Desperately Struggling with Verbal - Advice on my plan?

[UsmanB892]

Hi,

I've been studying for the GMAT since the first week of May learning all the content via the Manhattan guidebooks. In the past two weeks, I've completed 2 Practice CATS - one Manhattan and one GMAT Prep. My scores were:

June 9th - MGMAT #1: 580 (43Q/27V)
June 23rd - GMAT Prep #1: 590 (45Q/27V)

For the most recent Gmat Prep test, I believe I could have gotten a higher quant score because I had a string of 4-5 questions in a row I got wrong near the end (timing issue). The greater concern for me is that I have struggled with Verbal. I've gone through all the Manhattan books (Quant + Verbal) and the SC book twice already. I feel as if my biggest issues with verbal is that I start off well but then hit a few harder questions and take too long on those often second-guessing myself and then hit streaks where I get 5-6 wrong during the middle/end of the test.

I'm planning to write the test around mid-late August. I've been committing 6 hours a day, 6 days a week (I have the summer off before I start my job in September) and alternating days between studying Quant/Verbal which works fairly well for me; however at this point I realize I obviously have to change my plan to focus more of my time on verbal.

Do you have any tips or recommendations in order to help improve my verbal score? I feel confident I can get my Quant score close to a 50 by August and ideally would like to get that Verbal score to a 40+ (I know its going to be difficult) but I am very focused and determined to do so.

Additional Info:
-Reading Comprehension is an obvious weakness (From the MGMAT CAT - I only correctly answered the 500-600 level questions)
-Sentence Correction is hit or miss - I do well with practice sets in the official guide (70% accuracy rate with 600-700 level questions and starting to move into 700-800 level) but I have been terrible at these during the practice CATs
-Critical Reasoning has been stable (60% accuracy rate with 600-700 level questions, I want to bump this up)

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi! I'm sorry that your post didn't show up at first—it got caught in our spam filter for some reason.

What is your overall goal score? A Q50, V40 would be around a 730. That sound about right?

What you're describing is a really common timing pattern in somebody's weaker section. I just had a long conversation with another student about this—but in his case, we were discussing Q.

Basically, whenever you do well, the test does get harder. If that section is your stronger section, you can keep going for a while before truly hitting a wall—and you're probably faster on the earlier ones (since this is your strong section), so you do actually have some extra time for those harder ones you earn.

On your weaker section, you're likely using normal time (at least) to get that first lift...and then you're feeling nervous because, hey, this test is nervous-making, and so you fall back into the "old-school" mindset that you have to try to get most problems right. So you spend some extra time, but of course these problems are too hard so that extra time doesn't really help...and then things go downhill from there.

To help you adjust that mindset, start here:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... lly-tests/

And then this:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... -the-gmat/

Then think about concrete steps you're going to take to help you master this mindset. And then come back here to tell me what those steps are.

This time management series can help you with the above too:
blog/2016/08/19/everything-you-need-to-know-about-gmat-time-management-part-1-of-3/

Next, let's do an analysis of what this is truly costing you on the verbal. Go back to these exams and classify your questions in the following way:

(1) I got it right legitimately—I knew what I was doing—and I didn't spend a ton of extra time to get it right (I didn't go more than ~1m over the average time for this type)
(2) I got it right but there was still some kind of problem. I got a little (or a lot!) lucky. I spent too long to get it right. That kind of thing.
(3) I got it wrong in a good way. I knew I didn't know it and I got out of there without wasting too much time.
(4) I made a careless mistake. What mistake did I make? WHY did I make it? What do I need to do differently to avoid this type of mistake in future? (Note: A lot of times, the answer will be, "I was rushing or was really mentally fatigued—or both—and missed something. I have to cut some other questions off earlier in order to not be behind / too tired when I get to something like this problem."
(5) I got this wrong legitimately and I should have cut myself off faster. How / when should I have known to let go?

That analysis allows you to see what kinds of decisions were good and, more important, what kinds of decisions you want to make differently next time—and it force you to think through HOW to make better decisions next time.

Note on #5: Include in this category things that you didn't know how to do when you took the test—even if you think you can learn to do that for future. What matters is that, in that moment during the test, you didn't know, and so you should have cut yourself off faster. Then, of course, feel free to go learn whatever you want to learn about that problem.

