Even when I formulate the question, I can see how hard it is to answer it but i still what to get it out of my system.

I have 1 month left to take my exam. And I am trying to improve my raw score on the verbal section. That is my weakest point. Out of the 41 questions, I get 8 to 12 incorrect. It used to be 18 to 15. I have started paying better attention to the structure of the questions. My aim is to bring it down to 4. Is this a correct way of setting up a challenge?

Not really. :) It would be incredibly difficult to get the number wrong down to 4 - that would be a 99th percentile score.

Percentage correct is not the primary determinant of your score; difficult level of the questions you are answering is the primary determinant. So, as you get better, you also get harder questions, which means you're going to keep getting some wrong. :)

8 to 12 incorrect is typically already a very good score (assuming you're using a practice test that mimics the real test's algorithm). What raw scores are you achieving now?

_________________
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT

I just love it when I get an answer as soon as I post a question. You are a great companion, Stacey Thanks.

The adaptive nature of this test is very interesting. It is like playing "Who wants to be a millionaire?" though there is no phone a friend option. OK yes the test sort of forces you to get an answer incorrect. Interesting that on the overall 4 wrong answers would put you in the 99%.

Currently

Verbal 31 (out of the standard 41)
Quantitative 30 (out of the standard 37)

The practical test doesn't mimic the algorithm. And that's the problem. I am planning to take the MGMAT CAT tests but I am leaving that for next week. I don't want to give them a stab before I feel confident.

yes, stacey is right: it's important not to get too caught up in the number of correct responses.

full disclosure:
on the QUANT section, your number of correct and incorrect answers shouldn't vary too much at all, unless you're at one of the tails of the score distribution (IE close to 200 or 800). this is because quant questions are scored and calibrated VERY precisely, so that they can adapt to your performance almost in realtime.

on the VERBAL section, though, you're more likely to see some sort of correlation between # of questions correct and score, even at middling score levels.
this is so because verbal questions, by their nature, are less exactly calibrated to "difficulty level" than are math questions. (in other words, it's usually less clear whether a verbal question is "hard" or "easy" than it would be for a math question.)

nonetheless, both correlations are weak, and it's thus a bad idea to focus on the numbers of questions correct vs. incorrect.
this is a bad idea not least because that sort of focus will lead you to have poor time management. in other words, if you're overly focused on the number of questions correct, you may wind up spending way too much time on individual questions, just so that you don't get anything wrong (or so you think). that's the wrong attitude; it's perfectly advisable to throw away a question here and there if it's too difficult.

good luck!