Trying to improve verbal score from mid 20 to high 30

[HelenaW51]

Hi,

I have been studying for the gmat for almost 1.5 years, with the first year as very casual studying. I started picking up the pace in November 2017. As of now, I have taken the official gmat exam two times. First time was in February and I got the following score 560 (Q44, V23). Immediately after I enrolled in the 9 week in person course. It was a fantastic experience! I loved the class and especially the instructor. I was sad when the class ended, but it was definitely helpful and I learned a great deal! Throughout the 9 weeks, I completed all of the homework, watched all interacts, created flash cards and even completed all of the extra homework tasks. I kept an error log and revisited problems I’ve done wrong. 3 weeks after the last class, I took the exam and got 620 (Q49, V27). I am pretty happy with my math score but very dissapointed with my verbal score. I am not sure how to improve now... On all 3 cat exams, I scored 630 with a verbal score of 35/36 for all three. I am confused why I consistently get a 35/36 on the CAT exams but score in the 20s on the real exam. Could it be from test day stress? Should I change the order? I typically do verbal first. Within verbal my biggest weakness has been critical reasoning... I do all the steps but sometimes I just get lost in the problem or narrow it down to two options and pick the wrong answer. I plan to take the exam again in 3-4 weeks... what can I do in this time to drastically improve my verbal score? Any suggestions or tips would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm sorry that you're having a tough time with verbal on the official test. (But great job on the quant!!) I wouldn't plan your re-take date until we figure out why you can score so much better on practice tests than on the real thing. We need to figure out what the issues are and then see how long it will take to address them—3 to 4 weeks may or may not be enough time.

First, since you have taken the official exam after taking the course, you're eligible for a free Post-Exam Assessment (if you haven't done it already). This is a phone call with an instructor to figure out what happened on test day and come up with a plan to re-take the test. If this applies to you, please send an email to gmat@manhattanprep.com to request the Post-Exam Assessment (PEA). You'll be sent a form to fill out—put in as much detail as possible so that the instructor can try to figure out what might be going wrong on verbal on test day.

You can also discuss this with me here.

(1) When you took your practice tests, did you take them under 100% official conditions, including length of time for each section, length of breaks between sections, no use of the pause button, etc?

(2) If you have taken more than 6 practice tests in our system, did you see any repeated questions on your most recent tests with the higher V scores? If so, how did you handle those? Did you, for example, answer them correctly and very quickly? Or did you take more time? Did you get some of them wrong on purpose so as not to artificially inflate your score? That kind of thing.

(3) What did you do during the final 2-3 days before your real exam? Is it possible that you burned yourself out in the last few days?

(4) How were your stress levels? Everyone finds these tests stressful, of course, but did you experience any of the following symptoms? Distracted / found it difficult to concentrate. Read something but then had to re-read it immediately because you didn't really take it in. Found yourself rushing because you just wanted to get the test over with—or, conversely, found it really difficult to make decisions / found yourself agonizing over answers and so got behind on time? Did you have any physical symptoms: racing heart, sweaty palms, upset stomach or nausea, dizziness, other physical discomfort?

(5) How was your time management on the test?

(6) Did you order an Enhanced Score Report for either of the official tests? What does the data say?
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... re-report/

Your answers to the above would also be good to include in the form you fill out for your PEA. (You can also just do the PEA if you don't also want to answer everything here. Your choice.)

[HelenaW51]

Hi Stacey!

Thank you for your quick response!! I addressed your questions below:

(1) When you took your practice tests, did you take them under 100% official conditions, including length of time for each section, length of breaks between sections, no use of the pause button, etc?
Yes, I took the exam under 100% official conditions.

(2) If you have taken more than 6 practice tests in our system, did you see any repeated questions on your most recent tests with the higher V scores? If so, how did you handle those? Did you, for example, answer them correctly and very quickly? Or did you take more time? Did you get some of them wrong on purpose so as not to artificially inflate your score? That kind of thing.
I have taken 2 tests on a separate account (back in January) and 3 in my account that I registered for the class. I did notice there were a few repeat questions and recognized that they were problems I have done before but I did not remember the answers. I completed them as if they were new problems to me. I got some of them right and some of them wrong. The timing was the same.

(3) What did you do during the final 2-3 days before your real exam? Is it possible that you burned yourself out in the last few days?
I made sure to relax the last 2-3 days before my exam. I did minimal studying and was just reviewing the flashcards I made.

