verbal score from 28 to 40 in 2 weeks....please advise

[rishi4you]

All,

I would like to seek advice from all the verbal gurus who have mastered the nuances of SC's, the logic variations of CR's and the long passages of RC. I have been trying to prepare very hard on the verbal section but have achieved very less success compared to the amount of work i have put . I would like to detail out " what i had covered so far" and would appreciate responses from all who have taken the test and got a 40+ in the verbal.

# For SC i have gone through the MGMAT SC Guide, did all the action problems and the related OG probs . My hit ratio was 75%. I am in the process of doing the OG again this time starting from begining so that i am not sure of what question type to expect.

# For CR---> Read the Powerprep bible once , made notes from it, but found it too comprehensive to follow and stick to all the patterns which it advocates. Had gone through thr MGMAT CR strategy guide, and again found the diagraming approach time taking . So i have resorted to something which gives me a hit ration of 75 to 80% . here is what i do .

1) Read the question first.
2) Then read the stimulus
3) Paraphrase the extract for complex intriguing passage.
4) Go through the answer choice with the reasoning from the paraphrase at the back of my mind.
5) Eliminate the answer choice which does not fits as per the paraphrase reasoning.

# For RC

Read the MGMAT Strategy guide and practiced the HeadLine List and Skeletal sketch notes taking tips . I do this for some passage not for all, specially at the end of the test i just exhaust my stamina nor i have engh time left to do this . So i read the passage, try to figure out the main point and the structure and then go on to answer the question. I have a hit ratio of 65 -70% and would like to increase it to a notch .

I have prepared an error log which i am attaching and i have promised myself to log each and every error on each section. But the question which i put to myself is "WHY AM I NOT " seeing a progress . What am i dpoing wrong. From an analysis of my error log i could figure out that

My mistakes in SC are categorized under:

1) carelessness, not paying attention to details.
2) Even if know the content , while execution i pick up wrong ans choice.
3) For some of the question type i am not clear what is wrong
4) Being a non native speaker i lack in my knowledge of idioms...which i am trying to work upon.

For CR:
1) Not paying engh attentionon EXTREME words
2) Not paraphrasing the situation corectly.
3) Falling for the tempting answer type
4) Guess between ans choice bcoz of lack of time.

For RC:

1) Not able to figureout the structure and main point of the passage.
2) Not giving engh attention to the details for the specific questions
3) Spending 6-7 minutes for long passages and in turn hurrying out in the end .

I would like to know, given my situtation SC-75%, CR-75%, RC-65%, what is the best which i can improve in 2 weeks . I am planinng to take the exam end of this month . It is worthwhile to spend time and master SC and raise it to 90% or should i pay equal attention to all given the way the verbal scores are calaculated . What if i dont score well in RC and CR but do ace all the SC questions. Can i expect a 40+.

stacey, Cramya, Mals24, DanaJ, STOP@800's, iamcste....and all you intelligent folks ..please advise !!!!!!

thanks
rishi4you

[johnnycapps]

it doesn't make sense to just get really good at SC, and have RC and CR at a much lower level. the gmat rewards generalists (that is, people who are good at everything). for instance, even if you could get 750-800 level SC questions correct, you will never see one of those SC questions because you might be getting 600-650 level RC or CR questions wrong. the best approach is to work on the areas that you are struggling with the most. in this way, you will have a solid base in all areas of the verbal section and, subsequently, you will have the greatest impact on your overall verbal score because you will be facing consistently harder questions than you otherwise would.

hope this helps

[rishi4you]

Johhny, that makes sense but what if you have reached a plateau and you have exhausted all your means . Is there a guru mantra which is there to help the RC and CR scores

[Stacey Koprince]

Hi - I have some questions for you.

When you did the OG problems and developed strategies that worked for you, did you time yourself? If so, did you stick to the general timing guidelines? (60-90s for SC, 2min for CR, 2-3min to read RC, 1min for general RC, 2min for specific RC)

You mention at the end of the test that you are low on stamina and you don't have enough time to write out notes on RC. I'm most concerned about the "not enough time" comment. Can you describe to me your timing in the verbal section? Presumably you don't have enough time at the end because you are taking too much time earlier in the test. On which types of questions do you tend to spend too much time? (If you don't know, this is something you need to figure out.) On how many questions would you say you either rushed (answered more quickly than you would've liked) or made random guesses? Did you do it on a lot of questions in a row or were the guesses scattered?