You've got a good high-level analysis so far on your three V question types. If you want to get into more detail on that analysis, use this article series:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2018/05 ... ats-part-1

The above is a multi-hour process. I do recommend going to that level of analysis. It will really help you to see where you need to prioritize. For instance, you say that SC is hit or miss, but I would bet that there are patterns to be found there about when you tend to hit vs. when you tend to miss. That detailed analysis will help you to identify those patterns. (And, of course, share with us here anything that you find out!)

[UsmanB892]

Hi Stacey,

Yes at the very least I would like to aim for that - 730 (50Q, 40V), ideally a 42V for 750 but its a steep hill to climb. I reviewed the articles below and conducted a thorough review of my previous CATs.

As mentioned previously, I tended to go on multiple streaks of answering incorrectly (4 of 5 wrong, 5 of 6 wrong) during the middle of the verbal section and near the end. The biggest takeaway from my analysis was that these incorrect answer streaks usually started when I saw a a string of difficult SC/CR questions (700-800 level) after a good start. I also realized that my RC score is not as bad as I thought after conducting a deep-level analysis. I would often get 1 or 2 RC passages near the end of the CAT that I would have to guess on or rush through because of timing difficulties. However, excluding the RC passages I rushed, my accuracy is actually 10-15% better than I thought.

I understand now that the key for me is to avoid that first streak of incorrect questions and being extra careful with timing during that stretch of the test. I find that the first streak throws off my timing and causes the second streak of incorrect problems near the end of the test when I'm being pressed for time, causing my score to drop substantially.

At the moment I find that on the tough CR/SC questions, I spend close to 2 1/2 - 3 minutes (danger zone) and still get the question wrong... Per the categories you mentioned, I labelled the questions that hurt my timing as a 5 because they often tested things I wasn't 100% sure on and spent too much time trying to analyze the answer choices. Ideally, I am going to punt/guess on these questions at about the ~1 minute mark so I don't fall too behind and then review the concepts thoroughly after the practice CAT.

Do you think this is an appropriate strategy for the time being? In the long haul, I do want to get much better at SC so I can answer the tougher SC problems.

Section Specific:

SC: I am working hard to improve my SC because it should be the easiest to improve by understanding all the rules; however, I still make mistakes in different ways such as not knowing the correct idiom or being unable to identify parallelism errors quickly. I have been trying to improve these two areas through daily practice sets, error log, and flash cards.

Also, I find that I am still a bit slow at SC (it takes me ~1:30 - 2 mins to answer Medium/Harder difficulty questions), whereas I have read posts by other test-takers that can answer SC problems in under a minute or 1:20. Ideally, I want to get to this level (while not sacrificing accuracy) but what is the best way to do so? So far, I have been relying on daily practice sets, error log and redoing problems I answered incorrectly from previous weeks to improve my pattern recognition abilities . Do you believe this is the best approach in terms of SC? (Repetition and review)

CR: I've also been devoting a significant amount of time working on practice sets for CR this past week and one of the biggest insights I found helpful was after reading the passage and writing my notes I would first (1) Identify the conclusion (2) Re-read the Question and (3) Pre-think possible solutions. This way really helped me eliminate irrelevant, real-world distractions, and reverse logic answer choices (+ saving time)!

RC: I watched a few videos on YouTube of different approaches to RC, and the biggest thing I realized was that I was spending way too long on note-taking by writing down unnecessary details. I've been really focused on annotating my notes as much as possible, skimming details in the text to focus on better understanding the core structure of the argument. So far, this approach has helped me substantially in dealing with more technical passages (e.g. science & biology-focused topics).

Overall, I plan to write my 2nd MGMAT CAT this upcoming weekend and I will let you know how it turns out but I feel more comfortable now after understanding what I was doing wrong. I'm very open to any advice or feedback you may have so far.

[StaceyKoprince]

Ideally, I am going to punt/guess on these questions at about the ~1 minute mark so I don't fall too behind and then review the concepts thoroughly after the practice CAT.

Do you think this is an appropriate strategy for the time being? In the long haul, I do want to get much better at SC so I can answer the tougher SC problems.

It's half right. You will *always* have this issue, no matter how high you go...because the test can always go higher. So this is not a strategy just "for the time being." You will do this every time, including on the real test. We all have to!

