dan.gmat.gre wrote:Lock0ut wrote:
In all of my MCAT practice tests my verbal was in the 97th percentile or higher
Nice score. Congrats!
Out of curiosity, how did you study for the verbal section. To what do you attribute you high verbal score? Just thought it might be helpful for other in the future.
Dan, to be honest, I knew Verbal was my strong suit going into the test - even while I was taking the Manhattan GMAT course, I had no difficulty with the questions used as examples in class. To improve my SC and RC I used the OG-12th edition and OG Verbal book. I found that on lower level SC questions, recognizing the WRONG answer choices can be easier.
Here's how I approach each SC question:
1) read the whole sentence
2) scan the answer choices to see the splits (note: on upper 700+ level questions, there are few, if any, splits)
3) if you think this SC problem is going to be tough, write ABCDE on your pad so you can mark a "/" through choices you eliminate
3) note whether the subject is singular or plural and then scan the answer choices knocking off any answer choices that are conjugated incorrectly
4) see if parallelism is involved - if there are two verbs anywhere in the sentence, it is. I have found that after subject/verb agreement, parallel construction is *the* most tested SC category at the 600-700 level and takes precedence over almost every other answer - if you're confused by parallelism, buy Manhattan GMAT's SC book - I personally only skimmed it, but there is a whole section on parallelism with a list of the OG questions that test it
5) watch your "frequent" idioms: "not only...but also", etc. As we all know, the GMAT loves testing us on these, and most test takes get too distracted to ensure that idioms are in properly placed - by "properly placed" I mean the two words in quotes, "not+only" and "but+also" must be right next to each other. The construction "....but frequently also include" is WRONG! The correct answer is: "but also frequently include..."
6) by now you should be down to at most 2 answers....so what do you do? Plug each one in to the original sentence and see if either changes its meaning - often times you'll miss how a comma or a "which" will garble the original sentence into complete gibberish unless you plug it back into the sentence
7) if you've followed the above steps and you're still stuck, chose the shorter answer of the two or three you're left with - a majority of the time, this will be correct answer - the GMAT values concise answers
8) when stuck on a SC question, I ask myself which of the below answer choices would I most likely see in the New York Times (see below for more on that)
For Reading Comp:
1) Read the New York Times everyday - not the whole paper, just go to the website and read one of each: a headline story AND the opinion-editorial of the day. DO NOT read something you're interested in as you won't be reading about an interesting topic on the GMAT. Why the New York Times? The editors are notoriously picky regarding grammar - probably more so than GMAT test writers. Reading two articles a day will, over time, improve your reading speed, stamina, comprehension, and possibly SC skills.
2) When you've read the two articles, spend no more than 3 minutes reflecting on what the author was trying to express (although for op-eds, this is usually straightforward) and coming up with any examples in the passage to back-up what you have found
3) For questions that highlight a specific term or word: read the 2 sentences BEFORE and AFTER the term before reading your answer choices. If you're still stuck, do it again. The GMAT will NOT highlight a term and then ask a question that requires you to re-read the whole passage - remember that, by and large, RC is testing your "working memory" (i.e., short term memory)
For Critical Reasoning:
Unfortunately, I think this one area where you either got it or you don't - finding circular logic and missing assumptions in under 2 minutes is not something that can be taught easily. If you're struggling with Critical Reasoning, try reading the OG for explanations and Kaplan for tips and then work on as many questions as you can find. As much as I like Manhattan GMAT, I personally found their "diagram the CR" to be utterly ridiculous - I was in the high 90th percentile and it was taking me 2 minutes to deconstruct and write down any CR question - regardless of its difficulty - let alone answer the frickin question.
