Your GMAT
scores play a critical role in defining your prospects of getting accepted in
the right school and program. With competition getting stiffer every year, you
want to make sure that you optimize what you learn at the GMAT coaching classes and work hard to improve your scores.
Here are a
few tips to consider that will help you push your scores up –
·
Planning Ahead
You cannot
just decide to sit for the GMAT and come out of the exam hall with a score in
the 99th percentile. Regardless of how fine your mathematic,
reasoning and language skills are, the GMAT exam is a challenging one to give.
It is estimated that a student needs at least a 100 hours of solid study time
to be able to do well in this competitive exam. While many students end up putting
in these hours over three weeks before the exam date, it is recommended that
you spread out these hours evenly and over a longer time frame to maintain your
mental and emotional health and to eventually contribute to a great score. It
is ideal to start preparing three months before your exam date.
·
Recognize your Strengths and Hone Them
Many students
only focus on those sections where they get the most answers wrong. However, it
is important to understand that just because you get the answers right in the
others, does not mean that your approach towards them is the most efficient
one. Considering that your GMAT exam is a race against time, you also need to
focus on fine tuning your strengths to improve efficiency, leaving more time
for you to spend on your week spots.
·
Focus at More than Just the Hard Questions
While
studying for the hard stuff first may be the best approach in most written
tests, in case of the GMAT you may have to alter this a little. Remember that
this competitive exam is a computer-adaptive one. This means that the test
tends to get increasingly difficult with every question that you have a correct
answer to. The questions are typically ranked as per difficulty and often range
between moderately difficult to diabolically challenging. The easier questions
demand different testing strategies and hence require you to master your
basics. Or else, chances are that you will never make it to the hard questions
in your exam.
·
Mastering the English Section
For a
majority of test takers, GMAT isn’t their native language. Especially if this
holds true for you, you need to work harder in acquiring a good understanding
of English to achieve a decent score. Not only because the test includes a
verbal section, but because you don’t want language to be a barrier when
solving questions from other sections. If you haven’t studied math in English,
ask your best GMAT coaching professors
to help you get familiar with math related vocabulary. Spend time reading news
articles in technology, science, finance and other subjects in the English
language.
·
Recognize your Weaknesses and Plan around them
While the
goal may be to master every topic, and solve even the most challenging problems
by the time it is exam day, GMAT as a test may not necessarily reward
perseverance. Considering that you have less than 120 seconds to answer a
question, spending a lot of time on a single question is not the ideal
approach. If you are aware of your weakness towards a specific concept or
topic, you may want to save time working out the answer.
It is
believed that your score can often actually improve by guessing the answer for
those questions and moving on. Focus your valuable time on questions you are
able to answer.
Summary
