Improving Verbal Score for Non-Native English Speakers

[Amith2006]

In my first attempt, I got 480/710 in Verbal/Quantitative. My poor performance in the verbal part is because English is not my native language. I particularly have difficulty in answering the Reading comprehension part. I don't think this part can be mastered by going through 4 or 5 practice tests. So, what is the way to improve on this part?

 

[Pengwuino]

From what I hear, the best way to increase your score on the verbal part is brute force reading. Read books, read the newspaper, read whatever resources you used to learn english, etc. I can't imagine any real "tricks" to doing well on verbal since the "tricks" I read about when I took it didn't work too well when I had to take the test.

 

[bucher]

Pengwuino is right. What I found most useful in terms of similar word usage and structure were the Sherlock Holmes series. The short stories should only take you about an hour or so to read through individually. But also make sure to introduce some diversity into your reading.

 

[Moonbear]

Is English a second language for you? If so, you may want to take the TOEFL if your verbal SAT scores are weak. This will help show that your problem is that English is still a foreign language for you.

If English is your native language, and reading comprehension is your weakness (rather than the obscure vocabulary they test that needs to simply be memorized), then read, read, read, read, read!

 

[Amith2006]

How about learning the meaning of root words? Has anyone approached the verbal section that way?

 

[bucher]

Learning the root of the words may help you, but you should still find text that uses those words. Memorizing is not very helpful for this section, you should mainly try and know how the words are used and in what context than knowing their exact definitions.

I mean, you should have some knowledge of what the complicated words mean. But don't sit there memorizing for exactness.