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Suggestions needed to improve verbal score

by Fl.New » Mon Sep 26, 2016 2:48 am
Hi,

I am quite new in this forum, though I have been reading many posts and threads.
I took the GMAT 3 years ago and scored 590 (Q:48, V: 23). I am not a native speaker, so the verbal section was more difficult than I thought.

I started studying again approximately 1.5-2 months ago, in order to improve my score and apply for a top-10 business school. I am planning to apply next September.

I am working in a full time job (Tax consultant at EY), so I am studying mostly at night and on the weekends.

The materials that I am currently using are:
- Magoosh (online videos and practice).
- Veritas prep's books (I am currently in the 8th book) + practice tests.

I am planning to take the GMAT on October 25th. My target score is 680-700.
I will also take 3 weeks vacation before the exam, to better prepare for the GMAT.

On my last 2 mock tests, I scored accordingly:
- 610 (Q:44, V:30)
- 620 (Q: 47, V:29)
On the quant section, I think I can improve my score to around 49-50. My difficulty is in the verbal section.
Please find attached the breakdown of my error in the Verbal section, from the last exam that I took.

As you can see, most of the errors were in the last questions, when I was under pressure for time.
I also decided to guess question number 37, to have more time for the last questions, and this question was apparently quite easy in comparison with the others.

I also felt during the test that I wasn't using all of the techniques and methods that I have studied in the past few weeks. Maybe it was due to the pressure or intimidation from the verbal section. In contrary, in the quant section, I am very confident and know exactly how to manage my time.

I need to improve the verbal score, in order to achieve my targeted score (36-37). I have less than a month to do so.

I am thinking about practicing the questions in the official guide and taking many practice tests.
I need your assistance or recommendations whether I should use other materials or have other study plans. In addition, how can I better manage my time during the verbal section?

Thank you in advance.

Best,
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by [email protected] » Mon Sep 26, 2016 9:36 am
Hi Fl.New,

Many Test Takers spend 3 months (or more) of consistent study time before they hit their 'peak' scores, so it's likely that you just have not put in enough time and effort yet. With your current Test Date, you have about 4 weeks of study time remaining, and even though you're planning to take time off from work (so that you can increase the number of study hours available), that still might not be enough time to hit your score goal. As such, you might want to consider pushing back your Test Date.

Before we talk about how best to use your remaining study time, I have a few questions about how you took these two practice CATs:

When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)?
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE?

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by Scott@TargetTestPrep » Mon Sep 26, 2016 10:04 am
Hi Fl.New,

Since you have been studying for a few months and have not seen the improvement you need, you may consider adjusting your study routine.

Remember, what makes the GMAT such a challenging exam is that there are relatively few questions asked in a given exam, yet those questions come from a huge topic pool. Thus, the best way to get a great GMAT score is to have a thorough understanding of all the topics that may be tested on the exam. To develop such mastery, you want to strive for linear and targeted learning and follow that with focused practice. In other words, you want to master one topic before you move to the next. Have you been able to study in this way?

For example, when studying verbal, focus on learning one section at a time: reading comprehension, sentence correction, or critical reasoning. When learning about critical reasoning, you want to be able to learn about all aspects of critical reasoning: strengthen and weaken the conclusion, resolve the paradox, find the conclusion, must be true, etc. Follow up your learning with focused critical reasoning practice, so you can determine your specific weaknesses within that topic. You should follow a similar routine for sentence correction and reading comprehension.

Also, to help improve your reading comprehension, I recommend reading publications such as the Economist, the New Yorker,Scientific American, or the Smithsonian so you can get used to reading and analyzing long, sophisticated passages that are well written.

To truly master sentence correction, you must develop mastery of grammar rules (parallelism, subject/verb agreement, etc.) and accepted English usage. In addition to your dedicated study, notice grammar and usage in your everyday life. Be aware of the things you habitually read, in terms of sentence structure, how phrases are worded, and whether pronouns are easy to understand, to name just a few. Make sure you use proper grammar in your everyday writing as well. Have you put parallel ideas into parallel constructions? Do all of your pronouns refer appropriately to their antecedents? The more you reinforce your study with related activity outside of your study, the greater the likelihood you will master the topics, and you'll have fun doing so!

Also, I see you have taken a few Veritas exams; have you taken any official MBA.com exams?

If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out to me directly.

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
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by Fl.New » Mon Sep 26, 2016 10:53 pm
[email protected] wrote: ...
When you took your CATs:
1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) Did you take them at home?
3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)?
5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE?

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

Thank you very much for your prompt response.

1) Did you take the ENTIRE CAT each time (including the Essay and IR sections)?
I only took the Math and Verbal sections, and not a full length CAT.
I am planning to take one next week.

2) Did you take them at home?
Yes.

3) Did you take them at the same time of day as your Official GMAT?
10am instead of 12pm. I will take the next CAT at the same time as my official GMAT exam.

