Got Doomed in verbal -my first GMAT score 530 - Need Advice

[ManjunathD921]

Hi Stacey,

I took my GMAT exam yesterday and got a dismal score of 530. ( Q 46, V 17 , IR 5) I am very disappointed with the score, Verbal pulled the score a lot.

Below are some background of my preparation , materials used and questions . Please let me know on this.
Note : I have read some of blogs/articles which is posted in this forum.

Preparation:
3- 4 Months
Manhattan Sixth Edition complete prep set, OG, Verbal and Quant Review
As i am a working professional , Initially prepared only on weekends and then took a week off before the exam and studied

Mock Tests Score
GMAT Prep 1 - 540 Q44 V21
GMAT Prep 2 - 570 Q44, V25
MGMAT CAT1- 560 Q41, V26
MGMAT CAT2 - 570 Q41, V28
GMAT Prep1 - 610 , Q48, V25

Actual GMAT - 530 Q46, V17

As far as the conditions of the Mock tests taken
- I skipped AWA and IR for first 4, and took complete test and test like condition for my final prep test.

I think my Verbal skills need to be improved a lot.. I had completed all OG, Verbal Review questions and review the same.

Require your advice on below.
- I am targeting a score of 680 - 700 , and need to apply for R2 deadlines (mid of November for India Business schools). Is it possible to achieve with in the time frame and should i re-take .. btw I did not cancel the score. I was so pre-occupied that i didnt know what i am supposed to do.
- Verbal Skills are my weakness, though Quant is not shining . But i am not able to break 30 in verbal. Let me know is there any tips which can be helpful
- If everything works fine , I am planning to re-take GMAT by October Mid this year.

Thanks in advance,
Manju

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry that you had a disappointing test experience.

As you mentioned, your quant score was about what it was on your later practice tests, but your verbal score dropped a lot.

One issue was almost certainly stamina. Taking only one full-length practice test (compared to 4 without essay and IR) is not enough. You were essentially used to being done with the test around the time that you had to start Verbal on the real test. (And there's a good chance that you worked harder on the essay and IR sections on the real test than the practice test - because you knew the real test counted and the practice test didn't. That would have just made you more tired during the Verbal section on the real test.)

Next, if you want to get to 680+, you will need to do quite a lot of work on the Verbal side of things. You mention that you have read some articles on the blog and that you did lots of OG questions. What materials did you use to actually learn grammar and learn how to tackle the different kinds of CR and RC questions?

It's very difficult to try to derive the lessons yourself just by doing OG problems or reading some articles. I recommend that you research the different prep books available for SC, CR, and RC -- and, when you find something you like, buy them. (I'm not explicitly recommending my company's books because of course I like our books. It's better for you to research yourself and decide what you think would be best.)

Note: it can sometimes be difficult to find books in India - the shipping costs can be quite high. Lots of books now come in electronic form, so you don't have to have the physical books shipped to you. (And the e-books are often less expensive than the physical books!)

I do want to mention that your goal is to raise your score almost 200 points in 2 months. That is a very ambitious goal. Most people would not be able to achieve that kind of increase in that timeframe, particularly when most of the increase will need to come from just one section. (You're already at 46 in quant and the scoring only goes up to 51, so you don't have a lot of room for improvement in that section - though you will still want to work on math as well as verbal.)

I'm mentioning this because I think that it's best to plan for different scenarios. If you can't achieve that score increase in that timeframe, what would you prefer to do? Would you rather apply to some different schools with a lower score? Or would you rather postpone b-school for a year and continue to study for the GMAT? There isn't one right answer - it depends on what you want.

If you hadn't told me that you want to take it again in 2 months, this is what I would advise:
First, study from our Foundations of Verbal book, or something similar. This will help you to build your foundational skills across all areas. That will take 4 to 8 weeks, depending on how much time you have to study each day. During this time, also read good-quality material every day - the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times magazine, and good-quality books (including novels!).

