Tips for GMAT PREP

Tips for GMAT PREP

Many students who prepare for the GMAT test usually design the same curriculum for themselves that they find on a popular forum: get a bunch of books or online prep courses, do as many practice problems as possible, and think success will follow. I've seen it work occasionally, but this is not necessarily a great idea that promises 100% success on the test day. 

Having said that I am not trying to lower your confidence. Anybody can score high on the GMAT. It's just a matter of effort and strategy. This is a recommended GMAT study program to help you achieve that top GMAT score. It's a one-stop solution for anybody who is asking "how should I study for this exam?" Feel free to follow the whole program or to pick and choose what you like and incorporate it into your personal strategy.

Three steps to planning an effective practice session

1) Be consistent - lower your expectations of how many practice problems you'll do in a sitting, in a week, in a month, or in your entire course of preparation. The trick here is to completely understand the questions you are attempting and identifying the patterns.

2) Try to  always practice the same way--the way you'll do questions on the test.  To do this you may take simulated free tests every week to see how you performed and which areas or topics require study and improvement.

3) The third step is to set a reasonable goal for one sitting--and not take a break. Depending on how challenging the problems are relative to your current progress (as well as what types of problems you're working on), the exact number will differ.

It is important to review

After every practice test you need to review so that you know what is going wrong. You'll probably find that you missed a few of the questions because of careless errors; perhaps you missed a key "NOT", or failed to carry the one. Maybe the correct path to some of the problems became apparent only after you had worked through it the wrong way. Regardless, for every problem you missed, starred, or took too long the first time through, do it again.

Yep, that's right: do them all again.

While preparing everyday as you answer questions in the official guides or other preparation books and materials, record all your answers in this spreadsheet while you're solving questions. Get out of the habit of writing in a book; That way when you review, you can still work on questions you got correct but were slow at, or review questions you got correct but were possibly partially guessing or not in complete command of.

Do not worry much TIME CONSTRAINTS during first 15 days of PREP

When you prepare for GMAT, learn how to avoid cutting corners in order to save time. You must read the question carefully, as there is a possibility that you might come across questions that will have incorrect answer choices, so you must always read the questions twice before attempting if you are not very sure.

Right before the test, do not attempt to comprehensively review everything. Rather, it's advisable to pick a few problems you're very comfortable with and complete them under test day conditions. This is a good way to determine your level of GMAT preparedness. This also helps to get into the bubble of self confidence. But be aware of over confidence. 

Lastly think about your dream GMAT SCORE all the time.