keep in mind: approximately twice as many questions will be written for each passage as you will get (witness the official guide). Do you really want to slowly read and learn everything in a passage when you know, in advance, that you will not be asked about everything that you're reading and learning?

In my opinion, the best way to approach this is with a 2-pass system. During the first pass, you're trying to understand the big picture and the structure of the passage, including the purpose of each paragraph and the general kind of information contained in each paragraph.

Then, you move to the questions and the questions themselves dictate what will happen with the second pass. You'll be able to answer any general questions already. For specific questions, you'll be able to know which paragraph to go to, and then you'll go, read carefully, and learn what you need to learn in order to answer the question.

This will leave certain portions of the passage unexamined in any real depth, yes - but that's okay, because you didn't get questions on those parts!

I'm ok with SC - usually at around 85% accuracy and CR is about 80-90%.

With what timing? (Discussing accuracy without the timing data doesn't actually tell us much, because timing affects accuracy, and unfortunately we don't have all the time in the world.) And what are the accuracy rates from? OG? Practice tests? Adaptive or static sources?

Because you're planning to apply NEXT fall, there's another thing you can do on the academic front. Take some classes (accounting, economics, etc.) through a local college. If you do this, though, then you have to get A's in the classes, of course. This could also open up an opportunity to get a recommendation letter from a professor - the prof could directly address any concerns about the low-ish GPA (assuming you've made a great impression on him/her, naturally!).

In terms of recognizing verbal questions - are you having this problem across the board (all three question types)? Or mostly in certain areas?

One important thing to study on verbal is the answers. On any question, ask yourself:
- why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible)
- 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?

Do this regardless of whether you got the question right or wrong. If you got it wrong, your answer is the wrong answer to analyze. If you got it right, see if you can pick out what would be the most tempting wrong answer for someone who got it wrong. If you can do this, you're less likely to fall into the traps yourself (as you've found on quant).