GMAT Strategy

Hi,

How to improve verbal score. I got 27 this time , however I was able to score 32-36 in Manhattan tests. I have 30 days to prepare. Please guide.

Regards,
Rashmi

SC-

Manhattan Gmat always over estimates your verbal score. I was scoring low to mid 40's and only recieved a 35 on the test. That being said, my scores shot up once I learned all the Sentence correction rules. The manhattan gmat SC book is the best book out there- no one has ever disagreed with this. If I were you, I would go through the book slowly taking notes. Maybe spend a good week disecting the book. Then you could read it over faster and review. Once you learn rules such as not using "like" where you should use "such as", you will be able to get rid of at least 2-3 choices in a matter of seconds. I learned the rules well and got maybe 3 wrong when doing the first 50 in the og. The harder ones come later when the gmat knows that you memorized the rules... now they want to know if you can notice the flow, meaning, and point the sentence is trying to make- that is much is harder. Its all practice. If you do 200 SC slowly, learning why each answer choice is wrong, you'll pick it up very quickly.

RC- What I do for this is for each answer try and see why each other choice has to be wrong. The gmat writers cannot make an answer that can be right or wrong depending on the reader. There is a reason, it maybe a single word, why each answer choice is 100 percent false. You have to try and find the word or meaning.

CR- Came more naturally to me. Not sure what to do for this.

Thank you so much.

One piece of advice for CR is to keep your answer as close to the subject of the passage as possible.

hi Ras-j,

You need to provide more specific details such as your problem areas within SC, CR, and RC.

I can help with some actionable remedy. Also, please take the GMATPrep (with AWA and IR) to get a more realistic idea of where you stand.

Arun

Hi Arun,

Thanks for replying. I face problem with meaning and comparison related questions in SC and with inference and specific detail questions. How to improve comprehension skills? Also, weaken the argument and finding assumption are my weak areas.


Regards,
Rashmi

When dealing with RC questions, it is a good idea to come up with your own answer before you read the available choices. Then you should select the answer closest to your own.

When it comes to Detail Questions, once you have located the detail, read one sentence before, the one that includes the detail and one after. You should read them as carefully as you read Critical Reasoning questions. Every word might be important.

Hi Rashmi,

My answers below:

1. Inference and specific details in RC

>> This seems to be a symptomatic problem. The root cause lies with how you read the passage, - the idea is to read the passage the first time only to get an overall idea of the passage. This will then dictate how quickly you are able to go back to relevant sections in the passage to ferret out the answers. If you don't learn/practice this skill RC will always be a problem area for you.

2. Weaken the argument and find the assumption in CR

>> Assumption is the larger problem - if you are able to crack that then getting "weaken" questions should not be a problem. So what is your issue with this? What techniques are you using? Are you able to apply negation? How much have you practiced? Have you analyzed the answers? Unless you have a good analysis of these questions it will be hard for you to improve.

3. Meaning and comparison questions in SC.

>> Meaning questions is a very generic concept. So why is it that you are not able to find the meaning? The problem could be that you are rushing into applying the rules without taking a step back to understand HOW to apply the rules. For example, identifying the modifier is the easy part. What is modifies is the hard part. Identifying the parallel elements is the easy part. Whether they are really parallel is the hard part. You get the drift. So analyze the question and see if you are jumping the gun there.

For comparision, again what is being compared is the easy part. To understand whether they are really comparable and if they have the structure is the hard part. So you might want to focus on that.

HTH,

Arun