Also, you keep mentioning "hit rates" of 70+ percent on OG problems. It can actually be problematic to concentrate on percentage correct as a measure of progress, because the test is not scored based on percentage correct. The difficulty levels of the problems and your time management are much more important to your overall score. So just FYI - that's why I'm asking the above questions and not concentrating on how to improve your "hit rate."

I love that you're keeping an error log. Take it a step further and answer the question WHY did I get this wrong? For example, under SC you say "Even if know the content , while execution i pick up wrong ans choice." Why? You knew the content, so something caused you either to not notice something that you knew or to second-guess what you knew. What was that? How did they tempt you away from the right answer and towards a wrong answer?

Also don't concentrate on one type of question to the exclusion of the other two. Even if you ace SC, you won't necessarily have a great score, because the SC questions you get may not be very hard if you are getting a lot of CR and RC questions wrong. The difficulty levels you get are not based on specific question types. (eg, if you got a harder SC right 3 questions ago, that isn't going to translate into an even harder SC now. What you did on the questions in between will affect the difficulty of your next SC).

I'd like to hear your answers to my above questions (please answer them all!), but it sounds like the simplest thing you can do is improve your timing. Given what you've described so far (though I need more detail), it sounds like you're probably losing a lot of ground at the end due to lack of time.

[rishi4you]

Hi Stacey,

I am spending an average of 8 to 10 mins for RC pasagges . For CR questions i have noticed that i tend to get some of them wrong if i try to answer the question within 2mins. For the same question if i do spend a little over 3 mins i tend to get it right . For SC questions my timings are scattered in fact. For some of them i am able to answer within 90 secs for other i spend over 3 mins also. I have taken the 3 MGMAT tests and the GMAT Prep a couple of times and my scores are

GMATPrep 1 540 (Q42 V24)
GMAT Perp 2 570(Q42 V27)
MGMAT Free Test 580(Q43 V28)
MGMAT CAT 1 580(Q43 V26)
MGMAT CAT 3 510(Q27 V33) ...this is the first time i have crossed 30 in verbal but even my Quant score drastically reduced


On all the above i had noticed one thing that i am taking more time for the first 15-20 questions on verbal . Infact at halfway mark ie, with 20 question remaining my clock reads at 35 mins remaining. This adds up and for last 10-12 questions i am left with a minute each i.e on question 30 i have 14 minutes remaining. I land up guessing in the last 5 questions and some before that .

The last RC passage i just tend to skim over and try to answer and land up guessing without actually understanding and relating things to the passage. And incidentally these passage are the real complex ones with topics ranging from "inflation/recession", "biological gargons" etc.

After revising the SC topics again, i have started timing myself within 90 secs and i am meeting with some sucess here . But as i pointed out in my log, for some of the question even if i think i know the content, i land up choosing the wrong answer...reason being i dont give attention to small details.

I need to get the timings in place for RC and answer them correctly also. ...whats the best approach here.? For CR how best i can answer accurately in 2 mins.?

[Stacey Koprince]

Okay. First thing to know: when the test gives you a problem, it's asking whether you can do that problem in two minutes (or <90s for SC). If you can't, and you spend 3+ minutes, all you're doing is guaranteeing yourself something wrong later in the test, without the guarantee that you'll get this one right! (And everybody thinks that their performance improves if they spend more time. But if you look at all of the data, over time, you realize that you don't actually get much better when you spend more time. Sure you might get this one question right. But, overall, your performance is not improving by spending more time.)

Here's the problem. You have 2 CR questions on which you spend 3 minutes, or 1 minute extra (each). So now you're two minutes behind. Are you going to just run out of time at the end with 2 minutes to go and get the last one wrong as a result? No, of course not. You're going to see that you're behind and you're going to speed up. You're going to start answering things 30 seconds faster, or a minute faster than you should be. And when you try to go that fast, you get a lot of stuff wrong that you could have gotten right.

Here's where it gets really bad: the above scenario leads you to getting multiple problems wrong in a row. The per-question penalty for getting a question wrong actually increases when you have multiple things wrong in a row. Get a question wrong all by itself (sandwiched by two right answers) and it won't hurt you as much as if you get that same question wrong as well as the one before and after it. (And I'm talking about the penalty just for that one question - not for all three that you're now getting wrong.)

