scored 650 in gmat need help to improve verbal

[sdhankar.chaudhary]

I took gmat yesterday and scored 650(Q50 V28).I want to take it again next month but need help for verbal section.I need serious help in critical reasoning. Also I noticed that actual gmat had very few strengthening/weaking questions.Rather, it had 7-8 Q on minor types for eg- explaining discrepancy,argument structure,evaluate the conclusion etc.Unfortunately, most of the gmat prep books dont cover these topics in detail (including manhattan gmat strategy guide).
I have already done OG, Kaplan and manhattan guides.Is there anything else that i can study to improve my scores in verbal section.Also I was slow on verbal part and want to improve my speed.kindly suggest me how to take my score to 700+ within a month from now.

[StaceyKoprince]

Nice job on the quant! We need additional detail in order to provide specific suggestions. Please analyze your most recent practice test using the below article; then come back and tell us the results of your analysis:

http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/e ... -part1.cfm

Please also tell us whether you took this practice test under 100% official conditions (including essays); if you did not, please tell us how you deviated from official conditions.

In terms of the CR minor type questions, these are discussed in the Minor Type chapter of the MGMAT guide. Each minor type provides a specific strategy and a specific example, and then there are additional practice questions at the end of the chapter. If you study* these, you will have what you need to do well on these types of questions.

*Note: "study" does not mean simply "do" the questions. Doing the questions is just trying them; studying is everything you do after you've tried a question for the first time. Learning how to recognize a particular type of question, learning how to recognize certain wrong answer traps, remembering what kind of reasoning you're supposed to use for different types of CR questions, remembering what kinds of traps tend to be most common on different types, knowing how you'll guess if you have to guess, and so on.

You might spend 10 to 15 minutes studying one single problem (after trying it). When you feel you've learned all of the ins and outs of that problem, then you do the same for the other minor types. Then you do a set of mixed problems to ensure that you can readily distinguish among them and do what you need to do on each one. You go back over the second set and study again until you thoroughly understand those. Then you test yourself a third time. And so on.

This article explains in general how to analyze a practice problem:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/a ... roblem.cfm

And this one takes you through a specific CR example of the above process:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/CR-assumption.cfm

Let us know your analysis of your last practice test and we'll give you more suggestions!

[sdhankar.chaudhary]

Thanks for the reply Stacey,
Its of great help for me.

As you said here is the analysis of my last MCAT that i took two days before my actual GMAT exam (that was on 19th oct) :

Overall score :670 (Q-48 , V-33)

Time taken in last 10 ques:
Quant: 15 min and couldnot attempt last ques of the section.
Verbal: 19 min
Number of ques in way too slow category:
quant: 5Q (PS-3,DS-2) , Time:19min , Correct :5 , Incorrect :0
verbal: 5Q (Rc-1,sc-2,CR-2), Time :15 min, correct :2. Incorrect :3

Way too fast Incorrect Ques:
Quant: 2 (difficuly : 600-700) and 1 (difficulty : 700-800)
verbal: 3 (difficuly : 600-700)

Percentages correct below 50%:
Reading comp : 42% correct, avg difficulty right ans - 650
Critical reasoning :diffrence in avg time b/w correct Vs Incorrect - 35 secs.

Another weak areas i performed poorly are:
1)analyze argument structure
2)Draw conclusion
3)Fill in the blank

I didnot take any of my practice tests in ideal test conditions:
1)I didnot attempt AWA section.
2)I paused exams 2-3 times due to some disturbance.

Stacey,
Please have a look at tha above mentioned analysis and let me know my weak areas and methods to improve them.I have my GMAT on 19th Nov.This is my second attempt and I really want to make it to 700 this time.Please help!!

[StaceyKoprince]

It's important for you to do the tests under official conditions, including AWAs. Your quant score was fine, but your verbal was more problematic. Part of the problem may simply have been mental fatigue because, for most of the verbal section, you were used to being done with the test already. Let's eliminate that possibility to bring your score down.

Also, don't pause. I forbid you to pause from now on unless your house is on fire. :) There may be disturbances during the real test too - another student entering the room or a honking horn / car alarm outside. Learn to ignore disturbances.

