Verbal Help

[vigneshn89]

Hello!

I've taken the GMAT 3 times now and my best score has been a 620 (44Q, 31V). I know that I can definitely improve quant. I just make careless mistakes, which I'm working towards improving. I would love to score around a 730 on this exam.

I've been trying to improve my verbal score, but it's definitely been a challenge. On my second attempt, my verbal score was a 29. I marginally improved. I ordered ESRs and did some research. On my last exam, I got a 99% on SC, a 57% on CR, and a 14% on RC. I was able to finish the test because I skipped questions more aggressively, since the test allows for that. On my second attempt, I got a balanced percentile on all three sections in verbal (raw scores of 33, 30, and 34 on CR, RC, and SC respectively). I got about 75% of the questions right in the first half of the section, but I got about 55-60% of the questions wrong in the second half of the section. Timing was clearly an issue here.

In general, I have the most confidence in solving SC questions. As crazy as it sounds, I look forward to these. CR is also not bad for me. I tend to get most medium-level questions right and even hard questions from time to time. I have a pretty good process for these types of questions. However for RC, I start thinking about the clock and sometimes nothing sinks in. I've tried really engaging in the material and mapping the passage for structure, etc. I have the MOST trouble with these humanities passages (e.g, women's rights, feminism, slavery, civil war, etc.). Given time, I can comprehend science and business passages decently.

Your take on a possible strategy would be awesome. I'm forcing myself to read the Wall Street Journal more and even the Scientific American. I feel that I have this mental block with RC and I'm trying to snap myself out of it by telling myself that ALL answers are right there in the passage.

I'm ok with skipping 4-7 questions on the Verbal section. I can complete most SC questions in a minute to a 1.5 minutes max to buy myself more time.

Your overall thoughts on how I can crack 40 on this section would be great! I'm willing to work very hard. I'm hoping to take the exam in about a month. I've been focusing my prep on official questions for verbal (GMATPrep, GMAC CATs).

Thank you!

Vignesh

[StaceyKoprince]

Great analysis. You've done good work so far, even though it hasn't (yet!) resulted in a big score increase.

Some questions about time management
(1) When you mentioned skipping questions aggressively, was that on the first official, the second official, or both?
(2) You mentioned that timing was at least somewhat of an issue on the second half of the second official. Do you have any sense of where you might have gotten bogged down? Does the average timing show any significant differences among the 3 question types? Or do you remember any details of certain questions that you felt you were getting stuck on?

Whatever it is, it does seem like there's more room to work on your bail strategy. You mentioned feeling comfortable bailing on 4-7 in the section, but did you do that on that second test? Or did you not bail on as many for that test?

Also: How do you define a bail? I would call that "I guessed randomly and moved on within 30 seconds of the problem appearing on screen." (If you spend much more time than that, it can't really count as a bail because you aren't saving any significant amount of time.) You will of course have some questions on which you spend a decent amount of time but then you still have to guess—just don't count those towards your bails.

You mention having the most trouble with certain kinds of RC content areas. One strategy would be to bail entirely on those passages. That's a little risky, though, because it's 3-4 questions in a row, and a string of wrong answers can have a larger impact. When you get those kinds of passages, do you feel that you are at an equal disadvantage for all question types? Or can you do some of them?

For example, some people find that they can still pick up the main ideas but they struggle with interpreting the detail. In that case, you could still invest 1-2 minutes in reading but focus only on the big picture. Then, you're able to answer any main idea question you get and you may be able to guess aggressively on the details—cross off any answers that don't go along with the big picture and then just guess from among the remaining answers without bothering to try to learn the detail. (You won't be able to do that on every detail question—some will be true bail / guess randomly types.)

Conversely, some people find that they struggle to pick up the main ideas, but when specific examples are given, they can actually follow those (or some of them, at least). In that case, you would spend 1-2 minutes reading just to see which details / examples you're okay with. You would try any questions that ask about those details and bail immediately on anything else.

That approach might only net you about 1 question—but getting 1 right out of 3 or 4 can pretty much negate the risk inherent in a string or wrong answers. Instead of down-down-down-down (which will definitely drop your score, sometimes by a lot), you might have down-up-down-down (which will also drop your score but not nearly as much).

Next question: How often do you find that you have careless mistakes on either SC or CR (SC especially, since you say that one is your favorite)? Careless mistakes occur due to a combination of time pressure and mental fatigue—either of which will occur if you're spending more time (and therefore mental energy) on stuff that should be bails. Now, of course you're going to have a careless mistake every now and then—there's no way to get rid of them entirely. But if you find that it's happening more than 1-2x per section, then that's a clue that you're spending too much time and/or mental energy elsewhere in this section or in any section that you do before V.

Finally, for all of verbal, make sure you are doing the following when you analyze problems on which you narrowed to 2 (or maybe 3) answers but then had to think carefuly about how to choose the final one. (And do this analysis even when you do end up choosing the correct answer.)

(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?

At the higher scoring levels, the issue is usually about knowing how to choose between the most tempting wrong answer and the correct answer. The above analysis will help you to get better at that skill.

[vigneshn89]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks for taking the time and crafting a wonderful response.

