Pulling James Joyce Off The Shelf To Improve A GMAT Score

So I was thinking about how to best solve my verbal woes and upon reviewing my performance on the last test I noticed that my Reading Comprehension was not as good as normal. I seemed to be missing the questions in the upper echelon. How do I plan to reverse this verbal slide you ask? My doing something that I swore I would never do, something so vile that it makes me think of nails across a chalkboard, or styrofoam coming out of a box. I have decided to read some James Joyce. Not just any Joyce novel, but “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” I “read” this book in high-school (and by read I mean I got about half way through and then went running for the Cliff’s Notes) and I hated it so much that I swore off any further Joyce readings. I figure that if I can get through the stream of consciousness ramblings of the novel’s protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, then Reading Comp. shouldn’t be a problem for me.

Also, I am hoping that this is actually a decent book that I just didn’t give a chance in high school. It seems to be pretty critically acclaimed, so there has to be a reason, right? So this is one part of a multi-pronged assault on the GMAT. It will also entail taking a day off from work on Thursday to study more. Are any of you struggling in verbal? Quant? What are your plans of assault? Hopefully they are less painful than stream of consciousness!

This post has been adapted from Confessions of an MBA Applicant where Steve Gargiulo has been blogging since May of 2009.

Previous posts:

My Application Plans: Take Two

The Ups & Downs Of Taking Those Practice GMAT Tests

A Report on the MBA’s Tour Stop in New York City

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.