BREAKING: Target Test Prep releases Brand New 2026 On Demand GMAT prep course

Redeem

Not able to improve Verbal score post finishing OG

This topic has expert replies
Post new topic Post Reply
Previous Topic Next Topic
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 10:31 pm
Followed by:1 members

Not able to improve Verbal score post finishing OG

by shasharma » Wed Oct 07, 2015 9:23 am
Hi,

It's been a month with the GMAT preparation. I have finished Manhattan's SC and OG meticulously (taking proper time in formulating error log in tabular format with concept, question no. and error explanation in 3 columns.)

However, my verbal score has dropped.

1. 1st test,Manhattan free test, without preparation: 540, Verbal:27, Quant: 37
2. 2nd test, Economist free test, with some maths concept revision,570 Verbal: 27, Quant: 41
3. 3rd test, Veritas free test, finished Manhattan's verbal concepts, 520, Verbal:21, Quant:43
4. 4th test,Kaplan free test, finished half verbal OG and diagnostic maths test, 570: Verbal: 19, Quant: 45 ( missed 9 questions in quant)
5. 5th test, Economist free test, break of one week without any preparation, 420, Verbal: 19 and Quant:37 ( missed 6 quant questions)
6. 6th test, Gmat prep, finished verbal OG, 550, Verbal: 19, Quant: 48 ( all questions attempted)

Problem at 1st glance: My verbal just fails to improve, while I am pretty strong with quant.
I have almost 45 days left for GMAT. I kind of feel that I am missing something important in verbal.

Here is the deep dive analysis for verbal of my last test : 18 out of 41 incorrect (out of which 5 were the first 10 questions, 7 were continuous 29th till 35th questions).

My weakest area is sentence correction, I just fail to recognize the error by shortlisting last 2 options. The test questions seem so different from OG. I am trying the meaning approach as a starter to all questions.

Any directional help will be really appreciated.
Last edited by shasharma on Wed Oct 07, 2015 10:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
Top
Source: — GMAT Strategy |

GMAT/MBA Expert

User avatar
Elite Legendary Member
Posts: 10392
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2013 6:38 pm
Location: Palo Alto, CA
Thanked: 2867 times
Followed by:511 members
GMAT Score:800

by [email protected] » Wed Oct 07, 2015 9:36 am
Hi shasharma,

Many Test Takers spend 3 months (or more) on their studies before they hit their 'peak' scores, so it's likely that you just have not put in enough time and effort yet. From what you've described, you've taken a 'book heavy' study approach so far; many Test Takers get 'stuck' while using this type of approach, so you might need to invest in some additional non-book resources.

With these Verbal Scaled Scores, you're losing points in all 3 major Verbal categories (SC, RC and CR), so you'll have to put in some work in all those areas (and not just SC). It sounds like you're dealing with the Verbal section by trying to eliminate answers and 'back into' the correct answer. That is not a particularly strategic approach, so putting some extra emphasis into building up your knowledge and Tactics will be required.

1) What is your goal score?
2) When are you planning to apply to Business School?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
Image
Top
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 10:31 pm
Followed by:1 members

by shasharma » Wed Oct 07, 2015 10:36 am
Thanks alot Rich for the reply and advice.

I will work upon 3 things from here, work on more online a/v sectional tests of verbal, revising concepts of SC and some topic discussion of SC and RC on the forums.

Answering your questions,

1. I need minimum 710 score and my goal score is 730, obviously I am pretty far from it.
2. I am planning to apply to B school in 2nd round, i.e. with deadline around 15th Jan'16. Also, I have already taken the appointment for GMAT for 20th Nov. in order to avoid preparation procrastination.

Any more informational help will be appreciated.
Top

GMAT/MBA Expert

User avatar
Elite Legendary Member
Posts: 10392
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2013 6:38 pm
Location: Palo Alto, CA
Thanked: 2867 times
Followed by:511 members
GMAT Score:800

by [email protected] » Wed Oct 07, 2015 6:46 pm
Hi shasharma,

When you refer to taking 'sectional tests of verbal', if you're thinking about just working through 41-question 'sets' or 'half-CATs', then neither of those is likely to be the solution to your current Verbal 'issues.' With your 730 score goal, you're also going to have to make some serious improvements to how you handle the Quant section.

All of this is meant to say that you need to learn/practice Tactics and that is probably going to require investing in a GMAT Course of some type. Raising your score 160+ points above your highest CAT score will probably take more time than you've given yourself, so while you can take the GMAT on November 20th as planned, you'll likely need to take it again after that attempt.

