Retake: Verbal Improvement Strategy Help Required

Hi All,

I took my first GMAT on 27th of April and got a mere 710 when I had actually reached around 760 in the GMAT Preps. My Distribution of Score was as follows:

Quant 49
Verbal 38.

I am planning to take the exam again on 18th June. In Quant, I had made personalized strategies for both Sections and I feel they were pretty good. I need to sharpen those strategies. After a short recall of what had gone wrong, Quant was all about time management. I would jump onto the question to solve it without thinking of the optimal technique to solve it and ended up resolving the question. This took the time and I had to guess the very last question. I plan to go through all the GMAT Prep Quants which are uploaded to this forum and find out whether I am missing techniques to solve quickly or are there miscalculations and how to avoid it.

Talking about Verbal, I feel I had got quite difficult Questions on CR and RC (assuming that one counts Evaluate the Argument and twisted EXCEPTs and Bold faces in the challenging category for CR and Weakens and Paragraph Bolds and Organization Questions on RC challenging questions) but I found that SC was fluctuating between tougher and simpler questions. I assume that I made mistakes in SC and few in CR (suddenly got Strengthen/Weakens simpler at the very end), causing my score to drop down to 38.

During Practice in SC, I found myself stuck on Eliminators (last two answer choices) and ended up selecting the wrong one. This was especially in the middle and end of the tests when SC was at its peak and the differences were in the meaning and concision. I had consciously included in my strategy that I should completely understand the meaning of the sentence and should not jump onto answer choices once I found a mistake in the original. Having included this, my score improved and I got just 2 SCs incorrect with complete accuracy in other areas. Still, I guess this is what caught me in the test. Though I am not sure what went wrong, I have suspect on Meaning and Concision in SC.

My plan for Verbal is the same. For SC, go through all GMAT Prep Verbals even if I have solved them earlier. I recognize solved problems only in CR and not in SC so that is an advantage. I will try to find out if I still make those mistakes I made in GMAT Preps 1 and 2 and if I am still adhering to the strategy I made. Other concepts wise, my SC seems to be good (having gone through SC Guide thrice and having eliminated well in GMAT Preps) except for Meaning and Concision for difficult questions.

Could you suggest any other method that will help me identify the mistakes I possibly did on my GMAT so that I do not repeat them?

Kindly get back if there is any other information required.

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