Perplexing issue in GMAT verbal

[LEOSHUBHAM]

Dear Instructors,

Please accept my apologies in case this is the wrong forum to place such a query at and if so, point me to the one that is more appropriate.

I do not have a specific query or a doubt below for you guys to help me out with but just a random, extremely perplexing, situation that I have been and still am facing regarding my GMAT verbal preparation.

For Verbal, I have gone through what I believe is a good amount of course work, done a lot of questions and have attempted a good number of CATs. Still, I continue to find myself unable of scoring reasonably well in SC!! Now, while here I am referring to the number of questions I mark right against the number of wrongs, I do realise that the number of right attempts is not the right way to look at rather how the questions are rated is, but at times when the rating mechanism is not available for particular questions, it is just the number of positive hits that one can rely on and I seem to do fairly poor on that scale.
I have followed the OG-12 and MGMAT SC Guide for my SC preparation so far. Online question banks at various "GMAT PREP websites" do not seem to have credible resources. I have often found solutions/explanations to differ, OAs to have parities and of course instructors from one org absolutely thrashing the material from others. What is worst is when you follow the entire document and realise towards the end that a highly regarded instructor at a diffrnt website has advised to "run fast, run far" from it!!! It has become hard to find good, reliable prep material on the net that can supplement preparation from preparatory books one has already gone through.

What I am not fully sure of is whether I have not been able to prepare well or is it just the inadequacy of sufficient practise questions because of which I can't seem to score better on verbal! I am not able to figure out the direction towards which I should concentrate my preparation towards.

So, I believe my query boils down to:
1) How to practise and perform better on Verbal
2) How can the credibility of online practice material be judged?
3) Suggestions required for a few exhaustive, complete, credible question banks, those that cover all areas of SC and can provide intense practise and help me build up some confidence going into the exam.
I appeared for GMAT for my first attempt in Oct 2011. Scored a 620 with a terrible verbal score of 28!
Plan to go for it again soon and wish to break the '40' mark on verbal :)

Thanks,
Shubham

[StaceyKoprince]

Yes, I agree that it can be very difficult to find good material online, particularly free material. I guess the old saying "You get what you pay for" kind of applies. :)

In general, official material is the best. If you are not yet at the scoring level that you want, then you are not done with the official material, even if you have already tried the problems - even if you have memorized every official problem! Your goal isn't simply to do a bunch of problems - none of these problems will be the actual test questions.

Your goal is to use the problems as a tool to learn how to think your way through the new (but similar in some way) problems that you will see on the test.

When you review your SC problems (or any problems!), do you ask yourself the questions found in the below article?

http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... roblem.cfm

Here's an example of how that analysis would work on one SC problem:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/GMATprep-SC.cfm

Here are a couple of other SC articles that I've written lately:

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... n-problem/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... problem-2/

Are you analyzing your SC questions to this level? If not, don't go and get a bunch of new questions to study - you haven't learned what you need to learn on the questions that you've already studied. You need to go back to them.

Next, a lot of people neglect meaning when dealing with SC. Take a look at these:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... on-part-2/
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... h-meaning/

Go to it. Tell us how it goes. :) (And ask questions!)

[LEOSHUBHAM]

Stacey,

Thank you fr your reply. I am absolutely thrilled to see your response.

Yes, I believe my approach has been wrong, maybe a little wayward. Mostly just trying to find the right answer, treating which as my ultimate goal. Having said that, I would still like to maintain that this has helped me, in a certain way, to attain reasonable familiarity with the problems and the problem types. Still there are a few problem types that bewilder me. Under such a situation, would you recommend learning the problem type or rather one should try and understand the logic or the underlying rule behind? I have tried my luck at both these approaches and none of them seemed to have worked for my cause!! I almost always end up forgetting the rule and the logic that the question was based upon and hence try to make up for this by memorizing the problem type. While this approach works in 50-60% of the cases, there's always a problem, and a few more, that I would think I had memorized, then applied and eventually got wrong because there was a different catch in there somewhere. And hence the memorizing would commence again. Vicious circle!
This conundrum is reason behind my painful belief that my preparation is never going to be up to the mark. I dont think I can memorise all grammer rules in one lifetime, so I tried 'familiarizing.'
Please advise if I need to start looking at grammer, particularly for SC, from a different perhaps a new perspective altogether. Focussed maximum on rules of grammer and the like.

I am going to try my hand at analyzing my mistakes, in fact all problems for that matter, in a different manner based on your suggestions. Would love to share my findings :)

Thanks again
Shubham

[StaceyKoprince]

Yes, memorizing will only get you so far. The testwriters are trying to make a test that makes you think - not a test that just makes you regurgitate facts or rules. That's where that analysis comes in - you're really using the problems as tools to learn how to think your way through any problem.

Note: part of that "learning how to think your way thorugh" though is recognizing when you are NOT going to get through the problem correctly, or you're not going to be able to do so in the appropriate timeframe. Then, you need to be able to cut yourself off, make a guess, and move on. EVERYone has to do this - even those of us scoring in the 99th percentile!

In addition, because they're testing meaning more now on SC, just focusing on the rules is going to hurt you. So look at those meaning articles that I linked last time and start learning how to handle that aspect as well.

So when you're reviewing a problem, constantly ask yourself "HOW do I know that? Or how should I have known that, or how could I know that next time (on a different sentence with different words)?"

When I see _______, I will think / do _______.
When I see a noun that switches from singular to plural, I will check verbs and pronouns.
When I see large chunks of the sentence moving around, I will think modifiers and start checking whether they're placed correctly or whether there are any meaning issues introduced by bad placement.

[LEOSHUBHAM]

Thank you for the reply Stacey :)

Just one last question for you - please suggest a few resources/q banks/mock sectional tests etc. that I can buy or download for practise better and more.

Thank you
Shubham

[StaceyKoprince]

In rough order of importance:

OG 12
Verbal supplement v2
(quant only) GMAT Focus
OG11 and verbal supplement v1 (lots of overlap, but several hundred new questions)
MGMAT books (8 strategy guides, Advanced Quant, Foundations of Math and Verbal - whatever's appropriate for your level)
MGMAT question banks

That's more than 2,000 questions - that should be plenty. :)

[LEOSHUBHAM]

Dear Instructors/Stacey,

Wrote my GMAT yesterday and am extremely pleased to inform you guys that I scored a perfect 700(48Q/37V), even though a huge verbal let down, could have done at least 20 points better, neverthless, satisfactory results.

I am writing this just to express my appreciation and gratitude towards great work you guys are doing for the benefit of aspirants like me. A huge amount of credit for most of our success on this exam goes straight to you guys :) :)

Thank you for your sincere consideration and all your efforts.

-Shubham

[StaceyKoprince]

Congratulations! That's fantastic!

I'm very happy that we were able to help. I will say, though, that we can only put things out there - you guys actually have to do the hard work yourselves and not everybody has the discipline and drive to do so.

So, great job! Let us know how apps go!