GMAT Mock Score plateau

[ArunKumar83]

Hi Pros,
I have a question for you guys. I have been preparing for my GMAT for the past 2 months now and my Exam date is on April 21/14. I am planning to take a mock every week and please find my below 2 Official Mock Gmat scores. I find my score plateau and would like to get your expert tips on how to improve.

1) GMAT Official Mock 1( Free test download)
Test date: Jan 4th/2014
Score : 640 ( Quant 48, Verbal 30)
Verbal Split : SC 14/17 ( 14 correct out of 17)
CR 8/11
RC 7/13

No timing issue.

2) GMAT Official Mock 1( Free test download)
Test date: Feb 17th/2014
Score : 640 ( Quant 49, Verbal 27)
Verbal Split : SC 8 incorrect
CR 3 In correct RC 5 incorrect.
Quant : 9 questions wrong. 2 - Unknown concept 7- mostly careless or question misread.
Quant Completion time 70 mins/ Verbal completion time ( 71 mins)

Materials used:
1)Manhattan Gmat books( edition 5 all books)
2)Princeton Review 1037 problems
3) Purchased e-gmat( I have to go through course work)
4) GMAT official question pack 1 and 2 additional test.

My Prep Stratergy,
I am good with quants ( Weak areas: Inequality,Co-ordinate geometry,Prob and Combo). I target a score 51 and I believe I can acheive this. My greatest weakness SC, I try to remember the rules/ understand meaning and they apply rules but during test mostly I do "Which sounds best"/avoid "being"
/look for common idioms/ identify subject verb".

I am bad with Verb tenses, Idioms/parallelism/ subjunctives etc.

Average Quant question solving time 1.03 mins Accuracy 85%
Average Verbal Solve time 1:30 mins Accuracy SC - 60%, RC -70%, CR - 80%

Issues that I face.,
1) No matter how much SC material I study, I do not feel confident on SC questions. I dont understand when OG says "awkward/rheotic construction" - should I remember these constructions?
2) RC - I find infer, compare the statements type of questions hard.
3) CR- I find logically completes type of questions hard to answer.

My greatest weakness is SC and I do not know how to handle this section. My Target Score is 720+ and I need atleast a 40 in Verbal to achieve this.

Please let me know how should I plan my time and how to improve. I am attaching my mock gmat error log with this mail, it might help you guys understand the question types that I face issue with.

Please do let me know for any further questions.

Thanks in advance,
Arun

[[email protected]]

Hi Arun,

Based on what you've described, most of your studying has been "book work." Some Test Takers do amazingly well with just some book studying and a few practice CATs, but most need some type of consistent, professional guidance (e.g. a class, course or tutor) to hit a 700+ score. Before you make any new commitments though, you can go back and work through the material that you have. Since you have already listed your weak areas, go back and look through what your study materials say about those subjects. It might be that you just "missed some things" the first time through. If you're still stuck though, you might consider purchasing some new resources. You can also post questions in these Forums; we're all happy to help you work through whatever questions are causing you problems.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

[Elizabeth@EconomistGMAT]

You already know what your weaknesses are, which is a great advantage that you have. Now you don't have to waste time learning concepts you already know. For example, as you stated, if you don't understand what the OG means when it says a sentence has "awkward/rhetoric construction," learn what it means! If you don't have access to a GMAT expert/tutor, spend time on Beat the GMAT and GMAT Club's forums and take advantage of all of the expert advice the forum's participants have to offer you.