1) How much time do you think you can spend on your studies during a typical week?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
Image
Top
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 10:31 pm
Followed by:1 members

by shasharma » Wed Oct 07, 2015 9:27 pm
Hi Rich,

Thanks again.
I understand that there is a concept gap in my knowledge. For that, like mentioned I will brush up SC again, I had read Manhattan SC before starting OG, may be now, I will be able to grasp more or may be understand more.

There are 3 things:
1. I am on full time sabbatical to take this exam, so I can easily pull 10 hours a day like I have been since last 1 month ( 70% for Verbal and 30% for Quant) .
2. If in a rare case, I am not able to come close to 700 in my last mock before exam, I might reschedule, rather than take another official test.
3. I am not sure of joining some course, due to financial constraints.

Moreover, when attacking a SC question,

I understand the meaning of sentence first.Then ,I look out for Sub-verb agreement, dangling modifiers, parallelism , ambiguous pronoun's antecedent and similarly ambiguous modifiers, incorrect use of comma and "and" in the underlined part.

However, during test, I find 2 options which almost look right to me.
Why am I obsessing over SC , is because
1.I feel it is lowest hanging fruit for me and I think I am doing something wrong, due to no improvement in the section, even after finishing OG.
2. 60% of my incorrect questions are from this section.

Please let me know if you have anything to add regarding my SC strategy.
Top
User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 2135
Joined: Mon Feb 03, 2014 9:26 am
Location: https://martymurraycoaching.com/
Thanked: 955 times
Followed by:140 members
GMAT Score:800

by MartyMurray » Wed Oct 07, 2015 9:58 pm
shasharma wrote:Problem at 1st glance: My verbal just fails to improve, while I am pretty strong with quant.
I have almost 45 days left for GMAT. I kind of feel that I am missing something important in verbal.
It's not just that your verbal score is not increasing. It decreased.

Why?

Likely the answer is that before you started reading about GMAT verbal stuff, you just looked at the questions and used reasoning to find the correct answers. That's what the GMAT verbal section is about, reasoning.

Then what happened? You learned about all kinds of stuff that you now think you are supposed to do to get to the answers to GMAT verbal questions. As you said regarding SC, "I just fail to recognize the error by shortlisting last 2 options. The test questions seem so different from OG. I am trying the meaning approach as a starter to all questions."

While using meaning as part of an overall strategy for getting the right answer to SC questions makes sense, when you say "I am trying the meaning approach as a starter to all questions." it sounds as if you are seeking to use a cookie cutter, one fits all approach to answering SC questions, and generally it sounds as if you feel that finding the exact right strategy will get you to SC success.

What I am getting at here is that while you do sound as if you are to a degree on the right track, you need to get back to reasoning you way to answers to verbal questions.

For SC you need to use a dynamic approach that changes depending on the nature of the questions you are seeing.

For CR, you have to really see the logic of what is going on in the prompt and answer choices and not think some strategy is going to somehow guide you to the right answers. Yes there are certain basic things that you can do, but the KEY to getting CR questions right is clearly seeing what is going on. Without doing that, unless you have solid psychic abilities, you will not achieve a high CR hit rate no matter what strategy you use.

Similarly, for RC you need to be very clear as to what the passages do and do not say.

One suggestion I have for you is somewhat counter to what you said you may do. Rather than taking verbal section CATs, slow waaaaaay down and figure out how to get the right answers to verbal questions without the pressure of the clock. If you don't get most of them right on an untimed basis, it stands to reason that on a timed basis you will get even fewer right. So first do them on an untimed basis. If it takes 20 minutes per question to achieve a high hit rate, then that's what it takes. As you get accustomed to reasoning your way to right answers, you will naturally speed up. Once you get to that point, it may make sense to take verbal only CATs to further refine your skill in handling the section.

If that 48 quant score is really representative of where you are with quant at this point, 40 something more days may be sufficient for you to get to your score goal. Increasing your verbal score could take a fair amount of work though, and it looks as if you need to significantly change your perception of and approach to handling the verbal section.
Marty Murray
Perfect Scoring Tutor With Over a Decade of Experience
MartyMurrayCoaching.com
Contact me at [email protected] for a free consultation.
Top
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 10:31 pm
Followed by:1 members

by shasharma » Wed Oct 07, 2015 10:48 pm
Thanks alot Marty for the response. This is really insightful.

I have been literally bamboozled with my decreased Verbal score despite of the hard work.
I think I kind of agree with you. The rules of grammar occupy 90% of my mind when I look at SC questions, while previously it wasn't the case. It was more about sound of the sentence and simple reasoning.

