1 week to go, help

[gpaleksandrov]

I will appreciate some advice for improving my Verbal. I have a week to the GMAT test day and I continue to score miserably on Verbal, no matter what I do. I revise my mistakes and try different strategies but the overall result is 30-34 on Verbal. I am a non-native speaker. I did Manhattan SC, Powerscore CR and ETS Modules about RC. I did Kaplan RC workbook, OG 11 and 12 questions and I read scientific and business new in English every 2 days. Most of my mistakes are in RC (main idea q-ns mainly), followed by CR (weakening q-ns, main idea questions).

[StaceyKoprince]

You haven't provided any information about what you'd like to score on test day (relative to where you're scoring right now), but I'm guessing that you want your verbal score to be quite a bit higher, because you describe your current score as "miserable."

If that's the case, I have some bad news for you: you aren't going to change your score a substantial amount in one week. In fact, for the vast majority of people, where they're scoring 1 week before is about what they should expect to score on the real test. (This assumes that you have taken valid, adaptive practice tests under 100% official conditions, including essays. If you have deviated from official conditions significantly, then your practice test scores might be inflated. In that case, you would not expect to score in the same range on the official test.)

I'm telling you this bad news for a good reason. You still have time to make some decisions. Broadly speaking, you have two choices:
(1) keep your test date and lower your goal score to something in your current range
(2) push out your test date and keep your goal score at its higher level

If you do decide to push out your test date and would like to discuss how to improve in your areas of weakness, please let us know. You will also need to provide us with more data so that we can better advise you. Tell us your goal score and do the analysis described in the following article on your most recent practice test (ideally, an MGMAT test taken under official conditions):

http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/e ... -part1.cfm

These articles on RC may also help to get you started:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... mp-passage
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/07/ ... rc-passage

[gpaleksandrov]

You haven't provided any information about what you'd like to score on test day (relative to where you're scoring right now), but I'm guessing that you want your verbal score to be quite a bit higher, because you describe your current score as "miserable."

If that's the case, I have some bad news for you: you aren't going to change your score a substantial amount in one week. In fact, for the vast majority of people, where they're scoring 1 week before is about what they should expect to score on the real test. (This assumes that you have taken valid, adaptive practice tests under 100% official conditions, including essays. If you have deviated from official conditions significantly, then your practice test scores might be inflated. In that case, you would not expect to score in the same range on the official test.)

I'm telling you this bad news for a good reason. You still have time to make some decisions. Broadly speaking, you have two choices:
(1) keep your test date and lower your goal score to something in your current range
(2) push out your test date and keep your goal score at its higher level

If you do decide to push out your test date and would like to discuss how to improve in your areas of weakness, please let us know. You will also need to provide us with more data so that we can better advise you. Tell us your goal score and do the analysis described in the following article on your most recent practice test (ideally, an MGMAT test taken under official conditions):

http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/e ... -part1.cfm

These articles on RC may also help to get you started:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... mp-passage
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/07/ ... rc-passage

Thanx for the advice. My target score in Verbal is 40+; I studied from Manhattan SC, CR bible and some old ETS modules about RC. In addition to OG Verbal I do RC-99 passages, Kaplan Verbal Workbook, I read BusinessWeek, Sci-American, Nature, CNN on various topics. My last three Verbal scores are 34 Powerprep - old official software; 25 - gmat prep 2; 35 - MGMAT 3; in MGMAT 2 I scoreD 35 in too. I will give it a try next week and, if necessary, make another attempt after a month or two.

[StaceyKoprince]

Let us know how it goes! If you do decide to take it again, take a look at those articles that I posted at the end of my last post and come back to give us more data about your strengths and weaknesses. We'll help you put together a plan.

Good luck!