4) Did you ever do ANYTHING during your CATs that you couldn't do on Test Day (pause the CAT, skip sections, take longer breaks, etc.)?
No, I took a 6 minutes break between sections.

5) Did you ever take a CAT more than once? Had you seen any of the questions BEFORE?
No, those are different CATs. I purchased 6 Veritas' practice tests.

BTW, I started studying 2 months ago, for 4-5 hours a day, on average.
In addition, as i already took the GMAT, I am familiar with the exam and the questions' type.
So it is fair to say that i will study for 3 months (not on a full day basis).

I do have a question regarding the "guessing" strategy in the Verbal section - it is better to guess questions along the way or try to solve as much questions as I can, knowing that I am losing the last questions?

Thank you in advance.

Regards
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by Fl.New » Tue Sep 27, 2016 1:16 am
Scott@TargetTestPrep wrote:...
Also, I see you have taken a few Veritas exams; have you taken any official MBA.com exams?

If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out to me directly.
Dear Scott,

Thank you very much for your response.
I am studying each topic, based on Veritas' prep books, and practicing questions from the prep books and Magoosh.
In addition, on the past few weeks I was readying articles (especially from "The Wall Street Journal") in order to improve my Verbal score in general and the RC section in particular.
Do you think that improvement of 50-60 points is achievable in 30 days?

I am planning to take the official MBA.com exams next week. I already took those exams 3 years ago, so i don't know if i should buy new ones (in case that the same passage/s will come up during the test).

Thank you in advance.

Best
I.F.
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by MartyMurray » Tue Sep 27, 2016 5:59 am
Fl.New wrote:I do have a question regarding the "guessing" strategy in the Verbal section - it is better to guess questions along the way or try to solve as much questions as I can, knowing that I am losing the last questions?
Hi Fl.New.

Guessing is best done only because you are finding a particular question especially challenging.

Guessing to catch up with the clock does not work out, and here's why.

Generally your GMAT section score will be higher if you have long strings of right answers, and guessing on random questions to catch up with the clock can break up your strings.

Another reason is that, as you discovered, you may choose an easy question to guess on. If you get a hard question wrong, your score stays pretty much level. If you get an easy one wrong, your score goes lower. So by guessing on a question the answer to which you could have gotten, you may dig yourself into a hole that you then have to climb out of.

Regarding your training, using techniques to get the right answers to verbal questions will only get you so far, and for many people so far is right about where you are scoring, somewhere in the upper 20's to the mid 30's. Put it this way, if what it takes to score high in GMAT verbal were learning a bunch of gimmicks and tricks, then the test would not be a very good gauge of the skills used in business school.

So what the GMAT verbal section is testing for the most part are skills in doing the following things, noticing key details, assessing situations and using logic to arrive at conclusions.

So getting your score to increase requires working on those things. You can learn about the difference between weaken and assumption questions, about modifiers and participles and about noticing the first sentences in paragraphs, but if you don't improve your skills in the above mentioned things likely your score will not increase.

I have seen non native speakers who were good at those things DEMOLISH GMAT verbal.

So now you know all about GMAT verbal. You are familiar with question types, with rules and with certain approaches. Your next step is to slow down in your preparation and, working on questions untimed, seek to get better at seeing what you have to see and at using logic to determine which answers are correct.

If you don't know what a word means, use logic to work around it. If you are not sure about a sentence construction rule, maybe look at the non underlined part of the sentence for clues. Yes, seek to understand the workings of the questions. At the same time, go beyond rules and methods and learn to do what you have to do in order to consistently get right answers.

Meanwhile, probably you should buy new official tests. While you might get some useful practice by retaking the ones that you used three years ago, likely your scores on those will be inflated. Even being somewhat familiar with a few questions can inflate a score significantly.
Last edited by MartyMurray on Wed Feb 06, 2019 9:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by [email protected] » Tue Sep 27, 2016 10:23 am
Hi Fl.New,

Test Day is a rather specific 'event' - the details are specific and they matter, so you have to train as best as you can for all of them. The more realistic you can make your CATs, the more likely the score results are to be accurate. The more you deviate, the more "inflated" your scores can become - and that's likely what has happened here. By skipping sections, taking the CATs at home, taking them at a different time of day, etc., you were not properly training for the FULL GMAT 'experience.' As such, we don't have a clear idea of what your actual skill level is and you'll likely have to do more work than you realize to hit your score goal.

Thankfully, this is a relatively easy set of problems to fix. The big question now is "how long will it take you to properly get 'used to' taking the full GMAT in a realistic fashion?" You'll certainly need a new set of practice CATs to work with and you have to put in the necessary time to train your brain (and body) for the FULL GMAT. You might also need to invest in some new GMAT training materials.

As far as 'dumping' questions is concerned, you need to be able to admit when a question just feels 'too hard' and then dump that question as quickly as possible. You will absolutely see a few questions that you think are too hard - and they can show up at any time, so you cannot afford to get distracted by when they show up.