Don't view this as "Oh, I don't know everything right now on my practice test, but I will by the time I get to the real test." That's the old-school mindset. Use the business mindset. You won't know everything and you will always have to make the exec decision to cut your losses and move on. This is literally one of the things that the GMAT is testing. So show the test that you know how to do this.

Basically: You are always going to get some problems wrong. Your goal is to try to figure out which ones those are before you've spent a bunch of time on them, so that you can get them wrong faster. Your goal is not to learn how to get everything right.

Re: timing, how is your average timing on RC and CR? Some people are naturally slower at SC but naturally faster at RC/CR, so they can get away with having a slightly slower average on SC. It's okay for SC to be at, say, 1:30 to 1:40 average if you are naturally 10-20s below average on RC and/or CR.

Alternatively, let's say that you are on time for RC and CR—so you aren't saving any time there that you can use for SC. You also save time when you bail on some questions. Right now, it sounds like RC is where you would want to bail (though this may change over time). So you would go into it saying something like "I'm going to bail immediately whenever I see RC Specific Purpose questions" (or whatever category you decide) or "When I get a passage where I'm just really not following a certain paragraph, I'm going to bail on any questions about that paragraph."

RC average is about 1.5m per, so if you bail on 3 questions at around 20s in, that's about 3.5m saved. That's 7 or 8 SCs on which you can spend an extra 20 seconds.

Re: streamlining SC further, are you using the process described in our strategy guide? First Glance, comparing answers vertically, that sort of thing?

Here are some more first glance drills:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... st-glance/

(When reading that post, look up the relevant page in the relevant OG using the Look Inside feature on Amazon. Note that OG13 is the same as OG 2015. And search for the words "Swiss psychologist" to find the relevant page. )

And/or if you find that you're struggling more with longer underlines / more convoluted changes in the answers, try this:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... ce-part-1/

Let me know how your practice test goes!

[UsmanB892]

Hi Stacey,

Okay, that makes complete sense when you mention that the test can always go higher.

RC & CR Timing
RC - Timing is okay -> I'm right around ~1.5 min for the passage questions (Detail, SP, Inference etc). I've also reduced my time in note-taking (now I take b/w 2-3 mins to read the passage + jot down the structure), so I can quickly answer the Primary Purpose/Main idea questions in under a minute.

CR - 'Different story' -> I analyzed my CATs and practice sets -> I find that the ones I get right are between 1:40 - 2:30 mins, whereas the ones I struggled with (especially on my last CAT) took between 2:30 - 3:00 mins. On my last GMAT Prep CAT, the harder CR questions really threw my timing off because I was spending a very long time on these questions that I got wrong, and this ultimately cost me later on in the test.

I think bailing on harder CR questions would save a lot of time but your point on bailing on a few tougher RC questions also makes sense where it could save me loads of time for SC.


Sentence Correction Strategy
Yes, for Sentence Correction I follow the Manhattan approach - I read the whole sentence first ("First Glance") trying to identify errors (subj.-verb agreement, parallelism markers, meaning etc.) in the original and then I glance vertically trying to find splits in the answer choices.

One thing I noticed on my practice sets is that on medium-harder difficulty questions and even longer underlines, I can't easily identify errors as quickly in the sentence, so what I end up doing is that I'll read the sentence again and try to paraphrase it in my own words. This actually helps, but the issue is that my "First Glance" then often becomes a "Second or Third Glance" , and all of a sudden I'm one minute into the question by the time I start looking at the answer choices. This is something I've been trying to speed up and I will definately take a look at both the articles that you've linked.

Thanks and will let you know how the CAT goes!

[StaceyKoprince]

Agreed, sounds like CR is the first place to look for your bail opportunities. But RC could still be an opportunity on occasion.

Re: the SC thing, yes, the harder ones don't have as obvious vertical splits. The easiest vertical split = a single word, staying in roughly the same place all the way down, is changing between two forms and it's easy to see the difference between the two forms. eg: is, are.

As it gets harder, they can do things like:
- more than two forms / multiple differences
- not as obvious what the difference means
- word(s) moving around / not in the same location

And the biggest one:
- whole chunks of the sentence moving around / changing, not just 1-2 words

So if you want to get really good at the hardest ones, you've got to learn how to "chunk" out the sentence and see that this whole modifier has moved to a different place. Or that what used to be an "opening modifier, core sentence" structure has changed to a "core sentence, following modifier" structure.

