I have taken my GMAT exam on 10th august 2015.
My score 540
IR- 5
AWA- 5
Quant- 49
Verbal - 16
Verbal is too low but in practice exam my verbal score was around 25-30.
Preparation:
6 months i prepared for the exam. Solved OG twice.
GMAT Prep 1: 600
GMAT prep 2: 630
My target is 700+, please suggest me how to improve my score.
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My Verbal score 16 - Need suggestion
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Hi arpitadu,
I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as hoped. Before I can offer some advice, I'd like to know a bit more about your studies:
1) Over the 6 months that you studied, were those the only 2 CATs that you took? Did you end up taking either of them more than once?
2) As far as your overall studies were concerned, did you work with any materials besides the OG?
3) If your goal was 700+, but you never scored higher than 630 during your practice, why didn't you reschedule your GMAT? Are you on any deadlines?
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
I'm sorry to hear that Test Day didn't go as well as hoped. Before I can offer some advice, I'd like to know a bit more about your studies:
1) Over the 6 months that you studied, were those the only 2 CATs that you took? Did you end up taking either of them more than once?
2) As far as your overall studies were concerned, did you work with any materials besides the OG?
3) If your goal was 700+, but you never scored higher than 630 during your practice, why didn't you reschedule your GMAT? Are you on any deadlines?
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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Brent@GMATPrepNow
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First of all, I always recommend that students achieve their target score at least twice before taking the official test. If you haven't broken 700 on the practice tests, it's unlikely that you will break 700 in a formal testing environment.
As far as Verbal improvement goes, this takes the longest time.
That said, the biggest return on investment (time-wise) is Sentence Correction, so I'd start there.
Cheers,
Brent
As far as Verbal improvement goes, this takes the longest time.
That said, the biggest return on investment (time-wise) is Sentence Correction, so I'd start there.
Cheers,
Brent
Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com
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MartyMurray
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Hi arpitadu.
Let's assume for starters that with a little more preparation you can get that quant score to 50, or 51.
Even then, to solidly break 700 you need a verbal section score of at least around 38.
So you need to get significantly better at verbal to hit your target.
Part of what you could do to do that is see the verbal section differently. You have the reasoning and problem solving skills to score Q49. Well, much of what it takes to score high on verbal involves the same skills, though you might not notice that from what you hear about verbal. Often when discussing the verbal section of the GMAT people talk of minutia such as idioms or parts of CR arguments. All the same, what doing well on GMAT verbal comes down to is noticing details of and the logic of situations.
In SC, you need to see the details of the structure of the sentences and answer choices and notice whether they effectively convey a logical meaning.
In CR, you need to clearly see the details of what's going on in an argument and make logical connections between the argument and the answer choices.
In RC, much of the task of getting right answers involves noticing what the passages are really saying and which answer choices truly match that.
Obviously you can see logic and details. That's what you have been doing to get the right answers to tough quant questions. Now you need to do the same in verbal.
In order to do this, you probably would be best off going beyond the Official Guide and using other resources to learn about and practice GMAT verbal.
Regarding choosing which resources to use, I strong suggest that you use only electronic or online resources and do not use books printed on paper, because there is a fair amount of destruction and trauma associated with the manufacture of paper and you don't need to be contributing to that or reaping the consequences, both physical and karmic, of using paper. Even if you didn't care about the destruction associated with creation of paper books, and I doubt that is the case, I am sure a thinking person like you can figure out what are the karmic consequences of killing, destroying habitat, and poisoning the waterways.
With that in mind, I suggest you find some resources to help you better understand how to correctly answer GMAT verbal questions. E-gmat might be a good one to check out. Also MGMAT offers their verbal guides in e-book versions. There are many others.
You also may want to find more questions to use beyond those included in those resources. A good place to start doing more verbal questions is the Veritas Question Bank. Beyond that there are many others, of varying quality.
Finally, if even with using resources such as those, you don't seem to be making satisfactory progress, you might want to look into hiring a GMAT coach or tutor. Even having an expert set of eyes for just a few lessons can give you insights that you may have taken months to arrive at on your own.
In any case, clearly you can score whatever you want to score on GMAT verbal. You just need to figure out how to optimally do that and make it happen.
Let's assume for starters that with a little more preparation you can get that quant score to 50, or 51.
Even then, to solidly break 700 you need a verbal section score of at least around 38.
So you need to get significantly better at verbal to hit your target.
