Beaten by GMAT Q 49 V 16.

[gmat321]

Hi,

I got a very poor score of 540 in GMAT. Q 49 V 16. I got 4.5 in AWA.
I scored 25-26 in verbal section of Kaplan test but in real exam I got the lowest score. How to improve my score in verbal section. I am analysing my week areas and where I went wrong.
Any suggestions?

[tmmyc]

If you're looking for quick wins on the verbal section, the "easiest" place to improve is on Sentence Correction. I would definitely recommend focusing on this part of the Verbal. The Manhattan GMAT SC guide does a decent job at covering this topic.

[Spence]

Ouch! I feel for you.

I'm surprised at the 16 V given your 4.5 AWA. That's quite a mismatch.

I have heard that Kaplan is not very good for verbal, not particularly representative of what you'll see on the real test. People do seem to recommend MGMAT for SC. For verbal prep in general, I liked Princeton Review. The strategies are good and the practice questions seemed to be very accurate.

It might also be worth getting a tutor just for verbal if you're not raising the score enough on your own.

[jsilverstein]

I had somewhat similar results - 42 quantitative & 19 verbal.

To improve my verbal, I bought the Manhattan Sentence Correction & Reading Comprehension as well as the Critical Reasoning Bible. On my last practice test, I scored a 33 in verbal. I recommend these books - obviously my verbal score isn't where I'd like it to be, but it's a continual improvement. Not to mention, I was only scoring in the mid-high 20s on verbal prior to taking the test.

Good luck - hope this helps.