Tips & Tricks to Score High in GMAT Verbal Section

The GMAT verbal section can turn out to be complex and challenging even if you have completed a master’s in English from some top-notch University. On the other hand, some people haven’t read a book since the time they graduated but still aced the verbal section of GMAT. 

Hence, the main reason is that the candidate should follow a few basic tricks and tips to score high in the GMAT verbal section. Most people have a good amount of mathematical and analytical skills, and a maximum of them wish to use these skills to rise in the business world. One must have noticed that it is much more challenging to get a higher ranking percentile in the quantitative section than in the GMAT verbal section. After all, the entire business world is full of algorithms, statistics, metrics, and prices.

GMAT Verbal Reasoning sample questions and answers

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Types Of Questions In GMAT Verbal Section

One can differentiate themselves from the rest of the candidates by achieving a fantastic GMAT verbal score. It’s easy and a bit tricky. You may think that the quantitative section requires more attention, time, and practice. But one should equally devote their time in both the verbal as well as quantitative section. Design your timetable in such a way that you practice and work on both areas equivalently. Only then can you face the exam. 

The GMAT verbal section has a total of thirty-six questions. There are only three types of questions that are covered through all 36 questions. Let’s take a look at them.

• Critical Thinking and Reasoning: Here, one needs to answer the questions by understanding the logic lying underneath the paragraph. The paragraph will be a single one full of logical reasoning and arguments. One needs to understand the underlying rationale like assumptions, strengthening factors, and other factors to answer the question.

• Comprehension Reading: Here, a passage with multiple paragraphs will be given. You need to read the course numerous times and then answer the questions given based on the passage. Questions are generally on the content of the passage, its tone, details, and other implications.

• Correcting Sentences: These types of questions are a bit tricky and challenging to handle. Here you will be given the same sentence with five different versions of it. You need to choose the most grammatically correct, concise, and perfect version from the five versions.  

Now, let’s look into the various strategies one can apply to ace the GMAT verbal section.

Limited Knowledge Required

There is no requirement for the candidate to be a business or analytics expert. But you need to have a strong foundation regarding the basics of economics that includes cost, interest, and revenue. One should be thoroughly familiar and comfortable with basic concepts and terms from an introductory economics class. Most of the questions are based on current world business problems and scenarios.

There are certain concepts with which you must be thorough and comfortable to score high in GMAT verbal. Not that you have to master these topics but at least be sure of the basics. The topics include regulations, market, cost, revenue, earnings vs. profit, consumer-producer relationship, and more. Other vital topics include demand and supply chain relations, labor and salary, legal terms, conditions and regulations, shared resources, public property, and goods. There are more topics, but these are the major ones.

Make Comprehension Reading A Daily Habit

Getting into reading comprehensions daily is highly essential before you go on sitting for this exam. The skill you need to master is reading through the entire passage quickly to save time and understand what’s happening in the passage as fast as possible. There is no need to analyze the passage as carefully as you did while giving your boards or completing the masters in English. But you surely do not want to waste extra time going on reading and understanding the passage. 

Another thing that one needs to focus on is not just reading but equally thinking analytically while reading. Ask yourself questions like the author’s mindset while writing, strengthen the claims, assumptions, state the article must have been reported, and more. You will be facing similar kinds of questions in the GMAT verbal section. 

Try to read good quality papers and publications every day for about an hour. Business world publications such as The Economists, The Washington Post are all available online. One can easily manage their reading time in between meals, social media breaks, or commutes. Famous publications are also available through apps. Hence, reading becomes further easier and accessible.

Try To Use Your Content 

If you feel that a question or passage is becoming too difficult for you to grasp, try to put it in your own words. Try to use your own created content in your own words. Many times the paper creators intentionally use fancy words and extensive speech to bottle up your mind. They tend to use words in an inter convoluted manner. Ultimately what you need to do is understand the underlying logic of the passage. You are free to rewrite long sentences with fancy speech in plain, simple English and shorter sentences. 

Choosing between the last two options is one of the trickiest and challenging parts of the GMAT verbal section. There’s no good tip on selecting the correct option. But one can easily read through all the GMAT tricks and strategies to analyze passages. 

GMAT Verbal Question Answering Strategies

The candidate should frame up their answer first then looking at the choices because most of the options are similar, confusing, and wrong. It is not possible for anyone to guess all the correct answers. But at least your hypothetical answer will help you delete some of the incorrect options. This strategy will help you reach the right choice more easily.

A prevalent mistake in GMAT verbal is to answer something promptly that you have been reading in the passage without actually answering the question. Hence, it’s always better to reread the question twice and check whether your answer answers the question.

Strategies For Non-English Speaker

If English is not someone’s first language initially, then the GMAT exam’s verbal section will be complicated. The verbal section will be equally likely difficult for those who have no idea regarding American English but still have English as their first language. The major problem non-native English speakers may face is completing the paper within time and related issues. They can lose a significant amount of time just reading and understanding the passages. Hence, non-English speaking aspirants need to take the entire GMAT verbal section and syllabus pretty seriously. 

One needs to be fluent in English to understand the passage and quickly answer. They should focus on the GMAT verbal section thrice as more than the quantitative section. It is recommended that you study only fundamental English communication skills for the first month of the preparation.

 After that, you can switch to reading study materials for the GMAT verbal section. Start reading daily publications as already stated before. In case you are planning to devote fifteen hours for the quantitative section of GMAT, then give nearly twice to thrice that number for the verbal section of the competitive exam. 

Apart from that, you can read some specific articles on tips to master English. With that, you will be good to take the GMAT examination confidently. 

Read Through Thesaurus

Thesaurus is an excellent external resource for all English speakers who are not native. It will help you know what sort of words are used in American English regularly and interchangeably. It allows you to get a good grasp of the language in general. Always try to keep a writing pad and pen handy while reading through the thesaurus. Keep a note of all the synonymous words with similar meanings. 

If you find new words, then quickly try to learn them and use them while having daily conversations with people. If someone laughs while you speak those new words, ask them whether it was incorrect and the correct way to use them. In the end, English will turn out to be an easy language for you to communicate in.

Strategies For Sentence Correction 

Don’t forget to check out the GMAT grammatical notes that you should know to master sentence correction. When you are in extreme doubt regarding the correct option, try to go for the shorter answer. The choice which is quick, concise, and depicting the meaning is likely to be the correct answer. Sometimes use of jargon, and bombastic words are explicitly done to confuse candidates.

It would help if you abbreviated those more powerful words in your mind while reading them to avoid confusion. Try to group the wrong options and remove them. You can also check GMAT verbal section mastery techniques for other such strategies.

Conclusion

Lastly, setting a score goal is highly essential. You can read the guide on how to score a high GMAT verbal score to ensure maximum learning. Practising a good number of problems on the GMAT verbal portion and previous year’s papers can help. Therefore, with all the tips and tricks, you are good to go and ace the verbal section of the GMAT perfectly.