How are you guys getting high verbal scores!!

by **Jimmy** Sun Jun 01, 2008 2:40 pm

I've been studying for the GMAT for over a year...taken the Manhattan course, and even spent some time with a Manhattan tutor and just cannot get my score over 35-38 on the verbal!! I'm a native speaker and just don't understand it. I've even gone back and done the OG, and worked through each problem trying to "teach it to myself" explaining why each answer choice is wrong. I just don't understand how to improve my verbal.

I'm decent on some SC and CR, but then I get some complex CR statements that I just cannot see the logic. How do you make yourself see the logic!! I'm just completely drained from this experience that has been going on forever.

by **Nagm** Sun Jun 01, 2008 5:09 pm

Try CR outside OG. Manhattan CR book is awesome and try to focus on identifying every element of CR - premise, fact, conclusion etc.
If you have time go far Power Score CR. It is as good as Manhattan CR. CR is like math problems, eexcept few questions.

by **Guest** Sun Jun 01, 2008 6:22 pm

I have...and it did help...but I'm now getting these level of CR problems that seem to blow away the old tricks. These harder CR level problems seem to require a person to begin creating possible scenarios from the text given. I'm not sure how to describe it. I also find it very difficult to even grasp what the harder level CR problems are saying...

by **StaceyKoprince** Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:23 am

First, 35-38 verbal corresponds to about the 75th to 85th percentile range. That's great - if you can score at the 80th percentile for both math and verbal, you're looking at the high 600s (that is 85th - 90th percentile overall). I know everyone thinks they have to have a 700, but even the best schools won't reject you because of an 85th-90th percentile score! (They may reject us for other reasons - but that's not one of them.)

Second, don't get so frustrated on the super-hard CRs that your frustration hurts your performance on the other questions. Remember that you're going to get half of the questions wrong no matter how good you get - so it's okay if you're struggling with some.

Third, everyone has one question type that is his/her weakness. Make your weakness work for you. Make sure you can handle the ones that you CAN handle (don't get so frustrated with CR that you make careless mistakes on the ones you can do) and then work on pushing up your performance on SC and RC. When you get a tough CR, oh well - that's part of the half that you'll get wrong. Get it wrong in a minute instead of 2 minutes to have more time on other questions that you really can get right. If you can get rid of the mindset that you have to get everything (or even most things) right, then you'll have a much better chance of achieving your goal.

by **Jimmy** Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:47 am

Stacey, thanks for the kind words...what is most frustrating is that my verbal score is exactly where it was when I started with Manhattan. Shouldn't I be seeing some improvement!

by **StaceyKoprince** Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:55 am

Yes, I would expect some improvement from the amount of work you've been doing. I know it's frustrating that you haven't been seeing progress. The (seemingly generic) response I have is that, for some reason, you aren't studying in the right way. But it's tough for me to tell specifically what's going on without working directly with you and seeing you do problems.

Have you taken an official test? Or have you not because you haven't seen the improvement you want? If you have taken the official test, did you sign up for a post-exam assessment? (If not, or if you don't know what I'm talking about, send an email to studentservices@manhattangmat.com and request a post-exam assessment. NOTE for others reading this: you have to be one of our students and you have to have taken the official test to qualify for this!)

You may also want to send emails to your course instructor and your private tutor and ask if they'd be willing to take a fresh look at your most recent test and give you some advice on the verbal. They have worked directly with you and so should be in a good position to assess your situation. If you do this, the more detailed info you can give them on what gives you trouble, the better - from specific question types (not just CR, but, say, weaken CR questions) to content areas (eg, parallelism), to test strategies (eg - are you able to recognize when parallelism is an issue? Do you know what you should be looking for on weaken questions vs. find an assumption questions?).

If you haven't taken an official test yet, you can also try begging student services to let you do your "post" exam assessment before you take the official test. Tell them how much you're struggling and that you don't even feel you can take the real exam under these circumstances. You'll also be using up your assessment, fyi - so if you take it and don't like your score and want to take it again (the circumstance the assessment is designed for), you'll have already used your assessment.

Let me know what happens with the above.

by **Guest** Thu Jun 05, 2008 8:43 am

Thanks Stacey....I haven't used my post course review, I kind of want to save it for after my first test on June 14th. The test is so close I don't think I could make major modifications before it anyway. What is crazy is on the last two Manhattan GMAT CATs I got a 45 on verbal, but barely scratch past 38 on GMATPrep. Have you seen this type of issue before?

by **RonPurewal** Mon Jun 09, 2008 4:43 am

Anonymous Wrote:What is crazy is on the last two Manhattan GMAT CATs I got a 45 on verbal, but barely scratch past 38 on GMATPrep. Have you seen this type of issue before?

by this point, we've seen just about every issue there is. here are a couple of points in response to your situation, which is by no means unique:
-- remember that the test has a large degree of variation, and two cats + one gmatprep is an extremely small sample size. as frustrating as this may be, it's possible that the variance you've mentioned is just a product of statistical randomness.
or:
some days you get all the lights red.

-- you may want to see whether you're doing anything differently when you take our cats vs. when you take the gmatprep.
1, are you using the proper time limits? (if you're not, then that explains all the difference - and more - right there)
2, are you more relaxed about taking our cat exams, or do you feel any degree of test anxiety about taking the official tests?
3, are you (consciously or unconsciously) conceiving of the official gmatprep tests as a separate endeavor entirely, and therefore abandoning strategy and time management techniques that have served you well on the mgmat cat exams?
4, are there any other systematic differences between your approach to our cat exams and your approach to the gmatprep software tests?
if your answers are 'no' x 4, then you can confidently ascribe the difference to statistical volatility.

variation is frustrating - especially when the downside occurs on the official tests - but keep your head up and stay in there.