Josh gave a GMAT talk at the QS World MBA Tour in Silicon Valley in October 2014. Some of the more diligent attendees were furiously scribbling notes, so we hope you too will find it informative. Josh was actually told by a GMAC representative that she hears all of the major test prep firms’ GMAT presentations and she rarely sees fresh insight, but Josh's was new and did not contain falsities about the GMAT (which she revealed are common in test prep firm presentations). She then invited Josh to the GMAT Test Prep Summit (an invite-only event hosted by GMAC), which he was very excited to attend!
Below you will find the notes for the talk, Holistic Considerations for GMAT Study.
Below you will find the notes for the talk, Holistic Considerations for GMAT Study.
Show of hands: How many people want to raise their score by less than 50 points? More than 50 points? How many people have a sense of how long that’s going to take?
According to GMAC,
According to GMAC,
The figure reports the average number of hours that students spend studying. (Details of the student sample are not provided.) Note that these figures are self-reported, and students probably underestimated/understated the number of hours they spent studying. Note also that these figures do not describe people trying to move up, from one score bracket to another, as you are trying to do--They only describe how many hours a person studied for a given score level. Your actual number will be significantly higher.
The average student takes 2+ hours of self-study per point increase, and more time-per-point at the higher range.
Surely there’s a better way…
"If you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done." To see a significant score increase, it's not enough to just apply your existing strategies faster, or be able to answer more difficult questions. You need to restructure your entire approach to conceptualizing the questions. You must strategically choose the most efficient process of arriving at the correct answer. It’s much easier to climb a mountain if you can see the terrain from afar before you begin climbing. This is true for individual questions as well as for your entire study plan.
There are many better/faster alternative ways to think about the questions, but we don’t have time to go into them here. (Indeed, it is my role as private tutor to teach you how to think differently, a process that takes time.) But just one example:
There are many ways to represent Quant information: algebraically, graphically, tabularly, numerically. Sometimes one is much better suited. If you can graph an absolute value question, it could take 15 seconds to solve, versus solving it algebraically which could take well over 2 minutes. Be flexible, adaptable. This could make things go 2-10 times faster or slower, allowing you more time for the difficult questions.
Outline of the Rest of This Talk
-Peripheral Skills You Can Quickly Pick Up
-Things to Avoid
-Keep in Mind When Using Study Materials
-Time Management Tips
-Seeking Outside Help
Peripheral Skills
Things to Avoid
Things to Keep in Mind When Using Study Materials
Time Management
-Quant is about 2 minutes per question, but Verbal has 3 question types. I recommend 2-3 min for RC passages, and 75-90s for each verbal question. Just write a few key words per paragraph if you need to reference it later.
-RC: Don’t get bogged down in details. Read for big picture and overall organization. Tradeoff between speed and comprehension.
-CR Read the question stem first (weaken, strengthen, etc)
-Quant: Tradeoff between writing more and saving time, but the vast majority of applicants do many unnecessary calculations, such as simplifying at the end rather than the beginning.
-Data Sufficiency (can you answer a question given additional info): In the earlier phases of study you will want to solve the problem completely. In GMAT mode, you do not want to waste time solving the problem if you can see that the problem *can* be solved. A general and very helpful tool is that if you have 2 variables, you need at least 2 independent equations with those variables. That will take you a long way in the 600-700 range. For 700+, you’ll need a few more strategies.
-ABCDE. Write this out once, as the header of a table, at the beginning of the Verbal section. Then when you get to a difficult problem, you can put an X for the answer choices that are incorrect so you can devote your attention only to the remaining possible answer choices.
Seeking Outside Help
Ask a test prep company or private instructor what their hourly GMAT tutoring score-increase rate is. Few are willing to release that information (because it’s not very good)!
The average student takes 2+ hours of self-study per point increase, and more time-per-point at the higher range.
Surely there’s a better way…
"If you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done." To see a significant score increase, it's not enough to just apply your existing strategies faster, or be able to answer more difficult questions. You need to restructure your entire approach to conceptualizing the questions. You must strategically choose the most efficient process of arriving at the correct answer. It’s much easier to climb a mountain if you can see the terrain from afar before you begin climbing. This is true for individual questions as well as for your entire study plan.
There are many better/faster alternative ways to think about the questions, but we don’t have time to go into them here. (Indeed, it is my role as private tutor to teach you how to think differently, a process that takes time.) But just one example:
There are many ways to represent Quant information: algebraically, graphically, tabularly, numerically. Sometimes one is much better suited. If you can graph an absolute value question, it could take 15 seconds to solve, versus solving it algebraically which could take well over 2 minutes. Be flexible, adaptable. This could make things go 2-10 times faster or slower, allowing you more time for the difficult questions.
Outline of the Rest of This Talk
-Peripheral Skills You Can Quickly Pick Up
-Things to Avoid
-Keep in Mind When Using Study Materials
-Time Management Tips
-Seeking Outside Help
Peripheral Skills
- Speedreading alone could account for 10-30 points. There are two primary techniques, one for less eye motion, and one for dissociating your mental reading from speech. Do people know their words per minute? You can find a test here. It’s difficult to break a score of 700 if your wpm is less than 400, unless you have a phenomenal memory.
- Working Memory This is especially useful on the verbal section. You need to know what was unique about each answer choice (so you know which ones to eliminate and so you don’t have to reread them), what was/wasn’t said (after reading answer choices), where something was mentioned in an RC passage, your train of thought on quant questions. It’s worthwhile to do exercises that build working memory if that’s a struggle (card-matching game, lumosity, etc). Speaking of exercise,
- Exercise The GMAT is a marathon, and you need to sustain your peak concentration for almost 4 hours. You do not want to burn out before the test is done. Mind and body are one. Focus on cardio/endurance training.