Moreover, since I am usually in a dilemma regarding last 2 options because of a lil weaker concepts, that takes extra time, because of which I am left with almost no time in end for last 10 verbal questions, hence guessing is my only option, which wasn't previously the case.

While reasoning is still the way I am looking at CR (nearly 80% accuracy with OG), I need to work my way up for SC and RC (probably the way you guided).
Top
User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 2135
Joined: Mon Feb 03, 2014 9:26 am
Location: https://martymurraycoaching.com/
Thanked: 955 times
Followed by:140 members
GMAT Score:800

by MartyMurray » Thu Oct 08, 2015 4:35 am
That sounds good, and here is something to consider. This is an entrance exam for business school, for succeeding in which knowing all kinds of grammar rules is not really key. What is key is being skilled at assessing situations.

So the grammar rules are merely building blocks of SC questions, and knowing and applying them is in a way secondary to just plain figuring out what is going on. Often you can get great insight just by considering what a sentence created using an answer choice is conveying. For me identifying a wrong answer choice can often be simply a matter of, "What does that even mean????" LOL You don't have to have ever heard of modifier placement or parallelism to notice that what a sentence is conveying is ambiguous or doesn't make sense.

Here are a couple more things to consider.

This is a discussion of sentence correction written by someone at GMAC.

https://www.mba.com/us/the-gmat-blog-hub ... -exam.aspx

This short video from Veritas could also be a source of insight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2uz7DmQpbA
Marty Murray
Perfect Scoring Tutor With Over a Decade of Experience
MartyMurrayCoaching.com
Contact me at [email protected] for a free consultation.
Top
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 10:31 pm
Followed by:1 members

by shasharma » Fri Oct 09, 2015 2:00 am
Thanks again Marty.

This is definitely helpful, I am trying to change the way I am looking at SC questions now, hopefully I should be able to see some improvement in my next week's mock test.

Referring material: Manhattan's SC, GMAC's verbal review question bank and SC question discussions on forums.

Edit 1:Took 7th test today < completed Manhattan's SC's advanced chapters, started CR and RC bible (Powerscore), finished 1/3rd of GMAC'S Verbal review>: Got 620, Verbal: 32, Quant: 43

The quant in Mgmat looked way harder than Gmatprep. Need improvement on RC and CR now
Top

GMAT/MBA Expert

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 383
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 5:20 pm
Location: Online Conferencing - in person in select cities.
Thanked: 55 times
Followed by:21 members

by Bara » Fri Oct 16, 2015 5:51 pm
Shasharma,

There are a few more things to consider in your dilemma which might be super helpful.

First, I love what Marty says: "
Slow waaaaaay down and figure out how to get the right answers to verbal questions without the pressure of the clock. If you don't get most of them right on an untimed basis, it stands to reason that on a timed basis you will get even fewer right. So first do them on an untimed basis. If it takes 20 minutes per question to achieve a high hit rate, then that's what it takes. As you get accustomed to reasoning your way to right answers, you will naturally speed up. Once you get to that point, it may make sense to take verbal only CATs to further refine your skill in handling the section."
YES.

Also, identify if you're trusting your gut or following rules. Once you get down to two, which is the least worst?

Our book is among the most comprehensive of Sentence Correction: I'll shamelessly tell you to GET IT. Here is a link. The kindle version is less than $10. Well worth the money.
https://www.amazon.ca/Full-Potential-Se ... 188905755X

In the book, it helps you to strategize how to approach the questions - - do you trust your gut? Do you follow rules? How do you ascertain meaning of the sentences. My co author, Dr. van Hoek also writes here - - you can feel free to reach out to her directly: She's a superstar.

To improve on RC, you should ascertain your reading speed. 80% of the answers come from 20% of what you read, so typically people spend too much time reading. Decrease that time, improve your comprehension with stealth, and you stand to gain MORE time to answer questions which you're getting a score from. It's a no-brainer to go this route. Happy to tell you how to judge your reading speed.

For CR - - consider using LSAT material (from LSAC, only) as well as GMAC. Reverse engineer. Why is an answer correct? Put in categories. Verbal is challenging but also the most predictable part of the GMAT....And it's highly coachable and improvable is you have surefire ways to approach questions and answers.

You'll also want to break down/unpack what kind of patterns you exhibit in getting questions incorrect. It's not only WHAT you get wrong or what score you get, but HOW you get things wrong. You have data, now categorize it and use it as a tool to strategize next steps.

Feel free to be in touch with any specific questions! Good luck!

