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Guidance in improving verbal score

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Guidance in improving verbal score

by vinphoenix » Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:44 pm
I am in look for guidance to improve my score in GMAT. Some background about me -
I have already taken GMAT twice and my scores are 580 and 560 respectively. Yes, unfortunately my scores went down in the second attempt. My split-ups in both tests are almost the same. The verbal score was in the range of 20-25 and my quants score was in the range of 40-45. It is quite obvious that i need to work on my verbal skills. So far i have used the following material for verbal preparation and quants preparation.

1. OG guide version 11
2. manhattan GMAT for Sentence correction
3. Kaplan
4. princeton Review
5. Tests included in kaplan CD
6. Tests in MGMAT
7. Original GMAT test

I am not sure how i should start of my verbal preparation again. Any advice/guidance to put me in the right track will be of great help. Appreciate your response and time. Thanks in advance.
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by VP_Jim » Wed Apr 01, 2009 3:30 pm
You don't say when your test date is, but assuming you have the time: you need to work on your fundamentals.

Unfortunately, there is no "magic bullet" on the GMAT, especially on verbal. The verbal section is often quite subtle, and there is very little material to study/memorize. Instead, you need the harder-to-define (and harder to study for!) skills of reading critically and thinking logically.

My advice is to take a step back and forget about the GMAT for awhile. GMAT prep books are great, but they don't help much if you lack the underlying skills necessary to do well. Set your GMAT books aside and just start reading more - high-end newspapers and magazines (e.g., Wall Street Journal, Economist, etc.) work very well. This will improve your ear for good grammar and strengthen your reading and reasoning skills. Then, in a couple/few months, return to the GMAT; I think you'll find that the verbal section is a lot easier at that point.

Good luck!
Jim S. | GMAT Instructor | Veritas Prep
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by vinphoenix » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:43 pm
Thanks for the reply.
Apart from the magazines,articles mentioned in your reply, is there any books you recommend? Because i prefer reading books compared to articles or magazines.

Thanks once again for the reply.
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by pJackson79 » Wed Apr 01, 2009 5:16 pm
You should also get the Verbal Official Guide

My experience in preparing for verbal has been the more official questions you get, the better. It is SO hard (IMHO) to find good quality verbal questions written by secondary sources.
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Improving your verbal

by ctimpano » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:25 pm
Any GMAT books you'll read will really just try to cram in what you should have learned in grade school. Grammar is neither easy, nor is it fun.

For SC, try Strunk and White - Elements of Style, or Brown's "Little, Brown Handbook" --- both are very simple guides that will help you nail the fundamentals of grammar quickly.

Purchase the "Verbal Bible" from gmathacks.com for a 5-hour crash course on how to spot logic errors in CR and for an additional review on grammar which contains great, snowballing practice questions.

If you can crack the Verbal Bible, and you can read, and understand Elements of Style you're set for 80th percentile I'd say. And you're probably set for the AWA too...
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by TedCornell » Thu Apr 02, 2009 12:26 am
Hi VinPheonix. Here is a post from another topic that addresses your concern:

Sentence Correction: (Here is what worked for me)
For my verbal prep I used ManhattanGMAT Sentence Correction guide, The Official Guide, and gmatfix verbal flashcards.

1) If you don't already have it, consider getting the ManhattanGMAT SC guide and go through its lessons (I think you said you have it).

2) Get the gmatfix verbal flashcards (you can evaluate some for free); these cards are broken down into SC subtopics, with each topic giving you loads of examples and pinpointed lessons on how the topic is tested on the GMAT

3) Once you can go through the flashcards for a particular topic without error, use the Manhattan guide to find the specific questions in the OG that test the topic you're studying. Practice those questions and study the explanations carefully.

Critical Reasoning:
I personally don't like Diagramming as a test-day technique. I see it more as a tool to be used in practice in order to learn how to dissect an argument. ON test day, for Critical Reasoning I go through the following steps:

1) Read the question and identify whether it's a strengthen, weaken, eval, resolve/explain, or find the conclusion question

2) Read the prompt paying special attention to the chain of reasoning and to any piece of information that is introduced within the conclusion (typically the assumption will be whatever ties the premise to this new piece)

3) Write down 1 or 2 (sometimes 3) assumptions that I see right away. In practice, I force myself to find at least 2 assumptions before moving to the next step. ON the exam, if I still have no assumption about 60seconds into the question, I move on (but with good practice, this rarely happens).

4) Go through the answers

Reading Comprehension
I always map out the passage. I take shorthand notes of the main points of each paragraph. Typically, my notes consist of 12-20 words per paragraph. Notes for a single paragraph might look like

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
no explan. for phenomenon until recent study
-MG theory claims earthquakes at fault
-Author disagrees; thinks volcano
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PPl think that notes cost too much time. I don't go into details but taking notes drastically reduces the amount of time I spent per question. In practice I give myself 1 minute per paragraph to take notes. Actually taking notes improved my reading comp accuracy from about 60% to about 90+%.
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by vinphoenix » Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:36 pm
Thank you so very much for the replies.
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by canada_sms » Thu Apr 02, 2009 8:33 pm
My favorite grammar review site is from the University of Calgary:

https://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/gram ... speech.htm

Blast through that in a weekend. It's overkill but if you can master the basics than SC will become easier. The great thing about this grammar site is that it has multiple choice quizzes after each grammar lesson.
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by EricKryk » Thu Apr 02, 2009 8:48 pm
canada_sms wrote:My favorite grammar review site is from the University of Calgary:

https://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/gram ... speech.htm

Blast through that in a weekend. It's overkill but if you can master the basics than SC will become easier. The great thing about this grammar site is that it has multiple choice quizzes after each grammar lesson.
Thank you for the resource link! Isn't it dangerous though to study from materials not directly designed for the GMAT? I feel like there are enough things to master on the GMAT that anything "overkill" takes time away from the things that I should be studying. What do you guys think?
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