I have taken GMAT 3 times over the past one-and-a-half-year. And my verbal scores are: 21, 18 and 20. I have done OG-10 3 times and OG-11 twice. My correction rate on these books has improved from avg. 70% to avg. 90% during the course of my preparation. But unfortunately i am unable to improve my actual GMAT score.

I took my last attempt (3rd) in the first week of March 2008, and since then i'm doing practice questions, off and on, mostly from LSAT and GRE. Now i would like to go for my 4th attempt and will repeat OG-11 again as part of my preparation. I wonder whether i'll be able to improve my verbal score this time? My verbal GMATPrep scores are all around 35. Never get under 28 on it (and that was on my first attempt with far less practice than tioday's level).

Please advise. I'm desperate for my 4th attempt.

Nauman
Karachi, Pakistan

if the discrepancy between your gmatprep scores and your official test scores is, and remains, THAT high, then the issue probably doesn't lie in your actual knowledge of verbal content; it probably lies in some issue related to test anxiety or mental state. your gmatprep scores should correlate decently closely to your official scores - unless, of course, you're repeating the same 2 gmatprep tests over and over again, thereby inflating your scores because you're seeing a bunch of repeat questions.

you should think about the mental state in which you take the test.
* are you excessively nervous when you sit for the exam?
* do you neglect principles of time management that you normally follow when you're practicing (and thus not finish the exam, or have to rush at the end)?
* do you worry too much about things like your score trajectory, or do you glance up at the timer every 10 seconds, or do you do other things that distract you from the questions while you're taking the test?
etc.

before you dig into the o.g. for the fourth time, you should try to get to the bottom of the HUGE discrepancy between your gmatprep scores and your official scores; those are supposed to be pretty close to each other.