GMAT 610, Verbal 23 - Need help

[varunc12]

Hi MGMAT experts,

I despertely need your advice. My problem has been discussed several times in various threads but I believe I already took majority of those advices.

On March 21, 2014, I gave my first GMAT, and scored 610. Q49, V23.
I was shocked and very dissapointed with my Vebal score, given the amount of effort I had put in for this section.

Here is a summary of my progress.
In May 2013, I signed up for GMAT prep course offered by one of your competitors. Although, I started my preparation in May, I was'nt giving enough time to my preparation until August 2013. I was'nt religious in my study schedule and did not appreciate the amount of effort required to prepare for this exam. Starting August 2013, I seriously started studying for this exam. I gave practice CATs of that course, and scored relatively good in Quant section however bad in Verbal section. In December 2013, I attempted my first GMAT-Prep exam.

December 7, 2013. GMAT Prep 1: 550 (Q43, V23)
At this time, I figured my Verbal foundations were not solid. For CR question types. the correspondence course helped me improve my analysis skills, however I was still averaging 3-3.5 minutes per question. I was just lost in RC section for which I knew all the basics (reading skills required, identifying passage types, identifying question types, identifying wrong answers etc.), however I was not able to convert that testing knowledge in practice. Sentence correction was plain dead. I committed too many mistakes, and my basics were'nt solid. Moreover, I was running short of 15 minutes on top of 75 minutes for this section. I guessed heavily in last 10 questions on top of whatever I was doing wrong.

That's when I realized I needed to do something drastic as my tactics were'nt working. I immidiately ordered MGMAT's IR, CR, RC, SC, and Advanced Quant books. By mid-January, I finished reading all of them. I connected with these books much more than the previous correspondence course. Based on the recommendations of these books, I ordered OG 13th edition, Verbal and Quant 2nd editions to practice real GMAT problems. I started using "official guide stopwatch" on MGMAT's student's center to time all my questions. In verbal section of OGs, I started making question sets of roughly 40 mixed questions and timed them accordingly. The question sets had mixed questions of SC, RC and CR section in increasing order of difficulty. eg. Question set 1 will have first 12 questions of SC, first 12 of RC, and first 12 of CR, so on and so forth. I finished both official guides this way. I also did online question banks, free resources comprised of 25 questions that come with MGMAT books.

I googled almost all SC questions on MGMAT forum and learned a lot from Ron, Stacey, Tim and others for majority of those question threads. In short, I reflected on my work. I read why wrong answers are wrong, and why right answers are right.

December 7, 2013: GMAT prep 1: 550 (Q43, V23) (Comments: Verbal section: Ran out of time by 15 minutes)

Jan 11, 2014: MGMAT CAT 1: 580 (Q37, V32) (Comments: I paused the exam couple of times in verbal section)
Jan 25, 2014: MGMAT CAT 2: 630 (Q44, V32) (Comments: I paused the exam couple of times in verbal section)
Feb 10, 2014: MGMAT CAT 3: 650 (Q44, V35) (Comments: I paused the exam couple of times in verbal section)

Feb 19, 2014: GMAT Prep 2: 620 (Q49, V26)

Mar. 2, 2014: MGMAT CAT 4: 610 (Q46, V29) (Comments: Exam conditions)
Mar. 8, 2014: MGMAT CAT 5: 640 (Q48, V31) (Comments: Exam conditions)
Mar 15, 2014: MGMAT CAT 6: 690 (Q46, V38) (Comments: Exam conditions)

March 21: REAL GMAT: 610 (Q49, V23)

MGMAT CAT Analysis:Thanks to Stacey's articles I have learned my strengths and weaknesses in both Quant and Verbal sections using MGMAT's "Generate Assessment reports" tool.

For RC: I followed Stacey's articles in forums.
Short passage: I average 3.5-4.5 minutes to answer first question, i.e. reading the passage and answering te first question.
Long passage: I average 5-5.5 minutes. Difficult and long passages take me up to 6 minutes to answer first question

For CR: I followed POSE method discussed in 3-part article. I average 2.5 - 3 minutes per CR question. Be it wrong or right. It takes me 90 seconds just to understand the argument. This is despite using the P.o.s.e method. And then, when I start to read the answer choices and apply the Wrong-right elimination method, I easily cross the 2 minutes mark. Inference questions take me even longer, however, I do not let those questions take me more than 3 minutes at which point I make an educated guess.


