3 Key Practice Tips for Mastering GMAT Verbal

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Last Updated on November 23, 2023

In the quest for stellar GMAT scores to report to business schools, people diligently prepare for both the quant section and the verbal section of the GMAT, learning a multitude of concepts and then practicing hard. However, while most GMAT students see significant results from the quant side of their test prep, many are left wondering why they haven’t gotten similar results in verbal. So, what is it about GMAT verbal that leads to this difference in results, and what can GMAT students do to achieve their desired verbal scores?

The answer to these questions lies in part in what the verbal section of the GMAT tests. According to the website of the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), “The Verbal Reasoning section of the GMAT™ exam measures your ability to read and comprehend written material, reason and evaluate arguments, and correct material to express ideas effectively in standard written English.”

GMAT verbal reasoning practice

Notice that the above description of the verbal section of the GMAT mentions skills such as reading, comprehending, reasoning, and evaluating. So, what we can gather from that description is that the verbal section of the GMAT tests skill.

That information is key, because developing skill takes practice. So, what that information indicates is that practice is a key aspect of GMAT verbal success. And in fact, the most common reason why people preparing for GMAT verbal can learn about all kinds of concepts and question types and diligently prepare without getting the results they want is that their GMAT verbal prep is missing one key ingredient: effective practice.

The most common reason why people preparing for GMAT verbal can learn about all kinds of concepts and question types and diligently prepare without getting the results they want is that their GMAT verbal prep is missing one key ingredient: effective practice.

So, without further ado, let’s discuss three key tips that you can apply when doing GMAT verbal reasoning practice so that you master GMAT verbal and achieve your verbal score goal.

Tip #1: To Develop Strong GMAT Verbal Skills, Do Most of Your Practice Untimed

My first, and possibly most important, tip for anyone seeking to develop the kind of strong GMAT verbal skills that result in a high verbal section score is to do most of your verbal practice untimed. In fact, whenever someone contacts me wondering why he or she isn’t seeing improvement in his or her verbal score, one of my first questions is “How much time do you typically spend on each practice question?” If the answer is that the person has been setting a timer and answering practice questions in under two minutes each, I know we’ve found one key thing that person can do to get better results: turn off the timer and take as much time as needed to fully understand each question and arrive at a correct answer.

Now, you might be surprised by, or even skeptical about, this tip because you’re aware that the verbal reasoning section of the GMAT gives you 65 minutes to answer 36 questions, or about 1:48 on average for each question. If so, you’re certainly not alone. Many people have the impression that the best way to prepare to answer GMAT questions at test pace is to replicate that pace when practicing. However, the truth is that untimed practice actually works much better than timed practice for developing the ability to correctly answer verbal questions in 1:48 each, and here’s why.

The reason why you’ll be able to correctly answer a tricky GMAT Sentence Correction, Critical Reasoning, or Reading Comprehension question in under two minutes on test day won’t be that you’ve raced through hundreds of practice questions. The reason will be that you’re so skilled that you can readily answer a verbal question in that amount of time, and the best way to develop that level of skill is to practice untimed. After all, when you take the time necessary for fully analyzing a question, noticing key details, and carefully using logic to arrive at a correct answer, you give yourself the time you need to develop your skills.

So, when you’re answering verbal practice questions, take all the time you need for carefully reading the passage, analyzing the underlined part of a sentence, evaluating the argument, or doing whatever else you need to do in order to get the questions correct. In other words, shoot for full understanding and high accuracy, regardless of whether you have to spend 5, 20, or 30 minutes on a question to do so.

Sure, when you’re close to test day, you can push yourself to answer verbal practice questions at test pace. Also, you’ll answer verbal questions at test pace when you take GMAT practice tests. However, for most of your verbal GMAT prep, practice untimed.

TTP PRO TIP:

For best results, do most of your GMAT verbal practice untimed.

Tip #2: When Practicing GMAT Verbal, Treat Every Answer Choice as a Question

This next tip involves the following key difference between GMAT quant questions and GMAT verbal questions. In most cases, when you answer a quant question, you’re concerned with only one of the five answer choices, the correct answer. On the other hand, when you answer a verbal question, you have to consider all five answer choices to eliminate four of them and choose one.