(4) How were your stress levels? Everyone finds these tests stressful, of course, but did you experience any of the following symptoms? Distracted / found it difficult to concentrate. Read something but then had to re-read it immediately because you didn't really take it in. Found yourself rushing because you just wanted to get the test over with—or, conversely, found it really difficult to make decisions / found yourself agonizing over answers and so got behind on time? Did you have any physical symptoms: racing heart, sweaty palms, upset stomach or nausea, dizziness, other physical discomfort?
I was definitely nervous for the verbal section on test day. My heart was pounding and I did have a few moments when I had to reread a few things because I could not take it in. But I feel like this is normal for me whenever I do the verbal section- even for practice tests. On test day it may have been just a little bit worse. In comparison to verbal, math was very relaxed for me. I did not feel any pressure and was just doing the problems as they appeared. Other than my heart racing, I did not feel anything else while completing the verbal section.

(5) How was your time management on the test?
I believe my time management was pretty good. I used the yellowpad technique and had it set up before the exam started. In the beginning I was a few minutes ahead of schedule but I remember towards the middle I was one or two minutes behind and got worried. But in the end I managed to catch up and finish all of the questions on time since they were mainly SC.

(6) Did you order an Enhanced Score Report for either of the official tests? What does the data say?
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... re-report/
Yes, I ordered the ESR for my first exam awhile back and just ordered the ESR for this past exam. My critical reasoning has improved from 9 percentile (first exam) to 39 percentile (2nd exam). Sentence correction improved a little bit from 38 to 40 percentile. Reading comprehension dropped a bit from 58 to 56 percentile. Average time spent for CR is 2:13 and 1:12 for SC. As for a breakdown on how much I got correct in each phase, it fluctuated from 62% to 43% to 71% to 50%. As for difficulty, it seems like I was hovering around medium level for all four phases. Finally for time management, I was spending around the same time on correct and incorrect answers for the first two phases, but for the last two phases (especially the 3rd phase), I was spending more time on incorrect answers (3:39 for incorrect answers in phase 3). Let me know if you need any additional information.

Thank you for your help Stacey! Really appreciate it!!

[StaceyKoprince]

Okay, so it's likely that the nerves did contribute to some reduction in the verbal score. If you're feeling those nerves even in practice, they would definitely be exacerbated on the official test (because you know it counts!). The good news is that we can do something about nerves.

Mindfulness training is a great way to learn how to manage performance anxiety—think of it as basically learning how to get out of your own way so that you can settle down and do what you know how to do on the test. Read this first:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/

The above article links to some free resources from UCLA. There's also this program:
http://www.10percenthappier.com/mindful ... he-basics/
It has a free 1-week trial and is then paid, but I've had several students who have really liked it, so that's another option.

Bonus: The above works for any stressful life situation, not just standardized tests.

Next up: time management. You said that you thought it was good; you were able to finish on time. That is one measure of good time management but there are others. Take a look at the data. In the third quadrant, you averaged 3m39s per incorrect problem. The average on verbal is about 1m48s per problem, so that's nearly 2m longer than the average you need to maintain over the whole test. That means you had to move really fast elsewhere in order to still finish the test on time.

So there is at least a little bit of a time management issue on verbal as well. And time management issues can add to your stress levels—so that makes the whole experience even more nerve-wracking. Of course you're going to feel more anxious on your weaker area and of course you're going to feel more anxious when you see that you're behind on time and you have to try to catch up. If both are happening...that can lead to some serious anxiety, enough to really impact your performance.

So let's get into per-question timing and decision-making. Have you read this article on time management:
blog/2016/08/19/everything-you-need-to-know-about-gmat-time-management-part-1-of-3/

Look at the whole thing but pay special attention to part 2, which delves into how to make decisions on individual questions. (Part 3 is about the Yellow Pad / whole-section timing.) Your goal is to get to the point where you aren't spending 3m40s on any* question because you know how to cut yourself off before then. (*Except the first question of a Reading Comp passage—which counts the reading time as well as the time to answer that question.)

Next, your percentiles for each question type indicate that RC is your strength, while CR and SC are lower. So for some reason, those are dropping on test day (RC may be dropping too, but it's not dropping as much). Think back to your experience of doing CR and SC on the real thing. Did they feel similar to what you'd practiced or did they feel different in any way? If different, how did they feel different? Tell me whatever you can think of, even if you're not sure why it would be relevant.

And have you signed up for your PEA (if you hadn't already done it before you came here)?