20 days prior to my exam: expert solutions are sought

[Night reader]

Hi, I have been prepping since October last year, consistently - almost every day with the prolonged study hours, like 3-4 (sometimes more) hours. I started at the scaled score Q 38 with GMAT Prep at the eve of my completing the MGMAT math strategy guides. I had not done any Verbal until the beginning of December when I joined e-gmat. In January I went through CR Bible (for the 2nd time and the 1st time it was in December), and I've completed Jeff Sackman's total gmat verbal CR part. I started off with RC in January. For RC I used raw testing - failure, Sackman's strategy - failure, a dozen of BTG and GMAT club tips - failure, finally achieved 75% accuracy point for average difficulty problems by solving LSAT RC passages and analyzing my tackling way of RC. I took GMAT in 2009 with little - and almost no prep, without going through OGs, little awareness of Geo concepts and many arithmetic, algebra, unawareness of CR at all and RC difficulty levels yes I've committed GMAT suicide once (Q25,V22).

Today's Q in GMAT Prep 49, earlier days - MGMAT 45 and Kaplan's 43 (don't ask me how I got to this point - thousands of GMAT self-beats, ton's of literature, piles of note pads with the solved questions ...)
Verbal - fluctuating between 24 and 29

I need advice per Verbal part - the main constraint here is timing, as I made 5 mistakes through question 21 today and then rushed myself down to the stoned mind approach for test within remaining 28 minutes.

Can I tackle my timing constraint, described above, by practicing individually CR and RC entries from GMAT and LSAT tough question sets during, say the left 15 days?

...Individually and without a time constraint I can delve into any passage and break it down.

[hja379]

I am curious to find out what the experts are going to say on this. Few things helped me raise my Verbal from 28-38 and am desperately trying to cross the V40 mark.

Ron's Videos are pretty good. I only had a chance to watch couple of them though. Don't loose any SC Qs. I noticed that while doing the GMATPrep. I got 1 CR and 2 RC wrong, but 8 SC Qs wrong and that threw my score to V38. Aristotle SC Grail was neat too and you should combine it with MGMAT SC Guide.

I have not heard of Jeff Sackman. Can you tell me a bit more about his material.

[bblast]

I got 1 CR and 2 RC wrong, but 8 SC Qs wrong and that threw my score to V38.



try making 1 CR and 2 SC wrong, but 8 RC Qs wrong, you wont even get a 35 !!!


The primary reason is that when we err in RC's, we err in strings, i'e-2 questions back to back or maybe even 3 questions .
This significantly brings down the score compared to making 8 SC mistakes at say Q 5,10,15,20 and so on



Night reader, to get over 35 in verbal, try to nail the first RC passage(all correct), also try to make as few mistakes as possible in RC's. They are the key I experienced already. In my final I got a V 34 only after I horribly messed the last RC passage (Almost all wrong-almost could not comprehend it as it was too weird), otherwise I would have looked at a couple more points and landed much closer to my target.

This wont mean that neglect SC and CR. But I think ur knowledge of those is good enough for a 35+ now.

[bblast]

Night reader, any improvement in RC ?

Try tackling the passages without glancing at the clock. Dont be slow but don't look the clock every 45 seconds, in fact dont look until u've read the passage completely.

I hope you are doing well. Wish you all the best for the last 2 weeks of prep.

[hja379]

I got 1 CR and 2 RC wrong, but 8 SC Qs wrong and that threw my score to V38.



try making 1 CR and 2 SC wrong, but 8 RC Qs wrong, you wont even get a 35 !!!


The primary reason is that when we err in RC's, we err in strings, i'e-2 questions back to back or maybe even 3 questions .
This significantly brings down the score compared to making 8 SC mistakes at say Q 5,10,15,20 and so on



Night reader, to get over 35 in verbal, try to nail the first RC passage(all correct), also try to make as few mistakes as possible in RC's. They are the key I experienced already. In my final I got a V 34 only after I horribly messed the last RC passage (Almost all wrong-almost could not comprehend it as it was too weird), otherwise I would have looked at a couple more points and landed much closer to my target.

This wont mean that neglect SC and CR. But I think ur knowledge of those is good enough for a 35+ now.

That's a nice tip. I gave mine yesterday and got 670. My system rebooted in the middle of Verbal section. Completely threw me off and my break was minute and half over the 8min mark for my Quant.

[Night reader]

Night reader, any improvement in RC ?

Try tackling the passages without glancing at the clock. Dont be slow but don't look the clock every 45 seconds, in fact dont look until u've read the passage completely.

I hope you are doing well. Wish you all the best for the last 2 weeks of prep.

I am subscribed to free practice CAT by Kaplan on Febr 02, 2010. I know Kaplan's Verbal stuff is not as convoluted as 800 score one's and not as technical as Manhattan CAT. Although their Math section is centered around the crazy problem solving, mainly word problem sets which take too much time on rethinking and matching the exact answer A-E. I hope my Math won't be less than 47 and Verbal will not be below 40 in Kaplan's CAT.

As far as RC is concerned, Kumar, my accuracy rate won't get beyond 75% at my regular pace. I may try nailing one passage 100% correct but that's difficult to me, as I am hasting myself always. For SC I have experienced a small deterioration, and for CR I have been doing progress. Overall, my bet is 11 mistakes in Verbal with 4 mistakes maximum for Quest 1-25...

[bblast]

hmm, 11 mistakes is not bad, in fact the number itself is useless as u know,

i recently read a post - R&D by gmatmachoman on scoring algorithm of gprep(please dont read it now and waste ur precious time).

along with above with my own small experience if u restrict to under 4-5 mistakes in 1-20, u r good for around a 38-40 in verbal.

I got a 38 and a 40 in gprep's with around 4 mistakes in 1-25 and 9-10 mistakes in all.

And I bank on u getting a 49 in Quant on 17th.

and ya, dont take the kaplan score on 2nd seriously,

[highflier_2000]

Good advice.. guys.. i am having a hard time improve my verbal score as well..