What this difference means is that, for best results, you should practice answering verbal questions differently from how you practice answering quant questions. Specifically, it means that, when you’re training for the GMAT, you should treat every verbal answer choice as a question to be completely understood and answered.

When you’re training for the GMAT, you should treat every verbal answer choice as a question to be completely understood and answered.

For instance, when answering a certain Critical Reasoning question, you might get the impression that choice (B) is the correct answer, and you might be correct. However, are you clear about why choice (C) is incorrect, or about how choice (A) relates to the argument in the passage? If not, then, for practice purposes, you haven’t completed the question, and here’s why.

Even if you get a verbal question correct, if you don’t clearly understand why every incorrect choice in that question is incorrect, then you have gaps in your knowledge or skill set. Right? For instance, if you get a Weaken the Argument Critical Reasoning question correct but aren’t really clear about why one of the incorrect choices doesn’t weaken the argument, then next time you see a similar choice, you may incorrectly decide that it does weaken the argument. Similarly, if you aren’t really sure why a Sentence Correction choice is incorrect and eliminate it just because part of the sentence “sounds funny,” you likely have a gap in your SC knowledge or skill set that you need to fill if you’re going to correctly answer Sentence Correction questions quickly and consistently.

So, your move when practicing is to stick with each practice question and wait to select a choice until you fully understand why all five choices in that question are either incorrect or correct. Practicing in that way, you’ll develop strong skills and truly master GMAT verbal. And, by the way, you’ll also get more value out of each practice question and be less likely to run out of verbal practice questions before you’re finished with your GMAT prep.

TTP PRO TIP:

For best results, stick with each verbal practice question you see until you fully understand why every choice is incorrect or correct.

Tip #3: Learn to Be Aware of Whether You Have Solidly Supported Your Answer

Another key difference between answering GMAT quant questions and answering GMAT verbal questions that you should take into account when practicing for verbal is the following. Whereas it’s generally pretty clear when you’ve completed a quant question, you can sort of decide at any time that you’ve completed a verbal question.

For example, if to answer a quant question, you have to find the rate of cyclist A, you know that you haven’t completed the question until you have found that rate. On the other hand, if you’re answering a Critical Reasoning question, you can decide that you’ve completed it at various points, such as when you see a choice that looks like what you expected to see, when you’ve eliminated most of the choices and guessed between the last two, or when you’ve fully analyzed all five choices and used solid logic to determine with virtual certainty which choice is the correct answer.

So, here’s the thing. Since there’s no defining moment in answering a verbal question when you finally arrive at an answer the way there is in answering a quant question, you have to learn to be aware of when you’ve completed the question without such a defining moment. So, how do you know you’ve completed the question? You’ve completed a verbal question when you have used solid logic to determine with virtual certainty which choice is the correct answer. So, to know whether you have completed a verbal practice question, you have to learn to be aware of whether you have solidly supported your answer.

For example, if you have a vague hunch that choice (B) in a Sentence Correction question is the correct answer, you haven’t completed the question. On the other hand, if you’ve found clear errors in every choice but (B) and carefully determined that choice (B) effectively conveys a meaning that makes sense, you’ve solidly supported your answer and completed the question.

Similarly, simply seeing that the wording of a Reading Comprehension answer choice resembles wording in the passage is not a solid reason for choosing that choice. Noticing that some choices say extreme things or include certain words that incorrect choices often include is not a solid reason for choosing a choice either. On the other hand, if you’ve found a choice that is well supported by the passage and eliminated all the other choices for clear reasons that you could explain to anyone, then you’ve solidly supported your answer and completed that RC question.

The bottom line here is that, if you learn to be aware of whether you’ve solidly supported your answer and work on each verbal practice question until you achieve that solid support and truly complete the question, you’ll develop strong skills and consistently get GMAT verbal questions correct.

TTP PRO TIP:

For best results, work on each verbal question you see until you’ve solidly supported your answer and truly completed the question.

By practicing for GMAT verbal in the ways I’ve laid out in this article, you can maximize the results of your preparation and master GMAT verbal. For more insights into how to increase your GMAT verbal score, check out this post on how to score high on GMAT verbal and this one on improving your accuracy.

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