Hello my name is Derrick and I'm a GMAT expert here at Magoosh and today I'm going to share
with you five strategies to help you conquer GMAT verbal section. All right so stay tuned!
So before we jump into the five strategies I want to just talk to you a bit about the GMAT verbal
section. It is a very challenging part of the exam, no way uh no if ands or butts about it, uh it's
very different than quant where you have exact answers. Whereas the GMAT verbal section you're
looking for the best answer and that actually leads me to tip number one four wrongs make a
right. So in the GMAT verbal section you are better served instead of looking for the correct answer
actually eliminating the wrong answers. You want to make sure that you're looking for
the answer that best fits the uh question type versus the answer that you think is correct.
Right, so many times you have to remove some of the skills or training or experiences that you had
previously when it comes to rules of grammar, critical reasoning, and reading comprehension
and then actually adjusting those to fit what is actually being asked on the exam. So, the mindset
that you want to have going into verbal section of the GMAT is four wrongs make a right and that you
would better serve using process of elimination instead of trying to jump in with a very quant
mindset of finding the right answer right away. The next strategy and tip I give you is to be
patient with yourself right be open and uh honest on areas of the exam that you just don't know. So
the key to success on verbal is making sure you keep a proper pacing and a nice rhythm to get
you through the exam in the proper amount of time and that actually means burning questions, right?
I've seen students do very well on the GMAT verbal section who have uh skipped various questions and
I air quote skip because you don't want to leave anything blank but sometimes you have to just
bubble in an answer uh select an answer choice on the screen and move on right be comfortable with
the areas, or admitting that this uh question type or this certain type of question gives you trouble
and be prepared to guess and take action. So you want to make sure that you understand that on
verbal you have a lot more forgiveness or missing questions but the issue is the variation in time.
So, strategy number two make sure you have a proper time pacing strategy involved and be comfortable
to say hey I don't know this, circling it, bubble in an answer, click an answer on the screen
and move on. Strategy number three this one goes a bit more deeper into content. So
when it comes to sentence correction you want to complete those answers and quickly in
about 90 seconds, right and so what you want to do on sentence correction is not look for the most
perfect sentence replacement but find the errors and again that's where your process of
elimination is going to work but more importantly the sentence correction you want to focus on, splits.
Finding a split is a very helpful strategy and there's one that help you bring great success on
the GMAT. So an example of a split is having a prompt and then noticing that there is a
disconnect and various answer choices between the preposition being used. Now,
this split may be an obvious one that helps you eliminate these answer choices
but also this could be a false split right so you want to make sure that when you identify a split
you're able to correctly identify that this is uh something that you're very comfortable with maybe
a lower hanging split. So instead of maybe focusing on an idiom or the improper use of a preposition
maybe check the noun and the antecedent make sure that they are connected. If you see that one is
plural or where one is singular you know that that is a for de facto error is incorrect you need to
eliminate that those answer choices. Look for the splits right, so when it comes to correction make
like a banana split. I know corny but it will stick with you! Remember we need to get those points.
All right my set, my fourth suggestion is making sure you understand the power of finding the
conclusion when it comes to critical reasoning. Often when I work with students I notice that they
are able to identify the conclusion but their idea of the assumptions that are connected to
that conclusion is the challenge, right. So it will be in addition to understanding the conclusion
but understand what are the assumptions underlying that conclusion. Making sure that
in a strengthening or weakening question you're not looking for
the assumption that makes this conclusion uh iron type and nor are you looking for the assumption
that destroys uh this conclusion. Think about the conclusion as a destination and you have
the premises are like a bridge from one side of a cliff to the other to weaken that bridge right.
To weaken that bridge you do not have to destroy the bridge completely you just have to put a few
chips in it to make it a bit wobbly, make it a bit uncertain and those are the underlying assumptions
that make it possible for us to link together the beginning of the statement to the conclusion.
So you want to make sure you understand the various premises but also see if there's
any weaknesses in those stories all right. So make sure you identify the conclusion but also
make note of the various premises. What I've done is that I usually uh in my mind draw like a quick
uh slight picture or a few notes on my whiteboard or on my legal pad given during the exam and just
make a little circle around the conclusion. And the fifth and final strategy I will provide to you
is the strategy of reading comprehension. So reading comprehension uh is often looked
at as a space where it becomes uh an excuse to use a lot of time because there's a lot of writing.
We have a class that I actually lead that's on skim reading uh you should check us out on Wednesdays,
live on the Magoosh platform, where we talk about the power of skim reading and understanding
how to find key words to help you leverage uh a passage to get the most out of it that you need.
So words very similar to critical reasoning like "however", "therefore" or just positioning of
different paragraphs and how they're used will help you get a better idea of what is actually
being told in a story and what is the author opinion. Majority of the time you're going to see
passages created from sentence correct from critical reasoning
that are going to have opposite points of views right and so often making a t-chart on your paper
and being able to dispel the two sides having a conversation about what the pros and the cons are.
Another tip and strategy I give for reading comprehension is creating mind maps
right where you can have your piece of paper draw circles uh in your notepad and then those
circles can represent the various paragraphs that are being displayed on the screen and
there you could put hey main ideas and paragraph one put am I uh you could put detail specific
details uh bubble two for paragraph two and so on. Uh drawing pictures for me and many of the
students I worked with was a really creative idea uh for them to really capture various stories uh
the GMAT has ways of telling us creative stories about such things as the mantle of the of earth's
earth's makeup to telling us about sea turtles and their extinction and their evolution these
are all creative stories but if you find a way to creatively connect it uh to you and make it a bit
personal. I found that that has been a better way for you to retain those stories. So, uh in summary
uh I want you to think of these five strategies to really boost your GMAT uh verbal score get
you up into those 40s. Okay so if you follow those five strategies I am almost completely sure that
you will be doing extremely well in your uh verbal section on your GMAT and if any time
you have any questions or want to rehash these out with me uh send me a note at help at Magoosh dot com
and we'll be happy to answer it for you uh and until then subscribe to the channel below
click like the message drop a comment love to hear from you and tell us more about some of your
GMAT journey. We'll love to join you along that way until then happy studying and stay sharp!