So if you put yourself in a position in which you're running out of time at the end of the test, that puts you in a position to have strings of wrong answers, and then your score starts to drop in a serious way.

How serious? You mention having to guess on the last 5 questions in a row (and often more than that). If you get those 5 questions in a row wrong, the penalty averages 2 to 2.5 percentile points per question.

Just keep repeating to yourself: the question is not whether I can answer this. The question is whether I can answer this in 2 minutes (or less than 90sec for SC). They will definitely give me things I cannot answer in 2 minutes - no matter what I can do, they'll just give me something harder. When that happens, I need to pick something and move on so that I don't put myself in the position of missing questions that I can actually do on time, and so that I don't put myself in the position of having strings of wrong answers in a row.

Don't ask yourself "how can I answer more accurately in 2 minutes" - stop trying to get them all right! Just make your best guess in 2 minutes and see what happens to your score. If you're guessing on the last 5+ questions in the section, literally getting stuff wrong faster earlier on the test and getting some of those last few right will raise your score - that's it!

Pretend you're playing tennis. You're going to win some points and the other guy's going to win some points. What matters is putting yourself in position to win the last point (ie, have enough time to address the last question). If you're not in position to win the last point, then you're going to lose the entire match.

You say you're spending 8 to 10 minutes on RC passages. Can you break that out for me a little more? How much time spent reading? Doing each problem? There are typically 4 passages on the test, for a total of 14 questiosn (on average), and you're reportedly spending 32 to 40 minutes on those 14 questions - or basically half your time for about 35% of the questions. Again, we've got to let go when they give us something we really can't answer in the given timeframe (and the test will always give us something that we can't do in the given timeframe - that's just how it works!).

[Stacey Koprince]

Oh, forgot to add: I'm glad that you're getting some traction on SC. Do what I discussed in my first post re: figuring out WHY you got something wrong on those ones where you really did know the rules. Somehow, the test tempted you to think a wrong answer was right. Why was it tempting even though it was wrong? And, somehow, the test tempted you to think the right answer was wrong. Why did it seem wrong even though it was right?

If you can understand why you fell into the trap, then you're a lot less likely to fall into the same trap in future.

[hk]

Firstly, Rishi thanks for this post!!!!

This was my problem ->

My mistakes in SC are categorized under:

1) carelessness, not paying attention to details.
2) Even if know the content , while execution i pick up wrong ans choice.
3) For some of the question type i am not clear what is wrong
4) Being a non native speaker i lack in my knowledge of idioms...which i am trying to work upon.

And here is my solution, (thanks a lot Stacey) ->

Okay. First thing to know: when the test gives you a problem, it's asking whether you can do that problem in two minutes (or <90s for SC). If you can't, and you spend 3+ minutes, all you're doing is guaranteeing yourself something wrong later in the test, without the guarantee that you'll get this one right! (And everybody thinks that their performance improves if they spend more time. But if you look at all of the data, over time, you realize that you don't actually get much better when you spend more time. Sure you might get this one question right. But, overall, your performance is not improving by spending more time.)

Here's the problem. You have 2 CR questions on which you spend 3 minutes, or 1 minute extra (each). So now you're two minutes behind. Are you going to just run out of time at the end with 2 minutes to go and get the last one wrong as a result? No, of course not. You're going to see that you're behind and you're going to speed up. You're going to start answering things 30 seconds faster, or a minute faster than you should be. And when you try to go that fast, you get a lot of stuff wrong that you could have gotten right.

Here's where it gets really bad: the above scenario leads you to getting multiple problems wrong in a row. The per-question penalty for getting a question wrong actually increases when you have multiple things wrong in a row. Get a question wrong all by itself (sandwiched by two right answers) and it won't hurt you as much as if you get that same question wrong as well as the one before and after it. (And I'm talking about the penalty just for that one question - not for all three that you're now getting wrong.)

So if you put yourself in a position in which you're running out of time at the end of the test, that puts you in a position to have strings of wrong answers, and then your score starts to drop in a serious way.

How serious? You mention having to guess on the last 5 questions in a row (and often more than that). If you get those 5 questions in a row wrong, the penalty averages 2 to 2.5 percentile points per question.

