By Chris Ryan, Director of Instructor and Product
Development, ManhattanGMAT.
You've just accepted your fate. "I have to take the GMAT," you admit to
yourself. And now you admit one more thing: "No, I can't walk in and take it
cold."
So you contemplate all the research you have to do. Tomorrow you'll start
trolling the online forums, talking to friends about their GMAT-prep
experiences, and haunting the "Study Aids" aisle of your local Barnes &
Noble. But right now, you don't want to buy anything. You want general
principles. Whichever books you pick up, whatever course you take (or not) - how
should you think about preparing for the GMAT?
Here are five tips to guide you.
1) Go to the source.
Many religions have holy books, right? The Official Guides from the GMAC, in
their orange, purple and green splendor, are the holy books of the GMAT
religion. Every other book, as good as it may be, is just commentary. Only the
Official Guides contain problems retired from the real GMAT. Thus, your efforts
must be centered on the Official Guides.
The other "holy" source is GMAT Prep, the free practice-test software that
you should download from mba.com. This software has its drawbacks, but it also
has two unique benefits: it uses the real GMAT algorithm, and even more
importantly, it contains retired GMAT problems, many of which aren't in the
Official Guides. There are two tests offered on this software; you should
consider 'saving' at least one of them for later in your preparation to use as a
measuring stick. The GMAC folks have told us that they plan to release more
products soon; these should also become part of your GMAT preparation depot.
Though the GMAC sources are the best, don't ignore third-party resources. Not
surprisingly, I believe that the ManhattanGMAT resources are great. For
instance, our computer-adaptive exams supply crucial explanations and analytics
that GMAT Prep lacks. Our Strategy Guides break down the core principles and
give you lots of relevant practice.
But one way to measure the greatness of any third-party product is the degree
to which it reflects the content of the GMAT. And when it comes to the content
of the GMAT, GMAC products have no equal. (This is why ManhattanGMAT's
curriculum is built around the Official Guides, which all of our students
receive.)
2) Build up, not down.
We see it all the time: whole herds of students go running off to find
super-hard problems. "If I can crack these," the herds think, "I can do any GMAT
problem."
Don't follow the herds.
How you do on the GMAT is determined by your floor - the level of problem
that you can absolutely, positively get right every time, without hesitation or
anxiety.
So you should spend more time truly mastering the easier problems. And by
"mastering," I mean ensuring that you can do the problem, not only correctly,
but also quickly, easily and confidently under tough exam conditions - as if
Dirty Harry were leveling his .44 Magnum at you and asking if you feel
lucky.
By "mastering," I mean knowing everything there is to know about the problem
- the underlying principles, the subtle application of those principles, the
embedded tricks and traps.
I mean knowing how to teach the problem. Knowing how to write a similar
problem.
Once you have built this knowledge and skill, then progress upwards. It's
like building a brick wall - don't put the next layer on until the current layer
is in place. Of course, for top scores, you'll need to practice against some
really tough problems. But make sure all the lower levels are solid first.
3) Turn enemies into friends.
Should you play to your strengths or attack your weaknesses?
Ideally, you'll do both. But if you have to choose, especially early on -
pick the weaknesses.
Let's say you're a genius on Critical Reasoning, but you're terrible at
Sentence Correction. Which should you work on? The Sentence Correction. Why?
Because the test is adaptive. If SC is weighing your performance down, you'll
never get the really hard CR problems. You'll never get a chance to prove just
how brilliant you are with CR.
So face your demons. Eat your vegetables. You hate geometry? Then do those
problems first. Consider them the enemy plans that have fallen into your hands -
and extract all the intelligence.
Then, as you master individual enemy problems, turn them into your friends.
Become totally comfortable with them. Then, when you walk into the GMAT, none of
the questions will throw you off your game plan.
4) Mix it up.
You know you should do a lot of topic-based work - especially in your weak
areas. And you know you'll have to take practice tests to prepare for the GMAT's
adaptive format, which is both less familiar and more stressful than a
paper-based format.
That's all well and good. But don't limit yourself to topic-based work and
practice tests. Topic-based drills are indispensable, but they give you a crutch
- you already know what kind of problem you're facing. In contrast, the GMAT
throws you problems in random order by content area.
So you need to develop your eye: your ability to recognize patterns, perceive
key traits, classify problems and bring relevant strategies to bear.
In this regard, practice tests would seem to help you here - and they do. But
you can't, or shouldn't, take a practice test every day. You can burn yourself
out all too easily. After every practice exam, you need time to study the
detailed "game film," draw out lessons and fix the issues. That's several days
of work - before you take another practice exam.
So what should you do when you're not taking practice exams?
Short drills of mixed-topic problems from the Official Guides.
The GMAC has already done the prep work for you - they've jumbled up the
problems by topic but arranged them in order of difficulty. So do 5-10 problems
in a row. Don't skip any. Treat the exercise "as if" you were taking the GMAT.
And then spend double the time afterwards reviewing and mastering each
problem.
You can do this kind of drill every day, especially as you get closer to the
real exam - and your GMAT muscles will grow strong.
5) Know what you know.
It's two weeks to the exam. You've done a ton of work, and your head is kind
of swimming.
Stop making your head swim. Start reviewing and redoing problems.
At this point, it's much less important to cram new stuff into your brain
than it is to organize and strengthen what's already in there.
Don't worry about trying to cover everything under the sun. Instead, go for
depth over breadth. Force yourself to revisit problems you "think" you know.
You'll be surprised at what you don't really know.
Master a few representative problems from each topic tested on the GMAT. Know
everything about these problems. For each one, have a crystal-clear approach
plan - and also a Plan B, C, and even D - that you can execute correctly,
quickly, easily and confidently while taking enemy fire.
Now work those problems again until you've licked them. You want to walk into
the exam with a bunch of friends - that is, Official Guide problems that you
know cold, inside and out.
Oh yeah - you should take one or two more practice exams in the last couple
of weeks, but don't overdo it!
With these principles in hand, you'll be well-equipped to study for the GMAT
in order to put your best foot forward on test day. But bear in mind that
nothing will replace good old-fashioned elbow grease - statistics from GMAC show
that the amount of time spent studying, both in terms of hours and weeks,
correlates positively to performance on the test (100+ hours and 8+ weeks for
the best average results, if you're curious). Let's call this Tip #6 - there
aren't any shortcuts to success on the GMAT!