Next, set up a self-study plan or join a course that teaches you the kind of material that's in our main SC, CR, and RC strategy guides - basically all of the grammar and meaning, as well as the different question types, that are tested on the GMAT. (Plus quant - as I said, you'll also want to improve quant.) That will be another ~2-3 months. (Also, note: I wouldn't recommend immediately starting this phase because a verbal score of 17-25 indicates some holes in your foundational knowledge that need to be addressed first.)

At that point, you may be ready to score 680-700* or you may need more review time. (*Note: there's no guarantee that anyone will ever hit a certain score, of course. I can't say for sure that following a particular path will definitely get someone to a certain score.)

If you still want to try to go for the mid-Oct timeframe, then you will need to accelerate this process without burning yourself out. That can be tough. Keep in mind that it is not always better to study more. Sometimes your brain needs a mental break.

What do you think about all of the above?

[ManjunathD921]

First, Thanks for the detailed reply.

As you have mentioned, I would like to focus on Verbal more than Quant in coming months. But would like to highlight few points

- Particularly Sentence correction, When i try the SC questions in sets which only focuses on only one of the grammar points ( for e.g Modifiers Only Or SVA Only) My scoring is around 60-70%. But drops to 40-50 % when i take the questions more like exam format which involves all the grammar points tested. I do feel that arriving at what i call decision point(s) as to what rule should be applied needs to be addressed.

- You mentioned about MGMAT Verbal Fundamentals ( Will BUY an e-Copy) but can you suggest any other authentic material which i can use to brush up my grammar essentials.

And Finally, Will take up more CAT(s) and if and only if i cross 700 in the tests, I would take GMAT else would postpone the same till next year.

Thanks,
Manju

[StaceyKoprince]

Okay, good to know that you would postpone if you can't hit that score this year.

You might also try the English Grammar for Dummies book. (Don't be put off by the name! There are a whole series of "for Dummies" books that are very good at what they do, which is to explain the foundations in a way that doesn't make you feel dumb for not knowing something.

My guess is that your performance drop when you do questions that test multiples issues at once is due to a combination of two things:
(1) some holes in foundation that still do need to be fixed, and
(2) the need for more practice with the complex types of sentences that are used for the GMAT (and that are a couple of levels up in complexity from what you would see in foundational-level material)

So the first task is to plug those holes in the foundation, because until you do that, you can't put everything together on the harder, OG-format questions.

When you start to feel better with the foundational material, then you can start to build up your skills on OG-type questions. In general, start with the lower-numbered, easier problems and work your way up. Here are some exercises to do:

(1) Take a file or notebook and make two columns. On the left-hand side, write down the name of a particular grammar error (eg, subj-verb agreement). On the right-hand side, write down what the splits tend to look like for that type of error (eg, nouns that sometimes include "s" and sometimes don't; verbs that sometimes include "s" and sometimes don't).

(2) Sometimes, start your studying by looking only at the differences in the answer choices. Do NOT actually read the full sentence first. (You can try this with problems you've already done, but done long enough ago that you don't remember exactly what the problem is testing.) Can you tell, based on the differences in the answer choices, which rules are probably being tested? Try to anticipate as much as you can, then go back and read the original sentence to see how well you understood.

Note that you can't always tell for sure. For instance, you may see a noun switching from singular to plural. There are two possible reasons for this: subject-verb match or pronoun-match. Which is it? If that verb or pronoun is in the non-underlined part, then you won't know (because you haven't read that yet). But you can at least articulate that it is one of those two things - and you'd know what you would need to look for in the non-underlined portion in order to address that difference.

You can probably do this for some things right now (eg, "has" and "have" would be a pretty straightforward split), but you can also probably get better at this. The splits, or differences in the choices, are the major clues that (should immediately) tell us what rules we need to think about / apply for that choice. Being able to recognize these clues based on these differences will help you to deal with the multiple issues that one SC tests.

Try that and let us know how it goes!