Desperatly trying to give my scores a final push - pls help.

[hk]

Hello GMAT experts and fellow test takers,

Its been two and a half months since i started my preps. I started with a GMATPrep and score a 540. Currently i'm averaging at 650. But this is not the score that i desire. I have just over 2 weeks left for my preps.

My weakness is apparently Verbal. The highest that i've scored was 36 in MGMAT CAT and the lowest was 28. I need to push this score in the range of 38 to 40. I have exhausted all the sample question in both OG11 as well as The official Verbal guide (purple one). I have logged all the questions that i've gotten wrong during my practices and will go over it next week. I still have one GMATPrep left and would take it next week. After that i plan to re-take the GMATPrep cats one more time.

I have the manhattan GMAT SC guide and have read and done the exercises from each chapter. CR/SC prep was from the official guides.

Now here is my question (finally ); inspite of all this i'm still stuck within the 36 boundary in verbal. I think even a slight increase in my verbal would drastically increase my overall score.
So what do you suggest. I'm unable to think of any last week strategy that would maximize my efforts and would help me improve my score.

Sorry for boring ya'll with the long post and thanks in advance for your valuable advices!!!

[VP_Jim]

With only one week left, there's not a whole lot more you can do! Most of all, my advice is to relax and be happy with 650. I've had students get into top-10 schools with 650, so be confident!

If you must do something verbal-related, focus on areas that are more "memorization" than "subtle nuance". So, I'd recommend looking mostly at sentence correction, since it's pretty easy to memorize the few grammatical rules and how to spot them in problems. I'd worry less about RC and CR, other than maybe just a quick review of your notes and overall strategy.

Good luck- and relax!

[hk]

Thanks a lot JIm.. But i'm sorry if i made you think that there is one week left. My test is on May2nd and so there are 21 days more!!!

Now, since i have 3 weeks, what do you suggest that i do to push my score?

[mousymouse]

is that to say then your q scores are already in the 44+ mark?


since you have the SC book it would be very wise to get the CR book and possibly the RC book.


maybe you should also watch the gmax/knewton other co lessons regarding verbals online at youtube etc might help you.


are you equally weak against the whole verbal or just 1 component?


have you also tried Kaplan's Verbal workbook or Manhattan Review Verbal book + solutions guide ?

[hk]

Thanx mousymouse, I am in the 44 range of the quant currently. My major concern is verbal. In particular, my CR and SC score are lower than my RC scores. I guess i'm better at RC than the other two.

[mousymouse]

in that case i would hop onto youtube etc and watch some of those lessons that are free there
I would then maybe register onto KNEWTON.com you would get access to 3 FULL live classes and access to videos and practice material to practice ur verbal and ask questions etc in their live classes.

also consider getting those books mentioned if need be.

[hk]

Thanks Mousymouse
Can anybody provide me with more suggestions???

Thanks

[Stacey Koprince]

Received a PM asking me to respond.

It's good that RC is your strength, because that generally takes longer to improve than the other areas.

I agree with Jim, above, that SC is going to be the easier area to improve in a short period of time. (3 weeks is a short period of time - and it's only about 2 now.)

You may also want to do some intensive review on strategies for the four major CR question types: find an assumption, draw a conclusion, strengthen the conclusion, and weaken the conclusion. Go look at some recent test results to determine whether you are better at some of these already, and concentrate on the ones that are giving you the most trouble. (At this point, don't worry about the minor types of CR questions - those are infrequent enough that they aren't worth your valuable time during the final 2 weeks.)

Do you know exactly what they are looking for on a find the assumption question? Or draw a conclusion? What do they consider a good answer? How do they write tempting trap answers? Etc. If you don't already know these things (and I'm guessing you don't, since you say CR is a weakness), then time to start learning! You can do that through browsing problems that have been discussed by experts here, buying a book, or finding other resources available online - but identify some good sources ASAP.

For SC, go back and intensively review your work on OG problems. Why did you pick the wrong answer? If you didn't know a grammar rule, learn that rule. If you did know the rule but got "tricked" by the test, figure out exactly why - how did they (a) get you to think the right answer was wrong, and (b) think that the wrong answer was right.

Also, don't just review the ones you got wrong - review the ones you got right, too. Sometimes we get lucky and get things right for the wrong reasons. Can you articulate exactly why each wrong answer is wrong? Can you articulate why the right answer fixes all of the problems with the other, wrong answers? Do your explanations match the written explanation for the problem - in other words, did you really know what you were talking about?

Good luck - let us know how it goes!

[hk]

Thanks a lot Stacey for your valuable advise.. Will let you know how it went.