Stuck on Verbal Low 30s

[MaxP870]

Hi Guys!

I recently completed a MPrep course and have been doing some private tutoring since my course finished. I have always considered myself much stronger on Verbal than Quant, but I have quite a conundrum and my exam is 5 days away. After my first CAT my verbal was a 31, not bad for a first try. In my subsequent CAT's I jumped a little on percentile, but never broke a 32. Yesterday I completed my final CAT, using the GMAC software and scored a disappointing 27. When looking over my previous practice exams and my work in Navigator/Error Log, I am able to correctly answer question at all levels, including 700-800, but find that my accuracy is lacking, I'm making dumb errors, or am just otherwise eliminating answers that I shouldn't. I have had timing issues in the past, frequently falling 4-5 mins behind, but have largely worked that issue out. Not sure if it's a content issue, focus, or just how I approach a problem and have a different idea of what I should be answering than what the question is asking.

I definitely understand the material, question types, and strategies for approaching questions through the class, tutoring, and studying. I am also a native English-speaker.

Any advice for getting out of that stubborn low 30s and at least to a 35, and then making the jump closer to a 40? I know there are some threads on this already, but most seem to be non-native English speakers.

Thanks!

[StaceyKoprince]

Hello! Okay, All I've read so far is that your exam is 5 days away (I think 2 days away now). I'm going to respond to that before I even keep reading.

Whatever your skills / scores 5 days in advance, expect those to be your skills / scores on test day. Things are not going to change substantially in 5 days.

Now, you've already paid for the test, and you have to reschedule 7 days in advance in order to save any of your test fee, so you might as well just go take the thing and get the practice. But don't expect to change much in 5 (now 2!) days.

Next, to your real question.

When looking over my previous practice exams and my work in Navigator/Error Log, I am able to correctly answer question at all levels, including 700-800, but find that my accuracy is lacking, I'm making dumb errors, or am just otherwise eliminating answers that I shouldn't.

Are you sure that you've worked out the timing issues? One way that I see people fixing timing issues initially is to say, "Oh, I don't want to run out of time at the end, so I'm going to speed up a little on all questions / on questions where I know what to do." That approach leads directly to the careless mistakes you cite.

Better to choose the 2-3 hardest questions throughout the test and bail on them so that you don't get behind overall.

The other main possibility is mental fatigue. Verbal is the last section on the test. If you are blowing too much mental fatigue earlier (IR and quant included), then you're going to start to make "dumb mistakes" too much on verbal.

Read this:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... you-crazy/

First, do any of those symptoms seem familiar?

Second, what can you do during IR, quant, and verbal to make better decisions overall in order to minimize mental fatigue in this nearly 4-hour-long test?

Finally, once you work that stuff out and see what level that takes you to, we can start to think about jumping higher. If the above can get you to the 35+ range (and you are now not making very many careless mistakes at all), then you can think about adding the below to your studies to kick up into a really great score.

When you're reviewing, review everything. Identify ALL of the questions on which you narrowed to two and guessed, even when you guessed right. And answer these questions:
1) why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible; also, now you know this is not a good reason to pick an answer)
2) why was it actually wrong? what specific words indicate that it is wrong and how did I overlook those clues the first time?
3) 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? (also, now you know that this is not a good reason to eliminate an answer)
4) why was it actually right?

(You could, of course, add that to your studies now. But just note that it won't help much until / unless you deal with whatever underlying issues are causing your careless errors.)

What do you think?

[MaxP870]

Stacey,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. I ended up taking the exam and scored about where I had been testing on Verbal at a 32. I bombed the Quant, about 10 points below where I was testing on the Cats so it ended up being the pesky Quant section that really did me in. I cancelled my score, but the good news is that I'm not in a rush to get a score, but it's a little daunting because I'm in a situation where my scores are fluctuating wildly and after about three months of study I don't feel comfortable I can get a score I'll be happy with.

I think I can attribute the poor Quant score to overall nerves, I was a little stumped by the essay prompt and ended up barely having time to write three sloppy paragraphs. I think the adrenaline/fear from that threw me off my game for the rest of the exam. For my final practice exam I took one of the official GMAC exams and scored much lower on that than my last MPrep Cat by about 40 points. So I'm also wondering if there's something between how the two exams are written/scored so that my MPrep exams were inflated (even though I know they are written to be harder than the actual GMAT)?

Thanks again for your advice, and will keep you updated as I retake the exam and formulate a new study plan.

Best,

M

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry that you had a disappointing test experience. I'm glad, though, that you have time to figure out how to make this work.

Scores that "fluctuate wildly" are also generally a sign of timing issues. So I think issue #1 is to figure out what your timing issues are, so that we can figure out how to deal with them. (Note that I am not saying "figure out whether you have timing issues." We all have timing issues; the only question is what yours are and how severe they are.

And I wouldn't discount the mental fatigue possibility either. There's probably some of both going on.

Our CATs are good enough that the former Chief Psychometrician of GMAC recently endorsed them and called them "very accurate" at predicting your score on the real test. But if you're just talking about a 40-point difference, that's within normal standard deviation range - that's not even considered much of a discrepancy. These tests (even the real one!) are not as precise as people think they are.

Let's also address that nerves thing. Take a look at this:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/

That can be good for stressful life situations in general, but if something again unexpectedly throws you on the next test, this could help you get on top of it and get back to the task at hand.

Good luck - let me know how things are going!