SC: I average 90 seconds. Short ones take me around 60-75, long ones with a lot of modifiers take me upto 2.5 minutes.

English is not my first language. That said, my communication skills are good. I did my undergrad. deg. in engineering from a north american university and can fully express my ideas in written and spoken english.
BUT, my comprehension is slow. I read CR argument two times to understand it completely. I read first paragraph of difficult Long passage almost 2 times to understand the skeleton of the passage.


GMAT exam: Verbal section: I ran out of time by approximately 6 minutes. I finished the section by answering all questions but randomly guessed on last 3 questions (2 SC and 1 CR: I did not even get time to read them). And the three before them were RC short passage questions. I read the passage for the sake of reading, read and answered the questions for the sake of answering by using judgement. I found that I had no time to refer back to the passage to grab the specific detail, or function of a text so answered the questions based on how they sound and the practice I did to eliminate wrong answers. This is on top of whatever I did right/wrong in the rest of the Verbal section.

Thanks for taking the time to read and understand my situation. At this point I am lost again. I have exhausted all my resources. I can retake MGMAT CATs, but I will find a lot of repeated questions and the scores will be inflated. They will be good for trying new questions under timing constraints but still, they won't reflect reality. I can order 2 more GMAT-prep practice CATs and verbal question sets to practice but I am wondering whether it will be any good. I do not know what else I can do to improve my verbal score. One thing is for certain, I have improved the timing of Verbal section from my first GMAT Prep exam back in December. Although, it may be insufficient, but I have come a long way. Also, thanks to the SC guide, I have much better handle on SC section today than ever before.
I have spent a lot of time and money to prepare for this exam. Overall, my experience with Manhattan GMAT has been nothing short of excellent, therefore I come to you to seek your advice.

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi, I'm sorry we're just getting to you know. As I'm sure you saw, we've been getting inundated with spam, so some legitimate posts are getting overlooked in the deluge of fake posts. :(

I agree that you have come a long way since last December. Your score is struggling, though, because your timing problems are still too severe - they're bringing your score down.

Read this (right now):
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/

When you took the test, did you actually have that mindset?

From what you said, I'm guessing that you didn't - because you keep running out of time. :) You're still trying to answer everything to the best of your ability. If you want to improve your score, you cannot do that!

You're going to need to learn to guess quickly on the hardest questions as you see them throughout the section. Think of it this way: you have to guess somewhere. Your only control / choice is where. Right now, you're not making any choices or taking any control, so you're forced to guess at the end of the test.

This is very bad because this test is a "where you end is what you get" test. It sounds like you answered (at least) the last 6 questions incorrectly on your real test. That means your score was actually higher (decently higher!), but your score dropped at the end... and where you end is what you get.

If you had, instead, guessed on the 6 hardest questions (hardest for you) as you saw them throughout the section, then your score probably would have been at about the same level going into those last 6 questions - but this time, you would have had time to do the problems fully, so your score wouldn't have dropped. You would have been able to mantain it all the way to the end.

That's your *first* goal: learning how to mantain a steady performance across the length of the section. Once you master that, then we can see about trying to raise your level.

SC is averaging 90 seconds - good. Those ones that take you 2.5 minutes? DUMP them! If you need more time upfront on an RC passage, then dump one of the questions. (Careful though: don't try to read an RC passage so carefully that you understand all of the details. You don't want to learn all of the details! You won't get asked about many of them. Just concentrate on the main ideas and big picture. Go back for details only when you get a specific question about that detail.)

Also, you may already know this, but I want to make sure: from now on, NEVER pause the test or take more time than you're allowed. You're just allowing yourself to build / solidify bad habits when you do that.

Have you seen these resources on CR and RC:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... reasoning/

https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... rehension/

And here are some things for SC:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... em-part-1/

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/

Finally, here's a quote from your post:

I googled almost all SC questions on MGMAT forum and learned a lot from Ron, Stacey, Tim and others for majority of those question threads. In short, I reflected on my work. I read why wrong answers are wrong, and why right answers are right.

