![\"Manhattan](\"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2017\/10\/gmat-verbal-getting-right-last-two-james-brock.png\")
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Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We\u2019re not kidding! <\/i><\/b>Check out our upcoming courses here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n <\/i><\/b>You\u2019re working through a GMAT Verbal question, following your process, eliminating wrong answers, doing everything right. You get down to two, they both sound good, so you choose one and move on. Check the answer, and it was actually the other one! Sound familiar?<\/span><\/p>\n Choosing wrongly between the last two on GMAT Verbal is one of the most common wrong answer patterns, and it can be very frustrating to try to fix because you\u2019re basically doing everything right and understanding the questions, just not quite finishing off. The good news is that there is hope and you can get better in this area!<\/span><\/p>\n First, you need to realize the value of improving in this particular area of GMAT Verbal. One of the reasons Verbal scores often stagnate is because studying Verbal is not quite as cut-and-dry as studying Quant. When you get a Quant question wrong, you often know it and feel it because you feel completely lost. These GMAT Verbal \u201cwrong between the last two\u201d questions don\u2019t feel nearly as bad, because you basically understand them, but they\u2019re still just as wrong! So if you can make concrete improvements on your choice between the last two, you can actually see a bump in your GMAT Verbal score.<\/span><\/p>\n So, how do you actually improve? The big idea is pretty simple, actually…<\/span><\/p>\n When you get down to the last two, the combination of generalized time pressure (whether you\u2019re actually behind on time or not) and a little bit of tiredness from working through the problem so far conspire to push you to just choose and move on. In addition, sometimes you get a little fuzzy on what exactly the question was by the time you\u2019ve eliminated the first three, and then you end up making a bad choice.<\/span><\/p>\n Instead of rushing through, train yourself to take an explicit pause before you make your final choice. In that pause, you can re-focus on exactly what you\u2019re looking for and make a good decision. Sometimes when you take that step back, the answer becomes very clear; sometimes it\u2019s still murky and you\u2019ll need to take a sensible guess.<\/span><\/p>\n On Sentence Correction<\/b>, pause and re-focus by fully reading the last two answer choices in the context of the sentence. Look for the differences between them. Sometimes this re-focus will show you a clear grammatical error in one of them, but very often, neither will have a clear grammatical error. In that case, be cautious about \u201cmaking up a grammar rule\u201d (i.e. \u201cit needs to be a participle rather than an infinitive\u201d or \u201cit must be this word instead of that word\u201d). Instead, <\/span>consider the meaning<\/b>; very often, the key to choosing between the last two is a meaning difference.<\/span><\/p>\n On Critical Reasoning<\/b>, pause and re-focus by re-stating the goal (step #3 of the Manhattan Prep 4-step CR process). This helps you focus on exactly what you\u2019re looking for and clarify between the last two. If you\u2019re still not sure, the rule of thumb is <\/span>guess the weird answer<\/b><\/a>. Often there is one answer that is fairly clear in what it means, but it\u2019s kind of a stretch to make it fit. The other answer is one that is just weird. You basically know the clear one is wrong, so choose the weird one!<\/span><\/p>\n On Reading Comprehension<\/b>, pause and re-focus by re-checking the language of the question and the specific proof in the passage (if it\u2019s a detail question). If that doesn\u2019t clarify things, you can <\/span>guess the wishy-washy answer<\/b>. By \u201cwishy-washy,\u201d I mean the answer that requires the lowest standard of proof (i.e. \u201cit\u2019s possible that there is an alternative explanation\u201d is more likely than \u201cthe scientists\u2019 theory was wrong\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n So on your next GMAT Verbal problem set, make an explicit effort to pause and re-focus on your last two and see what happens! ?<\/span><\/p>\n Want some more amazing GMAT tips from James? Attend the first session of one of his <\/i><\/b>upcoming GMAT courses<\/i><\/b><\/a> absolutely free, no strings attached. Seriously.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n James Brock<\/a> Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We\u2019re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here. You\u2019re working through a GMAT Verbal question, following your process, eliminating wrong answers, doing everything right. You get down to two, they both sound good, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,929,52871,930,2,9,10],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-14883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-current-studiers","category-gmat-prep","category-gmat-strategies","category-gmat-study-guide","category-how-to-study","category-taking-the-gmat","category-verbal-on-gmat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14883"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14913,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14883\/revisions\/14913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14883"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPause and Re-Focus<\/b><\/h4>\n
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\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d27gmszdzgfpo3.cloudfront.net\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2017\/05\/james-brock-150x150.png\")
<\/a>\u00a0is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Atlanta, Georgia.<\/strong>\u00a0He holds a B.A. in mathematics and a Master of Divinity from Covenant Seminary. James has taught and tutored everything from calculus to chess, and his 780 GMAT score allows him to share his love of teaching and standardized tests with MPrep students.\u00a0You can check out James\u2019s upcoming GMAT courses here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"