Hi pals,
I am new to this forum. I have been preparing for GMAT since Aug 2009. In between, I have taken GMAT twice and here is the summary.
7 Dec 2009 (Q 49 V 17 AWA 4.5)560 - I spent 90 days(3 hrs daily) for quant and verbal equally and 5 hours for AWA.
8 Mar 2010 (Q 49 V 16 AWA 4.5)530 - For this exam, I spent 15 hours preparation for quant, 2 hours preparation in AWA and 65(2-3 hrs a day) days for Verbal. Despite that my score in verbal ended in a debacle.
ABOUT MY PREPARATION:
During my practive tests, I used to get an avg of 33 section cut off score (28-31 Question correct) and has done the practice tests in real format(AWA+quant+Verbal). But in the real time GMAT, my section score in verbal is abysmal.
I have gone through all the good books suggested in most of the forums(OG 10/11/12,Manhattan, princeton, arco,1000 series(left LSAT questions) etc..).
The strategies that I followed (and percentage of questions correct in practice exams)are:
(i)For RC - read the passage and find out for - central theme, structure and what the author is trying to tell( % of correct questions: 50%). I tried so many strategies and finally got some good hit rate with this strategy.
(ii)For SC - find out the flaw, then go to options and eliminate the options (% of correct questions: 75-85%)
(iii)For CR - read the passage, then question, analyse and then go to options (% of correct questions: 60-70%)
While preparing, I used to analyse why the answer option is correct and why the rest 4 options are wrong. Besides, I used to read editorials and op-ed page for an hour. I did 20 RC's, 20 CR's and 20 SC's daily for my practice. Not sure what went wrong.
WHAT I FELT IN REAL GMAT EXAM:
I felt that the question models were new to me i.e., for example when I was working on SC's, I am unable to find the flaw , unable to apply the grammitical rule that I learnt, unable to find in which area (such as parallelism, sub-verb, etc) the question is posed. The same case with CR's. I felt very tricky. I am able to eliminate 3 options but the remaining 2 hampered me. In practice exams I used to manage why this SC question is wrong(got the rule), why that CR question option is right, etc. Even RC's is also tricky. However RC's is not my strong area.
All I have to bother is the verbal section. I am running out of confidence. I managed well in practice exams. Even 2 days back I have taken sample test(MC-Graw Hill) and I got Q-30 questions correct and verbal 28 questions correct without any preparation.
I know GMAT is a mindgame and more or less I feel that I am not yet tuned to that in verbal section. I know this cannot be achieved like a quant formula. But trying my best to get through the nightmare. I would appreciate any one suggest me
(i) do I have to change my strategies in RC,SC,CR? Could any one tell me what am I doing wrong?
(ii) tips to do well and improve myself in verbal section.
(iii) any material and tests that I should go through to improve my verbal score, please let me know.
Please help me to overcome my Verbal nightmare.
Regards,
Kiran.
I am new to this forum. I have been preparing for GMAT since Aug 2009. In between, I have taken GMAT twice and here is the summary.
7 Dec 2009 (Q 49 V 17 AWA 4.5)560 - I spent 90 days(3 hrs daily) for quant and verbal equally and 5 hours for AWA.
8 Mar 2010 (Q 49 V 16 AWA 4.5)530 - For this exam, I spent 15 hours preparation for quant, 2 hours preparation in AWA and 65(2-3 hrs a day) days for Verbal. Despite that my score in verbal ended in a debacle.
ABOUT MY PREPARATION:
During my practive tests, I used to get an avg of 33 section cut off score (28-31 Question correct) and has done the practice tests in real format(AWA+quant+Verbal). But in the real time GMAT, my section score in verbal is abysmal.
I have gone through all the good books suggested in most of the forums(OG 10/11/12,Manhattan, princeton, arco,1000 series(left LSAT questions) etc..).
The strategies that I followed (and percentage of questions correct in practice exams)are:
(i)For RC - read the passage and find out for - central theme, structure and what the author is trying to tell( % of correct questions: 50%). I tried so many strategies and finally got some good hit rate with this strategy.
(ii)For SC - find out the flaw, then go to options and eliminate the options (% of correct questions: 75-85%)
(iii)For CR - read the passage, then question, analyse and then go to options (% of correct questions: 60-70%)
While preparing, I used to analyse why the answer option is correct and why the rest 4 options are wrong. Besides, I used to read editorials and op-ed page for an hour. I did 20 RC's, 20 CR's and 20 SC's daily for my practice. Not sure what went wrong.
WHAT I FELT IN REAL GMAT EXAM:
I felt that the question models were new to me i.e., for example when I was working on SC's, I am unable to find the flaw , unable to apply the grammitical rule that I learnt, unable to find in which area (such as parallelism, sub-verb, etc) the question is posed. The same case with CR's. I felt very tricky. I am able to eliminate 3 options but the remaining 2 hampered me. In practice exams I used to manage why this SC question is wrong(got the rule), why that CR question option is right, etc. Even RC's is also tricky. However RC's is not my strong area.
All I have to bother is the verbal section. I am running out of confidence. I managed well in practice exams. Even 2 days back I have taken sample test(MC-Graw Hill) and I got Q-30 questions correct and verbal 28 questions correct without any preparation.
I know GMAT is a mindgame and more or less I feel that I am not yet tuned to that in verbal section. I know this cannot be achieved like a quant formula. But trying my best to get through the nightmare. I would appreciate any one suggest me
(i) do I have to change my strategies in RC,SC,CR? Could any one tell me what am I doing wrong?
(ii) tips to do well and improve myself in verbal section.
(iii) any material and tests that I should go through to improve my verbal score, please let me know.
Please help me to overcome my Verbal nightmare.
Regards,
Kiran.
Last edited by kiran77 on Sun Apr 11, 2010 11:18 am, edited 4 times in total.
