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Help improving my verbal?

by ale_434 » Mon Nov 23, 2015 2:02 am
Hi guys,

So test day is Dec 10th, last MGMAT CAT I got 580 a week ago. I'm planning to take another CAT this week, and a final one two or three days before test day. My goal is to get over 600 on test day. On the last prep test I got 39 Q 31 V . However, my rate of correct answers when practicing verbal is just over 50% for 600+ exercises and I'm not sure whether I'll be able to maintain that 61% verbal percentile on test day. I'm certainly more confident about performing better on the Quant.

I'm no English native speaker ( though my level is quite good). I would really appreciate any recommendations regarding how to improve my verbal section performance in these 2 weeks I've got left until test day. I belive my note taking skills are just fine and I'm able to get almost every piece of information; nontheless, when I look at the answer choices in most of the cases they are so confusing and it takes me a lot of time to discard incorrect answers.

Thanks in advance!

Some other useful info about my GMAT study background:
- I've studied for about 2,5 months 180-190 hours total.
-I've finished all the MGMAT prep books.
- I've taken one GMATPrep software exam (530) and one MGMAT CAT (580).
- I've done over 300 quant exercises and 300 verbal exercises from both OG12 and OG16 and their Review books.
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by MartyMurray » Mon Nov 23, 2015 4:28 am
Given that your hit rate in practice is only 50%, something about what you are doing is not working, or not working yet.

There may be a clue in this."I belive my note taking skills are just fine and I'm able to get almost every piece of information"

From what you said it sounds as if maybe you are seeing getting the verbal questions right as mostly about seeing pieces of what is going on. While it is definitely the case that in order to get verbal questions right you need to see key details, and that if you don't you are toast, you also need to see the overall logic of the situations and to be good at using that logic to get to right answers.

For instance, when handling SC questions, looking at pieces of the sentences for rules not followed or little issues is, as you have discovered, going to get you only so far. The more sophisticated the SC questions get, the more you have to look at entire sentence versions to judge their overall structure and effectiveness.

Similarly, getting to the right answers of CR questions only begins with noticing what the conclusions, premises and assumptions are. You need to go beyond that and really see what is going on in the prompts, questions and answer choices and how they are related logically. Without doing that, you just won't get right answers.

The answer choices are written to be confusing and tricky and to trap you into picking the wrong one if you are not careful.

From what you wrote here, you clearly have the language skills necessary for scoring higher than you have been on GMAT verbal. Now maybe you need to approach the questions in a way somewhat different from how you have been. You need to realize that no amount of note taking or accounting for details is going to get you all the way to the answers, and that in addition to being good at noticing details you need to be good at seeing the overall logic of what is going on.

One way to develop this is to go over questions you have missed and, without using the explanations as crutches, determine what it is you had needed to see in order to get them right. Sometimes people get the impression that if they just read through enough explanations they will learn how to get the right answers, and while clearly you can get good ideas and insights from the explanations, the core of increasing one's verbal score is developing skill in seeing what is going on and in using what one sees to get to right answers.

So keep practicing and take your time when doing the questions so that you develop skill in seeing exactly what makes wrong answers wrong and right answers right. As you develop this skill the right answers will become increasingly clear to you.

Sometimes when someone says that he or she is confused by a verbal question and asks for an explanation, perhaps the best answer is "You are better off unconfusing yourself." Unconfusing yourself can take time. In the beginning you may find yourself staring at one verbal question for twenty minutes, or more even, but in order to score high on GMAT verbal you have to get good at unconfusing yourself as that's essentially the skill that the test is testing, and as you get good at that you will naturally answer the questions more quickly.
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by ale_434 » Mon Nov 23, 2015 6:06 am
Thank you Marty for such a long ( but at the same time inspiring) reply!
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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Mon Nov 23, 2015 6:31 am
I'm no English native speaker ( though my level is quite good). I would really appreciate any recommendations regarding how to improve my verbal section performance in these 2 weeks I've got left until test day.
In addition to Marty's always sound advice, I'd suggest giving mindfulness meditation a try. There's good research that a two-week practice can substantially boost scores on standardized tests. And I think this makes the most sense for test-takers, such as yourself, who have already exhausted their prep material. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... on/275564/
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by ale_434 » Mon Nov 23, 2015 7:45 am
Thanks Dave! I'll have a look at it :)
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by [email protected] » Mon Nov 23, 2015 9:36 am
Hi ale_434,

Assuming that you took your two CATs in a realistic, test-like fashion, you're remarkably close to a 600+ score right now. As such, you really have to 'nitpick' WHY you're getting questions wrong and focus on eliminating as many of those mistakes as possible. The good news is that many of those mistakes will be relatively minor (and can be 'fixed' with a bit more study and by taking more/better notes).