Just keep repeating to yourself: the question is not whether I can answer this. The question is whether I can answer this in 2 minutes (or less than 90sec for SC). They will definitely give me things I cannot answer in 2 minutes - no matter what I can do, they'll just give me something harder. When that happens, I need to pick something and move on so that I don't put myself in the position of missing questions that I can actually do on time, and so that I don't put myself in the position of having strings of wrong answers in a row.

Don't ask yourself "how can I answer more accurately in 2 minutes" - stop trying to get them all right! Just make your best guess in 2 minutes and see what happens to your score. If you're guessing on the last 5+ questions in the section, literally getting stuff wrong faster earlier on the test and getting some of those last few right will raise your score - that's it!

Pretend you're playing tennis. You're going to win some points and the other guy's going to win some points. What matters is putting yourself in position to win the last point (ie, have enough time to address the last question). If you're not in position to win the last point, then you're going to lose the entire match.

You say you're spending 8 to 10 minutes on RC passages. Can you break that out for me a little more? How much time spent reading? Doing each problem? There are typically 4 passages on the test, for a total of 14 questiosn (on average), and you're reportedly spending 32 to 40 minutes on those 14 questions - or basically half your time for about 35% of the questions. Again, we've got to let go when they give us something we really can't answer in the given timeframe (and the test will always give us something that we can't do in the given timeframe - that's just how it works!).

[rishi4you]

Hi Stacey,

Fist of all i would like to thank you a ton for giving me the nod to adjust my timings . I am able to see the results .I have worked on the timings as suggested by you and took only the verbal section of the GMATPrep test . Here is what i got.

GMATPrep Verbal 1: Was able to complete 2 mins before time. Scored 35. With 2 Wrong in SC, 5 in CR and 3 in RC. I thought i could have done more justice to the CR's ones . After doing the analysis of the wrong questions i thought i missed the CR's ones with a whisker and should have applied more appropriate reasoning and got it right. But i chose the wrong one as i wanted to comply with the 2 mins time restriction. In the end i realised i got 2 SC wrong and 3 CR wrong which i should got it right. Moreover i had a little above 2 mins reamaining when i finished my last question. So i need to distribute my time accordingly .....its been a bit erratic ...any suggestions here


GMATPrep Verbal 2: Before starting this i noted down the analysis from the first test. Told myslef to distribute the time evenly,give equal justice to all questions. Got 34 with 4 SC, 3 RC and 7 CR wrong. I thought i was doing good as i could see 1 bold faced CR which i had not encountered in earlier attempts. Infact there were 2 CR question which i did not had any clue, one being the bold faced one...any pointer ..."how to deal with them". I noticed for the detailed RC i was spending more than the allocated time and still getting it wrong .

Where do i go from here ...do i just need to practice more, at the same time ...study how to tackle bold face question and concentrate on strengthening my strong areas ..SC.

I need another push to get closer to 40/41 mark . would appreciate your comments.

[Stacey Koprince]

Fantastic! Nice work.

You're always going to get a lot of questions wrong - that's just how the test works. Also, we always make a few mistakes and get questions wrong that, in retrospect, we think we really should have gotten right. So don't worry too much about a few questions here and there, though it is useful to notice the distribution - that is, if you have a lot more wrong of one type, then you know you probably need to do some more work on that type.

Also remember that the 2min per question thing is an average - it doesn't mean you need to cut yourself off at 2min. If you're sometimes getting a CR right in 1m45sec, then you can sometimes go to 2m15sec on others - that sort of thing. But generally don't go more than 30sec over the desired average time for a particular type of question; after that, you're just starting to guarantee yourself another question wrong elsewhere.

In your case, it does look like CR is a bit more of a weakness for you (although we really also need difficulty level data to know that - unfortunately GMATPrep doesn't give us that data). So it does sound like a good idea to spend a bit more time on CR. I would emphasize the more common question types though. Do study the boldface questions some, but don't spend a ton of time there, because you're unlikely to get more than 1 of those on the real test. The most common CR types are weaken, find an assumption, strengthen, and draw a conclusion.

Don't forget to study why the wrong answers are tempting and why it's tempting to cross off a right answer (in addition to the obvious: why the wrong ones are wrong and why the right one is right).

If you can, try to take a practice test next that gives you more data to work with (per-question timing and per-question difficulty levels at the least). That will allow you to see where you need to tweak your performance a bit. (But, as I mentioned before, you're always going to feel like you got a few wrong that you "should" have gotten right, so don't get too upset about it when that happens!)