Help needed to reach my target!

Expert replies

V16: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 11; Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 2:46 pm; GMAT Score:650

by V16 » Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:07 am

Even though this is my first post in this forum, i visit the forum almost everyday. Aiming for 720 i scheduled my exam on April 6th.

My Last 4 practise test scores:

Power Prep : 680 (Q 50, V 31)
MGMAT CAT: 680 (Q 44, V 37)
Gmat Prep1: 680 (Q 49, V 33)
Gmat Prep1: 700 (Q50, V 34) - retake. (today- 3/21)

Quant and CR are my strongest areas. RC up and down depending on my concentration and time management on the exam.

But my biggest weak point is SC (non native speaker). I have gone through revised mgmat sc book 2,3 times thouroughly (by the way this book is awe some.).
No matter how hard i try , i am scoring 60% accuracy in SC. because of SC i am running out of time for last 4,5 qs or for last RC

Can somebody please give some advice on how to improve my sc part. I need to score 35 aove in verbal sothat i can reach my goal.

i really appreciate your help!
thanks,
V

Source: Beat The GMAT — GMAT Strategy | Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:07 am

anniev2: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 73; Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:39 am

by anniev2 » Sat Mar 21, 2009 3:03 pm

Thanks! I don't think that I'll give up, i just feel that way now. I need a day or so and I'll try.

Another issue for me is that I think the computer format threw me off. It sounds like a lot of excuses i Know, but I noticed that I prefer to keep looking down and figuring problems. The looking up and then down to transfer information and read the question that is being asked is cumbersome to me. Since I did most of my studying via the OG book i think I got too comfortable with that. I wish GMAT Prep offered more online tests so that I can get used to the format that way.

Anyway, enough of that...i'm off to purchase OG 12.

I CAN DO THIS!!

V16: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 11; Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 2:46 pm; GMAT Score:650

by V16 » Mon Mar 23, 2009 10:22 am

I prepared FlashCards and error log for SC in my preparation.
I will go through them one more time because my exam is 2 weeks way from now.

Is it a good idea to solve SC from 12 th edition?
any ideas?

anshul265: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 71; Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2008 7:01 am; Thanked: 2 times

by anshul265 » Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:17 pm

V16

If you are running out of time at the end of the test, you need to track your progress during the test. A very simple (and very effective ) way of doing this is to write milestones on your scratch paper at the very beginning of the test.

65/8 50/15 35/23 ....

(when there are 65 mins left on the watch, i should be on question 8, when there are 50 mins left ... i should be on question 15 etc etc )

Believe it or not, not too long ago , I was in the exact same boat and started using this approach and noticed a huge jump in my verbal scores. I was not worried whether or not I would be able to finish the test. If I knew I am not meeting one of my milestone, I moved faster and if need be (educated) guess on a 1-2 questions and then I am back on track.

For improving SC, there is load of information here. The most important thing is to master the common rules for parallelism, verb-subject agreement, proper pronoun reference, modifier, proper tense, and idioms. 90% of your SC would fall in one of the above 6 categories. Again (atleast for me), SC is one of the areas that can be mastered and perfected to the point where you are doing each question under a min so that you have time for CR and RC.

My two cents
-Anshul

pJackson79: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 85; Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 11:44 pm; Thanked: 1 times

by pJackson79 » Mon Mar 23, 2009 11:23 pm

Have you considered the Power Score GMAT Sentence Correction Bible?

I have found PowerScore to be a publisher that really breaks things down. In addition, how thoroughly do you read the explanations? I used to really struggle with SCs and I was not reading the explanations slowly and thoroughly to grasp the full learning potential.

V16: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 11; Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 2:46 pm; GMAT Score:650

by V16 » Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:40 pm

HI Anshul and pJackson79,

thank you very much for your valuable suggestions. I started using golden time trak rule for while now.

As far as SC concerned, today i realised that i always get stuck on some of the SCs, which i never get right anyway. iam loosing valuable tiem aslo.

At this point of time, iam little bit worried to use new book otherthan mgmat sc.

I will post my improvement after my gmat prep 2.

thanks,
V

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