On the quant, you do have some timing problems, but it seems that you're strong enough with quant that you're managing, and you also don't have a lot of time, so verbal is your primary concern. Though I would dig into those 5 questions on which you spent 19 minutes a little more. Were they all roughly around 4m? Or were some a lot closer to expected time and others a lot further? If so, figure out how to shave time from the ones that were already closer to expected time, and just let the others go.

On verbal, the extra time you spent on those 5 didn't help much anyway, so learn to let those go faster in general. This article on time management can help:

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2009/12/ ... management

Okay, here are some suggestions in addition to what I discussed / linked to last time:

Verbal answer process
1st pass through answers: place answers into 1 of 2 categories, definitely wrong or maybe. DO NOT decide whether something is right (until you have looked at each choice at least once).
2nd pass through: look only at the "maybe" answers, look more closely, choose one

When you are down to two answers on verbal, look at each answer ONCE more, then pick one and move on.

For CR Conclusions Qs, first, just know that these are similar to RC Infer questions, so you can use the below on both. We're expected to do the same kind of thinking on both, and that thinking is a bit different than what you'd do in the real world.

For example, if I tell you that I think cats make the best pets, you might infer in the real world that: I like animals in general; I like pets in general; I have a cat; I have other kinds of pets; I like other kinds of cats (lions, etc); if we went to a pet store and I bought a pet, that pet would be a cat; if I came over to your house and saw your cat, I would pet it and play with it; etc. But not one of those would be acceptable as a GMAT inference answer! Instead, an acceptable answer might be something like: I don't think dogs make the best pets; at least one other type of pet is better than dogs; some other types of animals besides cats can act as pets; etc.

The "real world" inferences aren't acceptable because you could argue with any one of them. I might like only cats and no other animals or pets. I might like only house cats and no other kinds of cats. I might be allergic to cats and therefore don't have a cat, wouldn't choose a cat if I were at a pet store, and wouldn't pet or play with yours. (By the way, large parts of this scenario are true! I do think cats make the best pets - at least, they'd be the best for me - and yet I am actually allergic to them.)

The "GMAT inference" examples are acceptable because you can't argue with them. If I think cats are the best, then by definition, I don't think some other type of pet is best, and any other type of pet is not as good as cats. By the same token, if I think cats are the best, then I must accept that there are other categories of pets - "best" is a comparison, so I must be comparing to other types.

Go back to some CR Conclusion questions you've done in the past (in particular, from OG), and test the above against that question. See if you can understand:

- why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible)
- why was it actually wrong? what specific words indicate that it is wrong and how did I overlook those clues the first time?
- why did the right answer seem wrong? what made it so tempting to cross off the right answer? why were those things actually okay; what was my error in thinking that they were wrong?
- why was it actually right?

The above analysis, by the way, can and should be done on ANY verbal problem, not just CR Conclusion. :) After you've done some practice with this on old problems, then test yourself with new ones (random, timed sets).

You also want to make sure that you can (a) recognize any specific type of CR question right away, and (b) you know exactly what to do with that type, including the kind of reasoning they want, and common characteristics of right and wrong answers.

If the type is Draw a Conclusion, then I should identify any facts or opinions they give (but I should NOT expect to find a conclusion in the argument), and I should understand exactly what the argument has told me versus what it might only imply. The correct answer will be something that must be true according to the information given, without bringing in any outside knowledge or assumptions. Incorrect answers will often go "too far" by assuming additional information that we don't actually know.

I can tell what type of question this is by reading the question stem (not the argument), so I read that first. That way, before I start reading the argument, I already know:
(1) the kind of information I need to find
(2) the kind of analysis I need to do on that information
(3) characteristics of a correct answer for that type
(4) characteristics of wrong answers for that type

Your test is in a few weeks, so you don't have time to do all of the above on everything in the verbal section. You're going to need to apply this to the specific areas where you identify weaknesses.

Also, note: "fill in the blank" is not a separate question type on CR; it's a format. Any type of question can be written in a "fill in the blank" format. So you still need to be able to recognize: is this a Conclusion question? Assumption? etc.

Finally, for RC, can you give any more specific data on your performance? Were all question types low, or were there certain question types that brought down your overall performance on those?