With just under 3 weeks to go before Test Day, you have enough time to take another 2-3 CATs, but you shouldn't try to 'jam in' a CAT just to take it. Taking a CAT in the last 2-3 days before your GMAT is also NOT a good idea - you're more likely to 'burn out' from that experience than actually benefit from it.

1) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
2) Do you know which Schools you plan to apply to?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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by ale_434 » Mon Nov 23, 2015 1:58 pm
[email protected] wrote:Hi ale_434,

Assuming that you took your two CATs in a realistic, test-like fashion, you're remarkably close to a 600+ score right now. As such, you really have to 'nitpick' WHY you're getting questions wrong and focus on eliminating as many of those mistakes as possible. The good news is that many of those mistakes will be relatively minor (and can be 'fixed' with a bit more study and by taking more/better notes).

With just under 3 weeks to go before Test Day, you have enough time to take another 2-3 CATs, but you shouldn't try to 'jam in' a CAT just to take it. Taking a CAT in the last 2-3 days before your GMAT is also NOT a good idea - you're more likely to 'burn out' from that experience than actually benefit from it.

1) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
2) Do you know which Schools you plan to apply to?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Hi Rich,

Thanks for your reply. Indeed, I feel really confident with the progress made so far. I truly believe that I'm quite close to a 600. As you and Marty suggest, my plan now is to focus on what I'm doing wrong as well as WHY am I doing it wrong. With that and a little more confidence on the verbal section ( my quant skills are OK but realistically I wont get far beyond the 50th-60th percentile) I should be fine.

Please let me answer your questions:

1) My plan was to apply as soon as I got my first official GMAT score. In the unlikely case that I got less than 580 I would retake the exam on January and then send my application form.

2)Yes, indeed. My plan was to course a MSC in Marketing Management in ESADE Business School in Barcelona starting September 2016. The average GMAT score for applicants in this particular Masters is around 630.
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by MartyMurray » Mon Nov 23, 2015 2:59 pm
For quant you might want to do the following.

Choose three types of questions that you find challenging and at the same time learnable. Then work to learn all about how to handle those three types one at at time, doing dozen of topic focused questions for each type before moving onto the next type.

By doing this you can accomplish two things.

One of them is that once you become way more skilled in handling three types of questions, you will be likely to get three more quant questions right, significantly driving up your score.

On top of that, because you would be more expert in handling three types, you would likely handle questions of those types faster, giving yourself more time to handle others types of questions, thus giving yourself the opportunity to drive your quant score even higher.

Of course along with working on those three types, you could still be doing more general quant practice.

Get a few, maybe four, more verbal questions right and a few more quant right and your best case score goal will be in the bag.
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by ale_434 » Tue Nov 24, 2015 12:41 am
Marty Murray wrote:For quant you might want to do the following.

Choose three types of questions that you find challenging and at the same time learnable. Then work to learn all about how to handle those three types one at at time, doing dozen of topic focused questions for each type before moving onto the next type.

By doing this you can accomplish two things.

One of them is that once you become way more skilled in handling three types of questions, you will be likely to get three more quant questions right, significantly driving up your score.

On top of that, because you would be more expert in handling three types, you would likely handle questions of those types faster, giving yourself more time to handle others types of questions, thus giving yourself the opportunity to drive your quant score even higher.

Of course along with working on those three types, you could still be doing more general quant practice.

Get a few, maybe four, more verbal questions right and a few more quant right and your best case score goal will be in the bag.
Thanks Marty I will do that.

By saying "three types of questions" you mean three general types such as Geometry or Number Properties or maybe more specific topics such as "triangle problems" or "divisibility and primes"?

Thanks.
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by MartyMurray » Tue Nov 24, 2015 12:59 am
By saying "three types of questions" you mean three general types such as Geometry or Number Properties or maybe more specific topics such as "triangle problems" or "divisibility and primes"?
Hmm. Good question.

I guess I mean more specific topics. Number properties is pretty broad. Divisibility and primes, triangle problems, or work and rate is more along the lines of what I am talking about.

You can make the call though, and the boundaries of the categories might have to be a little flexible. For instance, I guess that if you were to choose triangle problems you would probably need to learn something about circles as well, as triangles and circles often work together.

The reason I brought this up is that you had indicated that you didn't feel that you would get your quant score much higher, and I wanted to give you an idea that you could use to do something practical to get some more quant points within the next few weeks.
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by [email protected] » Tue Nov 24, 2015 9:02 am
Hi ale_434,

It's good that you know your first-choice School and the general timeline involved. Since this is a really 'busy' time of year, you'll likely need to stay really organized about your GMAT studies, working on your application and everything else that's going on in your life. A strong application takes time to properly 'craft', so make sure that you've given yourself enough time to put everything together in the most effective way possible.

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