Despite reports that some schools are beginning, quietly, to accept GRE scores as well, the GMAT still reigns as the king of business school admissions exams. As important as crafting the perfect essay responses or wowing your interviewer with your interpersonal skills is scoring as high as you can on the test.
Yesterday, together with ManhattanGMAT, we hosted an MBA Info and Networking Mixer at our Philadelphia offices (thanks to all those who attended!). Of course, we know not all of our readers can make it to Philadelphia, so in addition to offering a steady flow of MBA admissions advice in this blog we’re also launching a series of tips on how to sharpen your GMAT test-taking skills.
In several posts over the next couple of weeks, we will share ManhattanGMAT’s top five GMAT test-taking strategies. Our thanks to the experts there for passing along their knowledge and insight.
And now, straight from ManhattanGMAT’s Chris Ryan, director of instructor and product development, tip number one for GMAT test-takers:
“You’ve studied all the content, you’ve done hundreds of problems, you’ve taken practice test after practice test. And now, it’s GMAT game day. You’re following all the logistics tips: you got enough sleep last night, you’ve shown up early, you haven’t eaten anything funny, you plan to take the breaks while giving yourself enough time to check back in with the proctors. But what about actually taking the test? What do you have to remember while you’re in the thick of battle.
1) Turn the page.
Imagine you’ve just clicked ‘C, Next, Confirm’ on a tough Data Sufficiency problem involving two overlapping triangles and lots of labeled angles. One of the statements was utterly baffling. You spent too much time deciding between C and E, and now you think you probably chose wrong, with your luck.
Forget all that.
You are facing a new problem. This is the only place your mind should be. Take out a ‘blank sheet of mental paper’ and dive in.
Now, as you get into this new problem, a whisper in your head tells you that the problem is too easy, so you probably got the last problem wrong, and by the way – you’re doing poorly overall.
Turn that whisper off.
You should not spend an instant of your time wondering about the past or about ‘how you’re doing.’ You truly have no idea how you’re doing – and if you did know, it wouldn’t help you anyway.
The only opportunity you have to affect your fate is THIS problem. Forget about one minute ago. Focus on the here and now, and do the problem as best as you can.”
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