Verbal Experts!! Verbal < 50 Please post your advices!!

[vivecan2005]

Dear BTG Forum Members:

In this post, I am looking for achievers in verbal section.

In General, As we all know that test takers with STEM undergraduate background means (STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths Degrees), have scored very well in quantitative section. I would like to request those people who are scoring or have scored 50 or 50+ in verbal Section.

Please post your suggestions/Tips/experiences EXCLUSIVELY for verbal section. I remember there was member who actually did very well in verbal and he also mentioned that he was preparing for LSAT as well.

It will be great if people like aforesaid member can post thier experience.

Even if you have scored 47+ Please post your advices and tips for verbal section.

Thank you very much.

[DanaJ]

I'm sorry, but I think you'll have a hard time finding 50+ verbal scorers. I myself have not seen any on the forum, at least not instructors. As far as I remember, scoring over 45 puts you in the 99th percentile for verbal, so...

[vivecan2005]

I'm sorry, but I think you'll have a hard time finding 50+ verbal scorers. I myself have not seen any on the forum, at least not instructors. As far as I remember, scoring over 45 puts you in the 99th percentile for verbal, so...

That's why I mentioned as well that even 47+ will be great. The goal is to understand the skill, consistency and pace which one lacks in this section. There are certain key factors which one lacks in his/her verbal preparation if he/she is not getting 45+ in practice tests. I want to exclusively research on verbal section and especially of critical reasoning and Reading comprehension. I will love to have some achievers of verbal section to post thier valuable tips.

[Arsene Lupin]

I fully agree (Although 47 is a bit high too lol).. and I'm still searching for these key factors. I'm having a hard time surpassing 35 in verbal.

I can take the GMAT exam at any time and be confident to get at least 47 in the quant section. I wish to have the same confidence in the verbal section and be able to guarantee at least 40. This would make a 700 score my worst case scenario.

I start to think that being a non-native might be a factor. But then I see tons of Indians cracking 770 lol.

In conclusion, still searching for those key factors

[shadowsjc]

Hi vivecan,

I just got done taking the GMAT today, and while I don't know if any of my experience will be particularly helpful or relevant, I hope that it will help you at least a little.

I scored a 51 on the verbal section today. To be quite frank, I'm not really sure how or why. My previous test scores were in the low 40s (my last 2 verbal scores were both 44). I would have been happy with this score. However, during my course of studying, I found two things:

1. I would constantly get Sentence corrections wrong

2. I was finishing verbal with WAY too much time left over (about 7-8 minutes left).

I focused on these 2 facts as I studied. To address #1, I purchased a book from Manhattan GMAT for sentence corrections. I read through most of it, although admittedly I did not read it in too much depth. Still, I think this is a great book to have if you have problems with SC.

For #2, I made a conscious effort to slow down on the verbal section. If you think about it, there is no bonus for finishing early... so I took my time (even as much as 4-5 mins per question!) on ones that were tricky.

In the end, I finished verbal with about 1.5 mins left. I think that the first step would be for you to take a practice test that gives you a score breakdown. Manhattan GMAT has a free online CAT test that you can take, and it will tell you the types of questions you got wrong. This would be a good way for you to tell which section you do more poorly in (reading comp, critical reasoning, or sentence correction).

The other thing I didn't mention above is that I took the LSAT a couple of years ago. If you've never taken it, it includes 2 topics that are covered in the GMAT verbal section: reading comprehension and critical reasoning (called logical reasoning on the LSAT).

I think that the time I spent preparing for the LSAT 2 years ago helped me on the verbal section on this test, as the sections are virtually identical. I will look to see the names of the books I used , and I can reply to you with those names; maybe you can buy them and work on more problems and strategies if these sections are weak for you.

Good luck in your studies

[DanaJ]

Here's an article that might help you.