With respect to time management, I skipped questions more aggressively on the third official, atleast that was a strategy that I knew I wanted to implement. I wasn’t going to wait until I was severely under the time constraint to start guessing a stream of wrong answers. The reason why I’ve come to this conclusion is because on the second official, I got 25%, 29%, 57%, and 60% of the questions wrong in each of the respective “quarters” of the test. I also spent 2:15, 2:19, 2:14, and 0.31 minutes respectively, on each quarter. This clearly suggests that I took a little bit more time in the beginning and got more questions correct, but comprised on accuracy on the latter half of the exam due to time constraints. That’s probably why my score dropped more.

On the third official however, I got 50%, 29%, 43%, and 12% of the questions wrong in each of the respective quarters of the test. I spent 1:49, 2:20, 2:03, and 1.07 minutes respectively, on each quarter. The incorrect answers were more dispersed throughout the test. I actually thought I was going to BOMB the section, but to my surprise, I ended up getting a 31 on the section (which isn’t good but I literally didn’t second guess dumping questions).
One thing that I noticed is that MOST of the questions on the second and third official were really medium-level questions (correct and incorrect questions). I should have been getting them correct. Also, I feel that the verbal section is only SLIGHTLY adaptive. I’m not sure how true that it is.

To your point, even on the third official, I’m sure I could have quickly glanced at the question and guessed within 30 seconds, instead of being a minute or more into the question and then bailing. That would have bought me even more time to concentrate on questions to my strength. In general, I don’t tend to spend more than a minute to a minute and 30 seconds max on most SC questions. The answers usually just pop out at me, and I’m able to eliminate answers quickly and narrow down to two answers even on difficult questions. I usually don’t have careless mistakes. I might miss an SC question if the question was a total guess. With CR, it’s a concentration thing and not thinking about the clock. If I’m zoned in, I don’t need to read the prompt three times to understand what’s going on. I have a pretty good approach for strengthen, weaken, assumption, and “evaluating a plan” questions as they tend to appear the most frequently.

With RC, I feel like that working quickly through SC and bailing on questions quickly (where necessary) will give me more time on this part of the test. With regards to the humanities passages, I tend to understand them if I have more time obviously, but it’s the detail questions on those passages that take me more time. I usually get main idea questions correct on most passages. Instead of skipping questions on the entire passage, I’ll have to determine which questions I can do and just run with them. I definitely don’t want to guess a string of 3-4 incorrect answers and be penalized for that.
I’ll definitely analyze my answers more carefully, as I practice the official questions and take tests for the next three or so weeks.

Also, do you have general advice on battling testing anxiety? I feel that I sleep well before the test, etc. It’s when I get into the testing center, scan my palm, etc. that I start feeling overwhelmed. On the last couple of official tests, I blanked the first minute or so and then I had to get into the exam…lol. I’m really hoping that doesn’t happen this time. Maybe it’ll help to not start with Verbal and start with writing and IR. I think getting acclimated to the environment will help ease the nerves. Otherwise, I feel that I’m more than capable of getting a good verbal score. I’ve taken my three officials in 2017. So I’ve been away from the exam for over a year. I’m hoping for a different outcome this time around (700+, fingers crossed).

Vignesh

[StaceyKoprince]

Good, I'm glad that you proved to yourself that guessing aggressively actually pays off on this test! Now, you just need to be even more aggressive with it.

I'd give yourself about 4-6 bails in the verbal section—and "bail" truly means within ~30 seconds, I'm not trying even to eliminate any answers. I'm just randomly guessing and moving on.

You're probably not going to do this on SC, since it's your strongest area. (Also: You don't save as much time on SC as you do on the other two types. So the ROI isn't as good.)

The issue will be determining easy / early triggers for the RCs (and maybe some CRs) that you don't like so that you can get out fast. Consider this one of your study points—you're really learning how to make good decisions throughout, including what NOT to do.

The verbal section is just as adaptive as the quant. There are experimental questions in both sections—so it's hard to gauge what's going on because you have no idea which ones are the ones that don't count. (Plus, it's called an algorithm for a reason. It's really complicated and our brains can't just "think" in terms of an algorithm.)

Test anxiety is a *very* real thing. Most people are at least somewhat nervous to the point of having it impact some aspect of the test day and many people are impacted enough to cause a drop in score. The good news is that you can do something about it: mindfulness training, which helps you to manage intrusive / distracting thoughts and stay calm / focused.

Start here:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/

The above article links to some free resources from UCLA. (In case the links are broken by now, just search for UCLA mindfulness.)

There's also this program:
http://www.10percenthappier.com/mindful ... he-basics/

Do this training twice a day for 5-15 minutes at a time to start. After 4-6 weeks, you might only need to do it once a day.

I do also like your idea to start with essay/IR. Think back to whatever your second section was on the last official test. Were you fine going back into the testing room the second time / it was really primarily the first time that was so nervewracking? If so, that's a good reason to try doing essay/IR first.

Try it on a practice test, first, to see whether doing those other sections at the beginning will impact your mental energy on Q and V later in the test. If so, then it may not be worth it. (Note, though: Make sure you are making good decisions about what NOT to do on essay and IR, too. Write an okay essay. Bail on the 3 hardest IR questions. Save that mental energy for later.)

Another thing people will do sometimes is keep going to the testing center every week (or every other week) on the day that you'll go for the real test. Walk in. Explain to the person behind the desk what you're doing / why you're there and that you'll be stopping by every week for the next month or whatever. You're basically desensitizing yourself to going into the testing center. You won't be able to go through the actual security procedure, and go into the testing room itself, but just getting used to the main facility will help.
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.