Guessing Strategy for the GMAT Verbal

[alejandrosanroman]

Hi,

I noticed I'm really weak on my verbal. I'm Mexican so my first language is Spanish. On the Quant, I really don't have any issues since I'm getting about 46.

My problem is on the Verbal. I took the actual GMAT on November and scored only 18 on the verbal. My overall score was 520, which is pretty low. Then I bought the Manhattan set of books, so I have improved my verbal to a 28-30. Still I'm getting about 600 (sometimes slightly above, sometimes slightly below). I want to get above 650 or even 700.

I did an analysis from both my Manhattan Preps and Official GMAT Preps and I noticed that my Critical Reasoning skills and my Sentence Correction Skills are good enough; however my Reading Comprehension is terrible (I'm a slow reader in English). I have timing problems, so from time to time I guess CR questions (usually 3 or 4 per test) because I was told never to guess Reading Comprehension questions. I have noticed that I'm getting them all RC wrong anyway, so I'm considering to guess one of the passages per test to make up for some time. I would like an expert advice if this is a good idea or not.

Please help.

Thanks,
Alejandro

[alejandrosanroman]

I forgot to mention that I'm taking the actual test again in May 2nd.

Thanks,
Alejandro

[StaceyKoprince]

If your current scoring level is 600 and you want to improve by 50 to 100 points, then 2 weeks probably isn't enough time. Most people would need more time.

Is the score more important to you or the timeframe? If the score, then you may need to postpone. If the timeframe, then go for it, but be aware that your goal score is very ambitious relative to the timeframe.

You can guess on RC - I think the reason people say not to guess on RC is because they mean to say that it's not a great idea to guess on all 3 or 4 questions in a row. Let's say, though, that you really struggle with inference questions. You could decide to guess on those and try to answer the other ones.

So, yes, you have my permission to guess on RC. :) I wouldn't recommend guessing on one entire passage unless you absolutely have to (eg, you're running out of time), though.

I'm going to give you some resources, but I have to warn you that it's likely going to take you a month to practice and get good at this. RC is one of the slowest things to improve and that's especially true for non-native speakers. (Your written English is very good by the way!)

For reading:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... p-passage/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -passages/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -passages/

Also, check our blog this next week. I just submitted another RC article on how to read and it should be going up on the blog sometime this week.

For question types:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... c-passage/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... estion.cfm
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/ ... prehension
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/11/ ... il-problem
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... e-details/

Good luck - let us know what you decide to do!

[alejandrosanroman]

Hi Stacey,

Thank you very much for you response. I changed my exam date to May 20th; this way I'll have more time to work on my verbal.

Thanks for all the articles you have shared. I will work on them this week and do a Manhattan CAT on Sunday. This time I'll guess the 3rd passage (the whole thing) to save time and see how it goes. I'll be very careful and try to make sure I have the question after it correct.

I'm considering this strategy because on the weekend I studied some problems from OG12 and confirmed that I'm much better on SC and CR than on RC. I got 80% correct on SC, 83% correct on CR and only 58% correct on RC.

I will let you know how it goes.

Thanks,
Alejandro

[StaceyKoprince]

I'll be very careful and try to make sure I have the question after it correct.

There's no way to guarantee this - you could still end up with a really hard question right after the passage. Be careful not to lock yourself into an "I must get this one right" mindset, because that leads to messed-up timing and serious anxiety. Do what you can in a reasonable timeframe and move on.

Other than that, sounds good. Good luck!

[alejandrosanroman]

Hi Stacey,

With this strategy I did improve my verbal I got a 32; however, my math went significantly down to a 40. My overall score was 590. During the test, I did not feel as focused as I should have on the math section. I will do an official GMAT prep test on Wednesday to see how that goes. Hopefully, I can bring up my math again and keep my verbal score on that range.

Are MGMAT tests a little tougher than the actual GMAT exam? I feel they are, especially on the math section.

I will let you know how it goes on my other prep.

Thank you,
Alejandro

[StaceyKoprince]

Good! (on verbal :)

A lot of people do feel that our quant is a bit harder than the quant on the real test. Ours tends to be a bit more computation-intensive, so if you struggle with that, then you'll find ours harder. Theirs tends to be even more heavily disguised (something will look a lot easier than it is, or something can be solved neatly through pure theory - IF you really understand the theory), so if you struggle with that stuff, then you'll find theirs harder.

Let me know how it goes!

[alejandrosanroman]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks for your kind response. I applied my strategy on two more CATs (one Manhattan and one Official GMAT Prep).

May 4th, MGMAT:
Overall: 610
Q: 45
V: 30

May 11th, Official GMAT Prep
Overall: 640
Q: 47
V: 31

Those were my last couple of preps before I take the actual test next monday. I skipped the 3rd passage on both tests. I will apply this strategy next monday; I'll let you know how it goes.

Kind Regards,
Alejandro

[alejandrosanroman]

Hi Stacey,

I took the actual GMAT today and I hit a new low. I got a 510 (41Q and 20V).. I honestly do not understand how I got such a bad a score. I did the "strategy" of guessing the complete third passage; I think this strategy actually hurt me a lot more on the test compared to the Preps.

I plan on retaking the test in july. Is it common to get such a huge different score on the Preps compared to the actual test? On the Preps I was hitting 640.

Thanks,
Alejandro

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry that you had a difficult test day.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, it's non-ideal to plan to guess on an entire passage. That probably did not account for all of the drop from your practice test scores (~28-30) and your real test score (20), though. We need to dig a bit deeper to try to figure out what's going on.

There are many reasons why people can have big score drops on the real test day. Your math and your verbal both dropped, which tells me that there will likely issues with timing, stamina, anxiety, or any combination of the three.

How was your timing in the section? Tell me everything that you can remember. How often did you have to guess or rush to catch up? Were you able to work at normal pace on the last 5-10 questions or did you have to work faster than you did earlier in the section?

Were your practice tests taken under official conditions, including essay, IR, length of breaks? Did you give yourself any "illegal" advantages on practice tests that could have allowed you to be more mentally alert on verbal than you were on the real test?

Did you experience any symptoms of mental fatigue during verbal? Here's what that feels like:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... you-crazy/

What about anxiety / nerves? Everyone gets a little nervous, of course, but did you have any physical symptoms (pounding heart, sweaty palms, dizziness, etc)?

How often did you feel like you were not able to understand something, you had to read it multiple times? Did you find your mind wandering to things other than the test?

I'm going to go back to one other thing I said in an earlier post: improving RC takes time. Go back up and read through our conversation again, and try not to make the same mistake this time; instead, give yourself enough time. Don't rush through just because you want to be done.

(For example, don't pick a target test date now. You don't even know yet exactly what you need to do or why your score was what it was. Until you figure that out, you can't have any idea how long it's going to take - so don't pick an arbitrary date right now.)