Best,

Bara
Bara Sapir, MA, CHt, CNLP
Founder/CEO City Test Prep
Maximize your Score, Minimize your Stress!
GMAT Badass and Test Anxiety Relief Expert
SPEEDREADING: https://citytestprep.com/mindflow-workshops/
ANXIETY RELIEF: https://citytestprep.com/mindfulness-therapy/
BOOK: https://tinyurl.com/TPNYSC
TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McA4aqCNS-c
Top
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 10:31 pm
Followed by:1 members

by shasharma » Sun Nov 01, 2015 10:12 pm
Hi Marty,

You last reply on the post was really helpful.

It will be wonderful if you can help me guide on one more important aspect, kind of a deal breaker for me right now.

I am able to solve first 15/20 questions right in Verbal test, post which my accuracy just drops to 5/21 correct questions in last 20 set, leading to a drop of score 28.
Breakup of 15 incorrect in last 21 set: 8 SC, 4 CR and 3 RC
This is happening repetitively.

Clearly, I am not able to handle pressure of last minute clock and difficult level questions.
However, I am able to solve most of the hard level questions without the pressure of clock.

Any form of guidance and perception will be really appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Top
User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 2135
Joined: Mon Feb 03, 2014 9:26 am
Location: https://martymurraycoaching.com/
Thanked: 955 times
Followed by:140 members
GMAT Score:800

by MartyMurray » Mon Nov 02, 2015 5:09 am
shasharma wrote:It will be wonderful if you can help me guide on one more important aspect, kind of a deal breaker for me right now.

I am able to solve first 15/20 questions right in Verbal test, post which my accuracy just drops to 5/21 correct questions in last 20 set, leading to a drop of score 28.
Breakup of 15 incorrect in last 21 set: 8 SC, 4 CR and 3 RC
This is happening repetitively.

Clearly, I am not able to handle pressure of last minute clock and difficult level questions.
However, I am able to solve most of the hard level questions without the pressure of clock.
Hi.

First a correction for you. Your above sentence would be better as

It would be wonderful if you would guide me on one more important aspect, kind of a deal breaker for me right now.

People often use will where would would be better. You could get some insight into the use of would from this post. https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/12/ ... ctive-mood

Now, regarding your question, I guess you could work to increase your hit rate in the second half of the verbal section by using multiple approaches together.

It seems that at this point the way you are handling the verbal questions is a little too fragile. It works ok under ideal conditions. Under less than ideal conditions, somehow things are breaking down. One way to address this is to tighten up your understanding of how you are getting right answers when you get them. The clearer it is to you why answers are right or wrong, the less any type of stress or pressure will matter.

Beyond that, you might seek to become aware of what you about what you are doing when you get them right is different from what you are doing when you don't get them right. In particular, what is going on when you do the first half of the section that is not going on when you do the second half? Are you being more careful about details? Are you reading all of the answer choices rather than seeking to answer before you read them all? Are you reading entire answer choices? Are you more careful in referring back to RC passages?

Become conscious of the differences and seek to apply your first half approach when you are doing the second half of the questions.

In a way time pressure should not make much difference. Either you are handling the questions optimally or you are not, and so probably your focus should be on handling the questions optimally throughout the verbal section. The basis of that is figuring out what goes into handling questions optimally.

Also, let's face it, even being careful to the point where you use up so much time that you would have to guess on the last few would work out better than what you have been doing.

Another part of addressing this CAT related issue that you are experiencing might be to take verbal only CATs and make your game seeing how well you can do on the second half of the section. I don't know what CATs you have used so far and what is available to you still, but some options are the Veritas CATs and the 800Score CATs. The 800Score CATs may not be quite as good as some others, but from what I have seen they are pretty good, and I believe that that site is set up in such a way that you can easily choose to do only verbal sections. So those CATs might be a good tool for achieving what you are seeking to achieve.

I suspect that if you do do the type of analysis I described above and take maybe a half dozen verbal only CATs you will get much better at handling the verbal section.
Marty Murray
Perfect Scoring Tutor With Over a Decade of Experience
MartyMurrayCoaching.com
Contact me at [email protected] for a free consultation.
Top
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 10:31 pm
Followed by:1 members

by shasharma » Mon Nov 02, 2015 6:17 am
Thanks Marty for the response. I think you have more or less hinted at the root cause of the problem here:
1. Yes, I think I am less careful about details and in a hurry to finish the test on time in later half.
2. I do not read all options with full attention and seek to answer before reading.

I will try my hand on verbal only CATs, as advised by you. Will update if I need more advice. Thanks again.
Top
Post new topic Post Reply
• Page 1 of 1