That second article I gave you last time gets at the above.

[UsmanB892]

Hi Stacey,

Just to provide an update, I actually completed 2 CATs in the past couple of weeks. On the latest MGMAT CAT I scored 640 (42Q/36V).

In terms of Verbal, things are much better now - I've improved my Verbal from 27 to 32 and now to 36. I feel confident I can keep getting better after reviewing my last CAT. My SC accuracy went up - 72% accuracy, avg. question difficulty correct was 640 - while the only questions I got wrong were all 700+ which are the ones that I'm trying to tackle now. Furthermore, CR was still a weakness with an accuracy rate of only 50% but the avg. question difficulty correct was 690, while RC accuracy was 60% with an avg. question difficulty correct of 690.

Moving forward, I really want to start nailing the 700+ questions and I feel once I can get those, I can push my Verbal to 40+. I'm planning to complete more practice sets, carefully review sets, and revisit rules/concepts (especially for SC) to get me over the hump.

Secondly, I've noted that my Quant score has recently been lagging. It's been stuck around 42-43 on MGMAT CATs and 45ish on the GMAT Prep one. On the most recent CAT, I did not finish in time so that also may have led to a drop. So far my Quant strategy has been to solely do practice sets from the OG and OG Quant Supplement book, and then review the sets after a couple of days. Do you think this is the best way in which to get to 50 in Quant? I realize there are other things I have to do such as improve my time management skills and work on some of my weaknesses (e.g. certain number properties questions) in the meantime.

[StaceyKoprince]

Great! I'm glad to hear that Verbal is coming together.

How much of your effort has been going towards V vs. Q lately? When someone starts doing an 80-90% push towards one side...sometimes the other side starts to atrophy just because you're sort of neglecting that side. So if that could be the case, get yourself back into a better balance between the two sections.

Two other common culprits are time management and generally stress / mental fatigue. Time management was an issue at least on one, according to you. (And not finishing on time will definitely lead to a drop. The more you left blank, the bigger the drop.) Is it possibly that you also had timing issues on the other ones, though maybe just not to the same extent as the one on which you didn't finish?

I suspect that you have been focusing more on V than is good for you—and that is causing issues in terms of all of the above...out of practice, messing up the timing, getting tired out on Q faster because you're out of practice...

If so, the remedy is what I already said: get yourself back to a better balance between your Q and V studies. And you said that you'd already identified weaknesses that need work so...of course go work on those.

[UsmanB892]

Hi Stacey,

All the points you mentioned make sense. I've actually been doing 2 Verbal study days for each Quant study day for the last month so my studying has definitely been imbalanced, favouring verbal. I think I will probably go back to doing a 1-for-1 study day split now between Quant and Verbal.

[StaceyKoprince]

Sounds like a plan. Let me know how it goes!

[UsmanB892]

Hi Stacey,

Just providing an update - I've taken 2 CATs and they both went fairly bad - I had a 590 on the Manhattan CAT (40Q/32V) and then I tried to a GMATPrep CAT after to better track my progress and got a 570 (45Q/23V). The 23V is the lowest score I've gotten so far, even after months of studying.

At this point, I'm just a little disappointed because I've clearly been getting worse at Verbal somehow and my Quant has been flat for a month now. I booked my test for the start of September but I will undoubtedly push it back now. I was very optimistic after scoring a 640 a couple weeks back but I realize that I have to completely alter my approach.

[StaceyKoprince]

Maybe. Let's dig into that test data a bit more deeply though.

I just replied to another post in which the student told me that, on his last practice test, more than half of his incorrect problems in every section were careless mistakes. If something like that is going on, for example, then there is something we need to make better—but you wouldn't need to change your entire approach.

There could also have been issues with mental fatigue, anxiety, time management—any number of things can bring your performance down. And we're really talking V here, since your Q went up to 45.

Another thing I see on V sometimes: Someone focuses so much on it that they start second-guessing themselves on everything. Then they either keep talking themselves out of the right answer and switching to a wrong one or get so turned around that they start thinking that none of the answers are right. Was anything like that happening?

Here's the article again to analyze our CATs:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2018/05 ... ats-part-1

You can use a similar approach on the official practice test, though of course they don't provide the same level of detail in the data. Dig in to see if you can figure out what might have happened with V.