Things to Avoid
- “I’m Ok On Verbal...” That may be true, but wouldn’t you rather be competitive on Verbal? Depending on your current score, an extra Verbal point could actually boost your score more than an extra Quant point. Verbal is about logic/elimination like quant, so some of the Q skills transfer to V. Many students focus all/most of their energy on quant when they would be better off diversifying. The Verbal section, unlike the Quant section, does not draw on as wide a range of learnable skills. Unless you’re already at V45, you might get additional points from Verbal faster than additional points from Quant! Don’t leave points on the table. For most scores, an additional 1-2 Verbal points is another 10 total score points. Practice with past LSAT exams if you want a high Verbal score.
- Poor Resource Management
-Answer Explanations: Make sure you can clearly state why every wrong answer is wrong and not just why the right answer is right, so you learn to recognize trap answers.
-Practice Tests: Use one every 20-50 hours of study, depending how much time you have. Some students burn through practice exams without learning anything in between--This wastes the tests as well as your time. -GMAC Materials: Save them for the end since they are the real deal. You don’t want to have developed habits suited for questions that test prep companies have developed. Most of you have probably already used GMAC materials and that’s fine, but since you have more work to do, I recommend using other materials first, then returning to GMAC after (especially with aid).
- Anxiety/Perfectionism: Be aware of how anxiety during the test hampers your performance. I know a lot hinges on your score, but accept that you will miss a certain percentage of questions (15-30%), regardless of your skill level. The test is adaptive so the more you get right, the more difficult the questions you will get. You could score 760 and still miss 8 (hard) questions on each Q/V section. You have to keep moving. Dwelling on problems only holds you back. Once you finish a question, it’s out of sight, out of mind. The same is true when you're studying: don't spend too much time on any one topic. Just remember, 80% of a lot is better than 100% of a little. This also applies to your study. Focus on the big picture, and don’t spend too much time on one topic. Diminishing marginal returns.
Things to Keep in Mind When Using Study Materials
- Content familiarity before speed. Work on getting harder questions right, then getting them right quickly.
- Learning mode vs exam mode. The approaches you take to solving questions will be different (much more time consuming) in learning mode than in exam mode.
- The right answer vs how to get there. The solutions provided in test prep materials (even OG) only show why the correct answer is correct/incorrect answers incorrect, but are not the actual process you would take in the exam, or even the fastest way for you to get to the answer. The books are intended to be useful for everyone, but we all vary widely in our abilities, so they alone will not take you to your peak performance. They just serve as a basis for comparison so you can choose what works best for you.
- Nonideal Verbal strategies. Verbal strategies suggested by test prep firms are often far from ideal. You don’t want to waste precious time on RC with complex abbreviation schemes, or writing out entire sentence-long summaries. That might be helpful in the learning phase, but not in exam mode. Just a few key words per paragraph so you can know where to look if you need to glance back quickly.
Time Management
-Quant is about 2 minutes per question, but Verbal has 3 question types. I recommend 2-3 min for RC passages, and 75-90s for each verbal question. Just write a few key words per paragraph if you need to reference it later.
-RC: Don’t get bogged down in details. Read for big picture and overall organization. Tradeoff between speed and comprehension.
-CR Read the question stem first (weaken, strengthen, etc)
- AWA Basically CR but much more detailed. Apply every critical reasoning tool to the Writing prompt.
-Quant: Tradeoff between writing more and saving time, but the vast majority of applicants do many unnecessary calculations, such as simplifying at the end rather than the beginning.
-Data Sufficiency (can you answer a question given additional info): In the earlier phases of study you will want to solve the problem completely. In GMAT mode, you do not want to waste time solving the problem if you can see that the problem *can* be solved. A general and very helpful tool is that if you have 2 variables, you need at least 2 independent equations with those variables. That will take you a long way in the 600-700 range. For 700+, you’ll need a few more strategies.
-ABCDE. Write this out once, as the header of a table, at the beginning of the Verbal section. Then when you get to a difficult problem, you can put an X for the answer choices that are incorrect so you can devote your attention only to the remaining possible answer choices.
Seeking Outside Help
- Self-study If you have less than 40 points to go and more than 60 study-hours to do it, you may be fine with self-study, unless you’ve already plateaued, or your current score is already above 700 (since higher scores are more dense/require more effort to penetrate).
- Class It’s unusual for students to gain more than 40 points from a class, at least points they wouldn’t have otherwise gotten from disciplined self-study. Classes aren’t ideal since students solve the problems publicly, taking up valuable group time, so you can’t learn at your optimal rate.
- Private Instruction If you want to gain more than 10 points per week (10 points per 10 hours of study) or >50 points total, consider hiring a private GMAT instructor. My students see their scores rise by between 3 and 7 points per tutoring hour, depending on their starting score and how disciplined they are. While it’s the most expensive option, the score increase rate with private instruction is also the highest. (In the big picture, the cost of hiring a private tutor will be tiny compared to the increase in life-time earnings from having your MBA, your potential high-GMAT tuition discounts, and the cost of your MBA.) That being said, many test prep companies take around 70-80% of what they charge for private instructors, so an instructor working for company will most likely not be as high quality as an experienced independent, but will cost just as much (or more). Also they’re usually working part-time and teaching is not their primary profession. If you can find someone independent who has extensive experience, instructing full-time, then they’re a real gem.
Ask a test prep company or private instructor what their hourly GMAT tutoring score-increase rate is. Few are willing to release that information (because it’s not very good)!