That's really good. It's not quite enough, though. The next level is to be able to formulate yourself why the wrong ones are wrong, why the right ones are right - and even what the trap is in a tempting wrong answer and why someone would think the right answer is wrong.

The forum discussions are great ways to pick up additional insights - but if most of your insights are learned by reading / hearing what someone else figured out, then you're not learning enough to be able to get significantly better yourself. Rather, you're trying to teach yourself how to analyze and figure this out for yourself.

Here's what I mean:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

Find ways to get your brain figuring those things out for yourself whenever possible - not just reading what other students or experts figured out. :)

Take a look at all of that and then come back and let me know what you think.

[varunc12]

Hi Stacey/Ron,

Sorry for staying dormant for a while. Let me bring you up to speed regarding my progress. Due to some family circumstances, I had to suspend my GMAT preparations for couple of months. I was studying off and on.

GMAT 1st attempt: March 22, 2014: 610 (Q49, V23): Had timing issues in verbal section (description in the first thread)

..... Had to suspend my preparations for couple of months....

GMAT 2nd attempt: August 15, 2014; 600 (Q47 :68%, V27: 46%):
I took better control of timing of my Verbal section. A hard benchmark of 8 questions per 15 minutes really helped me skip questions in intervals and finish the test on time. Ron's lectures in CR really helped me improve my Verbal tactics.

For 1 month, I practiced 5 practice tests with the goal of improving timing on both Verbal and Quant sections. I did not do any practice test in the last 5 days of my real exam.

GMAT 3rd attempt: September 20, 2014; 640 (Q48: 76%, V29: 56%):
I again took better control of timing in Verbal section. I set a benchmark of 9 -10 questions per 15 minutes. Last 20 questions were very difficult to handle in the test. I was tired but I kept the rhythm going even though my comprehension got really slow towards the end. I finished the test with 30 seconds to spare.

When I took the test and whenever I faced a difficult question, which takes me time to comprehend let alone read and understand answer choices, I skip it. If I don’t skip it, I know I will not finish the test on time. So, by doing so, I end up not tar getting a high Verbal score.

That's your *first* goal: learning how to maintain a steady performance across the length of the section. Once you master that, then we can see about trying to raise your level.

At this point, I am not sure what else I can do to improve my Verbal score. My comprehension is slow. I am aiming for 680+ but Verbal section is bringing my score down. After putting all that effort, I am still scoring 56% percentile.

Mentally I am exhausted with this test, but the 640 score does not give me any cushion to aim for top business schools. I have invested a lot of time and financial resources on this already and I am wondering whether an another attempt will do me any good. I want to be realistic with my expectations.

Your thoughts ?

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm glad that you've been able to lift your score, even though you're not yet where you'd like to be.

Skipping hard questions is not necessarily what's hurting you - everyone needs to do this for some number of questions in each section. How many times are you doing this in the verbal section?

As a general rule, we tell everyone that you can take 5 to 7 "freebies": you literally guess with no good idea of how to do the problem, even to cross off some wrong answers. Beyond that, you're going to have additional problems on which you end up narrowing down the answers (and therefore making an educated guess). And then, of course, you're going to answer some outright.

(Note: if you narrow to 2 on verbal and then guess, I don't conisder that in the educated guess category. I consider that part of a real answer, since you only need to maintain about a 60% correct level. A 50/50 guess is practically not a guess.)

It's possible that you may be able to squeeze out a few more points by learning how to spend your mental energy better - making sure that you're cutting yourself off fast on the hardset IR, quant, and verbal problems so that you're not as mentally exhausted when you get later in the verbal section. Depending upon how much that mental fatigue is hurting you on verbal, maybe that would be worth up to 20 or 30 points. Beyond that, your skill at answering the actual problems would need to increase.

In order to squeeze out more points based on making better decisions on where to spend your mental energy, you're really going to have to push that business mindset - that you're trying to figure out how to best spend your scarce resources, and you're able to identify and dump bad opportunities. You might see a quant question that you think you could do in 2.5 minutes, but that question would take its mental toll because it's a tough topic for you. You'd have to be willing to sacrifice some of those. (Note: it shouldn't affect your score much, if at all, because the point is that you'd only do this on hard problems.)

What do you think?