Verbal Reasoning

Hey guys,

This is something I've been seeing a LOT lately: students who have serious timing issues with Verbal questions on the CAT who don't do groups of Verbal questions under pacing conditions outside of CATs.

Sure, we all use various GMAT timers to see if we can do a Sentence Correction question in under 1.5 minutes or a DS question in under 2 minutes, but when was the last time you timed yourself for MULTIPLE questions in a row?

That's one thing I'd love to see changed in the way we study GMAT Verbal, so I just wrote a quick blog about it: https://gmatrockstar.com/2015/01/31/sent ... ng-drills/.

It's unfair to ask yourself to go from doing 1 question in under 2 minutes to 41 questions. Here's some "Levels" you can start at for Sentence Correction drills. I recommend 5 or 10 question drills, since I know we don't have all day to do nothing by Pacing drills, but feel free to add longer sets of questions (maybe 15 or even 20!) and create drills that include a mix of questions. What about a drill with 1 RC passage and 4 RC questions, 3 CR questions, and 3 SC questions and set a timer for 20 minutes? That's a solid way to round off a practice session, if you ask me!

Level 1 - 5 questions in 12.5 minutes
Level 2 - 10 questions in 25 minutes
Level 3 - 5 questions in 11.25 minutes
Level 4 - 10 questions in 22.5 minutes
Level 5 - 5 questions in 10 minutes
Level 6 - 10 questions in 20 minutes
Level 7 - 5 questions in 8.75 minutes
Level 8 - 10 questions in 17.5 minutes
Level 9 - 5 question in 7.5 minutes
Level 10 - 10 questions in 15 minutes
Level 11 - 5 questions in 6.25 minutes
Level 12 - 10 questions in 12.5 minutes
Level 13 - 5 questions in 5 minutes
Level 14 - 10 questions in 10 minutes

I'd love to know what students have been doing for their pacing drills, and I hope this encourages you to think beyond the one-question-at-a-time Pacing drill!

Happy GMAT-ing,
Vivian