I have a general SC and CR question.

On SC, I seem to get lost going through the answer choices and finding the splits, especially when they are long. My accuracy is not so bad but the time that I take is just too long. I'm taking about 2.5 minutes to answer a question. Can you suggest a way to quickly eliminate and identify splits?

On CR, I notice that if I diagram, I spend about 50 seconds to 1:20 on just diagramming. To try and cut down that time, I resorted to just writing the conclusion on my T-diagram and omit all the other details but I'm still around a minute mark. Can you suggest what I can do to improve my timing? Or, should I approach the CR questions like RC-specific questions, as in, do a quick read and then reread based on the answer choices?

Thanks in advance!

For CR, keep in mind that on the test you won't need to diagram every problem, because sometimes the question is easy enough to answer without a diagram. But you should get plenty of practice diagramming before the GMAT, because you never know when you'll need to use that skill. For those problems where you need to diagram, one minute is not too long to spend and you probably will have bought that time back elsewhere..

For SC, you just need to train yourself to spot issues. Get really good at identifying parts of speech, especially conjunctions, pronouns, and prepositions. Make sure you can also quickly identify the main subject and verb as well as any secondary subjects and verbs. This is just a matter of practicing over and over again. Start by going back to problems you've already done from the OG, and go through the exercises i describe above. Then once you're really good at this, you can try it on new problems..

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

can anyon eadvice on cr stategdies. all of a sudden my questions are going wrong and i am taking too much of time as well

this really needs to go in the general verbal forum. i was nice and answered the first question, but if we're going to start an entire thread about strategy let's make sure it goes in the correct forum..

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor