Ahh i wrote a long essay and now it says no post exists for the topic. Not sure what happened. I am going to have to write it all over again.....
The reason why i am writing this is because i took gmat today and scored a 49 in math but only 26 on verbal (620 total). This was my 4th attempt so obviously I am very disappointed. The first 3 attempts, I knew my verbal was not good, but I did not know how to gauge my weaknesses. I did not have strategies to deal with any type of verbal questions. In short, i was an idiot to even attempt gmat the first 3 times. I can say this now because, I spent a lot of time on improving my verbal and I realize how bad i was. My previous 3 verbal scores were (18, 19, 21). Now, I am seeking some desperate help from anyone who can guide me through this process. Below are the details about the materials I used and what I think my weaknesses are:
SC: I used GMAT PREP, MGMAT and Aristotle prep. I found the combination of aristotle+MGMAT to be very good. I used questions from OG, GMAT PREP and Verbal review for practise. when I first started out, I got more than 50% of the Q's in OG wrong. In the last 2 mons, I spent a lot of time learning strategies and I did well on about 80% of the questions on Gmat prep, og and verbal review. One thing I noticed is, I have difficulty on 700 level questions. It is a toss up with 700, so I really cannot pinpoint on why I am getting it wrong. If i do 2 700 level Q's on lets say parallelism, I might get one right and one wrong. What else can I do to improve?
CR: I used GMAT PREP/OG/Verbal review to practise the questions and I had one of my friend who took LSAT's before teach me CR. He did a very good job at explaining the concepts and how to attack a certain problem type. Like SC, 700 level questions are the problem for me even in CR especially because of the complex wording and structure they use. It is just too much information for me to read, understand and answer in such a short time. The other thing is bold face questions. Luckily, you usually encounter only 1 or 2 at the most on the test
RC: One of the worst sections for me. I hate to read and even when I find a topic interesting, I take forever. I used both types of techniques, one is trying to read the passage thoroughly and two is just writing down the key points and skimming through the rest of the passage, understanding how each paragraph is linked to each other. Even when I do this, I tend get the answers wrong. Just like difficult CR questions, I find the complex wording to be the problem. And my confidence level and interest in the passage seems to go away as I get more and more questions wrong. And mix this in with SC and CR and I believe you guys can guess how this hinders my performance on SC and CR.
Just like most of you, I am willing to put in the effort to do whatever it takes to improve my verbal score, but I feel like i need someone to help me out here. I am even willing to see a tutor if any of you can recommend a good one around NY/NJ area at a reasonable price. Any other material I should be using? I would really appreciate any inputs on this.
Like i mentioned on top, this was my 4th attempt and I heard schools do look at number of attempts and too many attempts is not a good sign. I am targeting top 15-20 schools and I am not sure how my 5th attempt will pan out even if I take it and score well. Any thoughts on this? Should I even consider taking it again? Does this mean that my chances of getting in to top15 are rare now? Please let me know you thoughts.
Thanks in advance,
Raj
The reason why i am writing this is because i took gmat today and scored a 49 in math but only 26 on verbal (620 total). This was my 4th attempt so obviously I am very disappointed. The first 3 attempts, I knew my verbal was not good, but I did not know how to gauge my weaknesses. I did not have strategies to deal with any type of verbal questions. In short, i was an idiot to even attempt gmat the first 3 times. I can say this now because, I spent a lot of time on improving my verbal and I realize how bad i was. My previous 3 verbal scores were (18, 19, 21). Now, I am seeking some desperate help from anyone who can guide me through this process. Below are the details about the materials I used and what I think my weaknesses are:
SC: I used GMAT PREP, MGMAT and Aristotle prep. I found the combination of aristotle+MGMAT to be very good. I used questions from OG, GMAT PREP and Verbal review for practise. when I first started out, I got more than 50% of the Q's in OG wrong. In the last 2 mons, I spent a lot of time learning strategies and I did well on about 80% of the questions on Gmat prep, og and verbal review. One thing I noticed is, I have difficulty on 700 level questions. It is a toss up with 700, so I really cannot pinpoint on why I am getting it wrong. If i do 2 700 level Q's on lets say parallelism, I might get one right and one wrong. What else can I do to improve?
CR: I used GMAT PREP/OG/Verbal review to practise the questions and I had one of my friend who took LSAT's before teach me CR. He did a very good job at explaining the concepts and how to attack a certain problem type. Like SC, 700 level questions are the problem for me even in CR especially because of the complex wording and structure they use. It is just too much information for me to read, understand and answer in such a short time. The other thing is bold face questions. Luckily, you usually encounter only 1 or 2 at the most on the test
RC: One of the worst sections for me. I hate to read and even when I find a topic interesting, I take forever. I used both types of techniques, one is trying to read the passage thoroughly and two is just writing down the key points and skimming through the rest of the passage, understanding how each paragraph is linked to each other. Even when I do this, I tend get the answers wrong. Just like difficult CR questions, I find the complex wording to be the problem. And my confidence level and interest in the passage seems to go away as I get more and more questions wrong. And mix this in with SC and CR and I believe you guys can guess how this hinders my performance on SC and CR.
Just like most of you, I am willing to put in the effort to do whatever it takes to improve my verbal score, but I feel like i need someone to help me out here. I am even willing to see a tutor if any of you can recommend a good one around NY/NJ area at a reasonable price. Any other material I should be using? I would really appreciate any inputs on this.
Like i mentioned on top, this was my 4th attempt and I heard schools do look at number of attempts and too many attempts is not a good sign. I am targeting top 15-20 schools and I am not sure how my 5th attempt will pan out even if I take it and score well. Any thoughts on this? Should I even consider taking it again? Does this mean that my chances of getting in to top15 are rare now? Please let me know you thoughts.
Thanks in advance,
Raj
