Verbal Triage For GMAT | Verbal for GMAT PDF Download

For many students, it is difficult to get through the entire GMAT Verbal section in the allotted time. It's a lot of reading and analysis, and it's not a lot of fun.

Verbal Triage

A ground-breaking EMPOWER tactic that will help you to crush the quant section by quickly moving past the questions that don’t matter. It’s also helpful in aiding you to take an educated guess on any question that you’re “stuck” on.

• Of the two Verbal question types, Reading Comprehension requires the biggest time investment. More specifically, the first question that accompanies each passage.
• We recommend that you spend 3-4 minutes per passage, then between 30-60 seconds per question. The second, third, and fourth questions, then, should only take that additional minute or less. But committing to that first question can take up to five minutes. If you read more slowly than average, it can be even more.
• In a perfect world of optimal time management, five minutes on that first question is fine. If you're struggling to beat the clock, it can destroy your Verbal score.
• With that in mind, here is an "emergency" approach to make up time on GMAT Reading Comprehension:

1. Scan the passage, focusing on structure, topic sentences, and the author's opinion. Don't bother with details. To prepare for this, read my article about how to learn to recognize the important parts. This should take no more than two minutes. You may be able to accomplish it in 60-90 seconds.

2. Treat each type of question differently:

• Scope-based questions ("global" or "main topic"): Answer it. A skillful skim of the passage should have given you enough information.
• Detail-based questions: Try to answer it. Your skim should be enough to go back to the passage and look for the detail.
• Inference-based questions: Unless you have a reasonably good idea about how to answer this question, guess and move on. Even on Verbal questions, guessing is ok.
• Structure-based questions: Same as scope-based. If you did a good job skimming, you should have a good chance of getting this right.

With this approach, you can save at least two or three minutes on a passage. The cost may be no more than one wrong answer. Better one wrong answer than three questions missed at the end of the section because you ran out of time!

Of course, if you do struggle with time management on the Verbal section, keep working on it. You may not need to take an "emergency" approach by the time you sit for the exam.

If you continue to have a hard time with the pace of GMAT Verbal, this is a great way to get through the section at minimal cost.

Critical Reasoning

Strengthen/Weaken/Assumption/Evaluate a Plan

Focus Bombing:
 Right answers for these questions must meet these two criteria:
 1. Who is the argument about?
 2. What are they doing?

Eliminate answers that are out of the logical focus of the argument.

Inference:

Wrong answers tend to use exaggerated language (all, none, will)

Reading Comprehension

Purpose

Focus Bombing:
Right answers for purpose questions must meet these two criteria
1. Who is the passage or part of the passage about?
2. What is the author doing?

Eliminate answers that are out of the logical focus of the passage.

Inference:

Wrong answers tend to use exaggerated language (all, none, will) Right answers are extremely unlikely to repeat a line of exact or nearly exact text from the passage

Detail

Tempting wrong answers tend to draw on correct ideas, but slightly alter an aspect of what was stated that renders the option wrong.

Verbal Questions Worth Triage-ing

As a general rule, these Verbal question types tend to be more ripe Triage targets:
1. CR Bolded Statement Questions.
2. CR & RC Tedious EXCEPT questions.
3. RC Detail questions that require EXTENSIVE passage revisits.