GMAT over - 660 (Q50,V30) - Highly disappointed

[shaheenhamza]

I gave my GMAT this afternoon and scored 660. I managed to get a score of 50 in Quant. But was horrified when I saw my verbal score,. It was a disastrous 30.

I felt very dejected and was totally off mood for around 6-7 hours after the exam. Finally I mustered some courage to write this post as I believe someone in this forum can surely help me out.

I am planning to give GMAT again within a month to improve upon this score.

For this attempt I prepared from OG11 and Princeton. I had given GMAT prep only once and scored 690. I was targetting above 700 in the real exam.

Could someone please help me out as how I should approach the verbal section as I feel that since currently I am in the mood and have been preparing from past 4 weeks for today's attempt, I can keep the tempo going and attempt 1 more time within a month.

Looking forward for a helping hand...

[gmataspirant]

Shaheenhamza,

I still have a long journey ahead but I can share some of my thoughts.

Which one do you feel is your weakest area in Verbal ?

SC - If so, Did you try Manhattan SC guide ?. Many GMAT takers who have scored over 700 has mentioned that one of the ways to improve Verbal Score is to improve on your SC skills. As you know this is the only measurable quantity in GMAT.

RC - How is your RC skills ? Do you have the ability to comprehend on what you read. Many test takers under estimate RC. Personally, I feel this section to be notorious.

CR - Did you try GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible from Power Score, some of the top scorers have recommended this book. I just bought it but didn't get a chance to read.

Good Luck with your preparations, A score of 700 or 750 plus is not far from you.

[shaheenhamza]

I had gone through the Manhattan SC book. But my entire approach of studying was wrong. I decided to give GMAT 4 weeks before(May 1st week). I started with princeton and finished with it in a week's time. Then I started OG11 and finished it in 2 weeks. I was not dedicating much time because of a ongoing cricket series which was too addictive. Finally in the last week, I just went through Manhattan SC one day. I had just read through the theory but hadnt done any practice problems.

While doing OG11 problems my strike rate was pretty high. Easily 90% for all 3 categories of questions(I was doing it sectionwise - completed RC, then CR and finally SC). I was pretty convinced about Verbal. But I guess when they were shot at me as a assortment of questions in actual test (CR,RC & SC in random order), I goofed up.

One thing I realised yesterday was that I had spent only 25% of my study period on Verbal and rest on Maths. Maybe I concenterated too much on maths even though I was pretty good at it earlier itself.

Thanks a lot gmataspirant for your tips. I am looking forward for more tips from others in this forum. I had never posted earlier but have always been a active viewer of many posts in this forum. I propose to take GMAT again within a month for sure.

[shaheenhamza]

I got my AWA score today - 5.5
The only place where I goofed up I believe is verbal section. AWA and quant is satisfactory, in fact good...

I need to do something for verbal for my 2nd attempt....

[jasonc]

Which part of verbal are you weak in?

SC & CR are really easy to improve in with a little bit of smart studying.

RC imo is slightly harder to improve in.

[gmataspirant]

Which part of verbal are you weak in?

SC & CR are really easy to improve in with a little bit of smart studying.

RC imo is slightly harder to improve in.

Hi Jasonc,

Would like to share some of your tips on improving SC & CR. May we know the ingredients of the secret sauce

[jasonc]

I mentioned a little bit in my 'I beat the gmat' thread~

SC - I personally only used OG 11 + the internet + ursla's grid.
However, what I would recommend is using MGMAT's SC book, read through/identify/be familiar with the different types of rules that GMAT typically tests. Then, go through the OG 11, record all results (including type of questions missed) on ursla's grid for ~50 or so questions, look at the type of questions you missed, identify the concepts, reinforce the concepts to make sure you understand. Look up online any questions in which the OG's answer does not make sense to you. Take another set of ~50 or so questions, go through the same process, and you should see an improvement. Rinse and repeat until you're familiar with all the rules tested.

CR - this part comes naturally to me, so its slightly harder for me to explain how to study for this since I never did. However, many prep books help you segment the different CR questions (strengthen/weaken an argument, identify assumption, etc) and have tricks to break each down and make them easier to solve. I'd recommend doing that (don't use just the OG for this, because the OG doesn't teach you these tricks of breaking down the questions).