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by Fl.New » Tue Sep 27, 2016 10:56 pm
[email protected] wrote:

Test Day is a rather specific 'event' - the details are specific and they matter, so you have to train as best as you can for all of them. The more realistic you can make your CATs, the more likely the score results are to be accurate. The more you deviate, the more "inflated" your scores can become - and that's likely what has happened here. By skipping sections, taking the CATs at home, taking them at a different time of day, etc., you were not properly training for the FULL GMAT 'experience.' As such, we don't have a clear idea of what your actual skill level is and you'll likely have to do more work than you realize to hit your score goal.
Thanks again Rich.
I need to practice the IR section first.
I will take a full length practice test next week.

Best,
I.F.
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by Fl.New » Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:36 pm
Marty Murray wrote:
So what the GMAT verbal section is testing for the most part are skills in doing the following things, noticing key details, assessing situations and using logic to arrive at conclusions.
Thank you Marty!
I was using a stopwatch to time each question, but I will definitely use your method and try to "think like the test-maker". I do believe that this is a very good approach, as many questions can be solved using logic and even qualitative skills.

Best,
I.F.
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by MartyMurray » Wed Sep 28, 2016 4:30 am
Fl.New wrote:Thank you Marty!
I was using a stopwatch to time each question, but I will definitely use your method and try to "think like the test-maker". I do believe that this is a very good approach, as many questions can be solved using logic and even qualitative skills.

Best,
I.F.
Great. Even a half hour or more on one question is not too much time if that's how much time you need to see what you have to see.

If you can see what you have to see in a half hour, you are set in a way, as you can with more practice speed up and see it faster. Conversely, getting wrong answers in two minutes each is almost useless.

I have seen people's scores shoot up when the people used untimed practice.
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by Scott@TargetTestPrep » Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:32 am
Hi Fl.New,

I'm glad to see you are learning one topic at at time. Remember, once you've spent sufficient time learning about a topic (for example - number properties, strengthen the argument, or parallelism), your next goal is to engage in deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is the act of practicing with the intention of becoming proficient at solving realistic GMAT questions. In other words you're developing your ability to apply what you have learned to realistic GMAT practice questions. The more realistic practice problems you solve using proper strategies and techniques, the stronger and faster you'll become. It is through this deliberate practice that you will continue to build sophisticated critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and decision making skills - all skills that the GMAT rewards and that many students lack.

In addition to actually doing practice questions, you must also spend the necessary time analyzing your wrong answers. Did you forget a concept, spend too much time, make a mistake in your math, misread the question? If it turns out that you forgot or misused a particular concept, spend some time reviewing that concept so that next time you are tested on that rule, you won't make a similar mistake!

In regard the MBA prep exams, you may consider purchasing and taking an exam from either exam pack 1 or exam pack 2 to ensure that you see fresh questions. Once you complete that exam, report back with your score breakdown and I'd be happy to provide further advice.

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
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by Fl.New » Fri Oct 21, 2016 1:37 am
Hi Guys,

I would like to update you that i took the e-Gmat online course in the past 2 weeks (it was quite hectic).
I also practiced the questions in the official guide (2016 version) and the official verbal (2016 version).

In my last 5 practice test i scored as follows:

- October 2 (Gmat Prep 1st Exam - retaking): 680 (Q-50, V-32, IR-7)
- October 12 (Veritas 4th mock test): 650 (Q-48, V-31�, IR-6)
- October 15 (Gmat Prep Exam 5 from package 2): 600 (Q-47, V-26, IR-3)*
- October 18 (Veritas 5th mock test): 660 (Q-47, V-34, IR-6)
- October 20 (Gmat Prep Exam 6 from package 2): 720 (Q-49, V-39, IR-5) + AWA section

*I would like to mention that in the test i took on October 15 I did not feel well.

My target score is 700. My GMAT is on Tuesday.
The last score could be considered an improvement or just luck.

I am thinking about taking Exam 5 again tomorrow, to be exposed to more questions that could appear in the actual exam. I know that the upcoming score will be inflated.

I would be happy to hear your thoughts.

Thank you in advance,
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by Scott@TargetTestPrep » Sat Oct 22, 2016 4:13 am
Hi Fl.New,

From what I have observed, if you retake the 5th GMAT prep practice exam, you are likely to see many repeated questions and thus may not gain too much from taking that exam.

However, many of my students retake the two free exams and do not encounter too many repeated questions. So, unless you have already done so, you may consider retaking one of those exams.

Outside of taking a test Saturday, you may want to begin dialing down your prep, so that you are fresh for your GMAT on Tuesday.

In fact, I wrote a great article that has some strategies you should follow the week leading up to your GMAT.

Also, if you need any advice, or even a pep talk, prior to your GMAT, feel free to reach out to me directly; I'm always happy to help.

Good luck!

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
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