Part of what you could do to do that is see the verbal section differently. You have the reasoning and problem solving skills to score Q49. Well, much of what it takes to score high on verbal involves the same skills, though you might not notice that from what you hear about verbal. Often when discussing the verbal section of the GMAT people talk of minutia such as idioms or parts of CR arguments. All the same, what doing well on GMAT verbal comes down to is noticing details of and the logic of situations.
In SC, you need to see the details of the structure of the sentences and answer choices and notice whether they effectively convey a logical meaning.
In CR, you need to clearly see the details of what's going on in an argument and make logical connections between the argument and the answer choices.
In RC, much of the task of getting right answers involves noticing what the passages are really saying and which answer choices truly match that.
Obviously you can see logic and details. That's what you have been doing to get the right answers to tough quant questions. Now you need to do the same in verbal.
In order to do this, you probably would be best off going beyond the Official Guide and using other resources to learn about and practice GMAT verbal.
Regarding choosing which resources to use, I strong suggest that you use only electronic or online resources and do not use books printed on paper, because there is a fair amount of destruction and trauma associated with the manufacture of paper and you don't need to be contributing to that or reaping the consequences, both physical and karmic, of using paper. Even if you didn't care about the destruction associated with creation of paper books, and I doubt that is the case, I am sure a thinking person like you can figure out what are the karmic consequences of killing, destroying habitat, and poisoning the waterways.
With that in mind, I suggest you find some resources to help you better understand how to correctly answer GMAT verbal questions. E-gmat might be a good one to check out. Also MGMAT offers their verbal guides in e-book versions. There are many others.
You also may want to find more questions to use beyond those included in those resources. A good place to start doing more verbal questions is the Veritas Question Bank. Beyond that there are many others, of varying quality.
Finally, if even with using resources such as those, you don't seem to be making satisfactory progress, you might want to look into hiring a GMAT coach or tutor. Even having an expert set of eyes for just a few lessons can give you insights that you may have taken months to arrive at on your own.
In any case, clearly you can score whatever you want to score on GMAT verbal. You just need to figure out how to optimally do that and make it happen.
Marty Murray
Perfect Scoring Tutor With Over a Decade of Experience
MartyMurrayCoaching.com
Contact me at [email protected] for a free consultation.
Perfect Scoring Tutor With Over a Decade of Experience
MartyMurrayCoaching.com
Contact me at [email protected] for a free consultation.
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DavidG@VeritasPrep
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Some additional suggestions for improving that verbal score:
- Make sure you're up to speed on the principles tested in Sentence Correction. Here's our free SC lesson: https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat/free-gmat-lesson/
- Since you've already worked through the Official Guide, I'd suggest picking up the Question Pack from mba.com: https://www.mba.com/us/store/store-catal ... ack-1.aspx Do all the SC questions and make sure you understand them thoroughly. Post any questions you have here.
-Do the same for CR
- Read voraciously. (Anything challenging will do.) There's research suggesting that the physiology of our brains changes when we read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/ar ... in/282952/
- Consider incorporating some mindfulness meditation. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... on/275564/
Finally, check your progress using the new mba.com tests:https://www.mba.com/us/store/store-catal ... ack-1.aspx
- Make sure you're up to speed on the principles tested in Sentence Correction. Here's our free SC lesson: https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat/free-gmat-lesson/
- Since you've already worked through the Official Guide, I'd suggest picking up the Question Pack from mba.com: https://www.mba.com/us/store/store-catal ... ack-1.aspx Do all the SC questions and make sure you understand them thoroughly. Post any questions you have here.
-Do the same for CR
- Read voraciously. (Anything challenging will do.) There's research suggesting that the physiology of our brains changes when we read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/ar ... in/282952/
- Consider incorporating some mindfulness meditation. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... on/275564/
Finally, check your progress using the new mba.com tests:https://www.mba.com/us/store/store-catal ... ack-1.aspx
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Rich@EconomistGMAT
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Hi arpitadu,
I'm also curious to know more about the resources you've used to prepare for the GMAT and under what circumstances you took those previous CATs. Did you take any breaks/listen to music or watch television/or any other comforts you didn't have on the GMAT? While you scored between 25-30 on your previous practice exams, this might not be indicative of where you stand if you didn't simulate a test-day-like environment.
Best,
Rich
I'm also curious to know more about the resources you've used to prepare for the GMAT and under what circumstances you took those previous CATs. Did you take any breaks/listen to music or watch television/or any other comforts you didn't have on the GMAT? While you scored between 25-30 on your previous practice exams, this might not be indicative of where you stand if you didn't simulate a test-day-like environment.
Best,
Rich
