The students, who desire to crack foreign studies competitive exams such as GRE and GMAT, need to make a systematic study schedule. They should not only plan time management but also a step-by-step learning process, from basic to advanced level.
The verbal section of GRE and GMAT exams is an objective one with each question having its own options from which the students have to select the right answer. This section has different question types and each tests a different skill. With an experience of more then 10 years in GRE coaching in ahmedabad and GMAT coaching in ahmedabad, I will share with you some important points related to verbal section of both exams. In GRE, there are three types of questions: Sentence Completion, Reading Comprehension and Logical Reasoning. Sentence Completion questions test the students on Logic, Comprehension and Diction. Sentences are given with blanks. Each blank has its own options and the vocabulary used in the options is generally unheard of for majority of the students. Learning and memorizing the meanings of various words used in formal correspondence is one of the challenges of GRE Verbal section. The higher difficulty level questions go on to test not only the denotation but also the connotation of the words. Reading Comprehension questions test how accurately the students are able to comprehend the information given the passage. Only the most discerning students can weed out the incorrect options and choose the right one in terms of information given in the passage. Logical Reasoning questions test the reasoning ability of the students in the context of a specific line of reasoning presented in a small paragraph. The students need to concentrate on each and every word in the passage and even in the options because a slight difference in the wording can change the logic of the option, making it either right or wrong in the reference of the given passage. In GMAT also there are three types of questions: Sentence Correction, Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. Sentence Correction questions test the students on grammar rules of formal written English. Technical minutiae of grammar need to be learnt and grammatical errors in the given sentence need to be identified and corrected. The option that is grammatically the best replacement of the given sentence or a part of it, as well as the one that effectively expresses the intended meaning, is the best answer. Reading Comprehension questions of GMAT are similar to GRE Reading Comprehension questions except for the topics that generally cover more business and management areas. Critical Reasoning questions of GMAT are also similar to GRE Logical Reasoning questions but mostly the paragraph is longer and difficulty level of logic is also generally higher. Hence, in both GRE and GMAT, the ability to find the right answer and to eliminate the wrong options go hand-in-hand. Having taught numerous students in the capacity of a verbal faculty, I have firsthand experience of the difficulties that students face when they prepare for this section. Thus, I suggest following the below mentioned methodological approach while preparing for the verbal section of GRE and GMAT exams. STEP 1 The first difficulty that the students encounter is of understanding the right way of solving the given question. There are different types of questions in the verbal section of GRE and GMAT exams and each question type needs to be cracked with its own particular approach. So, understand the theory/method of solving these questions. If you get the approach wrong, you get the answer wrong. STEP 2 The second level of learning requires solving many questions from GRE/GMAT specific material and understanding the reasoning behind the right answer. If you understand the logic of the answer, your thinking will be directed on the right way of solving these questions. STEP 3 The third level difficulty that the students need to overcome is of eliminating the wrong options. Surprisingly, if you solve a question and get a wrong answer, then it is ‘good’! The reason being that you learn why and where your thinking was wrong and so the cliché, 'people learn from their own mistakes', helps! How useful it is to understand the logic of the wrong options? Students often complain that they cannot confidently select the right answer even after solving the question because they get confused after reading the given options, which in most of the cases are quite close to one another. See! There you are! The answer is as simple as it gives you the confidence of selecting the right option from the given ones as you are able to eliminate the wrong ones. Consequently, solving the Verbal section advances more towards rationality than chance. It is not sufficient to understand why an option is the right answer, but it is also equally important to understand why the other options are incorrect. If you understand the right reasoning underlying the wrong answers you get, you gradually start understanding the same and thus avoid repeating the mistake in other questions that you solve. This helps you to identify the wrong options with certainty. To sum up, adopting the right strategy to solve the Verbal section channelizes your efforts in the right direction and increases the probability of getting the correct answer.
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AuthorJyoti Mulchandani Archives
September 2017
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