GMAT Strategy

lunarpower wrote:

mehravikas wrote:Can you give some important tips or suggestions how to reach 40 in the verbal section?

this is a difficult thing to answer, since you haven't really given any specifics as to your strengths and weaknesses.
i.e., you've stated a couple of things that you've done in preparation, but you haven't given any indication of the areas in which you're currently performing well, vs. the areas in which you're not.

also, you've stated that you're reading the opinion section of the newspaper. i don't know if indian newspapers are structured like western newspapers, but, if they are, that may be the least useful section of the newspaper to read, since the passages are rarely, if ever, structured like opinion pieces / editorials.

instead, you may want to look for online JOURNALS, particularly online business and scientific journals, since those articles are most similar to what you're going to see on the exam.
i googled "online business journal articles" and got results such as the following:
https://www.iveybusinessjournal.com/search/
that's not bad. the articles are obviously much, much longer than what you're going to get on the test, but the style is the same.

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finally:
the GMATPREP scores may not really represent improvements, since they are resets of exams you've already taken (and are thus packed with questions you've already seen).
why don't you take some new tests, rather than repeating the gmatprep tests over and over again?
you've only cited one mgmat test score, meaning that you have at least six more of those that you can take (the set of 6 tests + the "free online practice test" from the online store).

i'm not saying that you shouldn't repeat gmatprep - in fact, that's probably the single best way to be exposed to official problems - but you shouldn't put a lot of stock in the meaning of the SCORES that you get from a repeated administration.

lunarpower wrote:

mehravikas wrote:My main problem with MGMAT is that I'm getting a lot of RC's wrong. That's not the case with GMAT Prep, I hardly get 4-5 questions wrong on RC's.

I also noticed that MGMAT RC's are way too lengthy compared with GMAT Prep RC's that are more tricky.

I am confused, should I practice more for MGMAT RC's???

hmm. well, the gmatprep tests are official, so those are probably the best yardstick for measuring your progress.
it's rare to encounter huge differences between the two, but, in the event that such a difference exists, you should probably give more weight to your performance on the official metrics (i.e., the gmatprep tests).

have you already exhausted ALL of the rc questions in the OG's as well?

lunarpower wrote:

mehravikas wrote:"Is it correct that your actual GMAT score comes in the range of +50 or -50 of your gmat prep tests"

hi -

well, that's going to be true for most people, yes.

however, we obviously can't guarantee that this will happen.
* for some people, sheer statistical randomness will cause the actual test-day score to fall outside this range.
* some people will experience test anxiety that is debilitating to an extent such that their score falls far below their practice-test scores.
* some people's practice scores are higher than they should be because of differences in testing conditions. for instance, they may skip the essays (leading them to be more fresh), frequently pause the test, or take the practice test at a more comfortable time of day.

in any case, DO NOT THINK ABOUT YOUR SCORE WHILE YOU'RE TAKING THE TEST.
there is no possible positive outcome from doing so, and plenty of possible negative outcomes (esp. regarding test anxiety).

good luck.

rishi4you wrote:I would like to add that for crossing the 700 barrier. It is absolute must that we get at least 37-38 in Verbal . I am also a non- native and struggling to get a foothold on the Verbal portion.
When it comes to the actual GMAT SC questions, they are much more tougher than what you see in OG11 or OG12 and to answer them under 90 secs is a tough ask.
Infact this thing costed me dearly as i had made my mind to answer any SC question within 90 secs and this was working fine for me in the practice test and i was averaging between 36-40 and was pretty much happy with my verbal but in the real test i realised that the question were a lot difficult and obscured to say the least and it was no easy task to break it up into core and look for the modifiers and then search for the mistakes in the splits and resplits. But bcoz i had made my mind to answer all SC's in 90 secs i did the folly of falling back on my ear and it cost me dearly .
So the message is- Give urself some extra time depending upon the difficulty of the question and here comes the main issue. Unlike Math , in verbal its a lot harder to find out the difficulty level of the questions.