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While many are patiently waiting for results from this year’s application cycle, a new wave of candidates are beginning to ponder the coming year. Of course, top of mind in terms of long term planning is…. taking the GMAT! Our good friend Chris Ryan, Director of Instructor and Product Development at Manhattan GMAT, recently penned a series on GMAT test taking strategies which we will be publishing on our blog as each segment is released. Enjoy today’s installment…

Top 5 GMAT Test-Taking Strategies

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?

Here are five strategies to guide you.

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.
2) Know when to fold ‘em.

You are now embroiled in a different problem, and it’s a dogfight.  This problem seduced you – you thought you knew how to solve it, but the answer you got wasn’t on the screen.  Now you’re scrambling to recheck all your math, and you can’t find any errors.  Frustrated, you feel like simply choosing the answer choice that’s in the same ballpark as the answer that you calculated. 

Now take a deep breath.

And remember that to win this war, you have to lose some battles.  Don’t be a perfectionist.  Remember that even people who get very high scores on the GMAT get a substantial proportion of questions wrong.  Be ready to cut bait and walk away.

“But,” you think to yourself angrily, “I’ve spent all this time, and now it’ll all be wasted.”

Well, maybe not.  Step back and see if you can take an intelligent guess.  Eliminate some answers if you can.  Sometimes, by giving up on Plan A, you can spot Plan B – which may not get you all the way to the right answer, but it might increase the odds.

So you give this “Plan B” idea a try – and it doesn’t work this time.  You don’t see any other way to attack this evil problem.  What do you do now?

Tell yourself the problem is experimental – and that’s why it’s so cryptic!  As many as a quarter of the questions are in fact experimental, and will not count towards your score.  Of course, you shouldn’t try to guess which ones, but if you find yourself at approximately the 2-minute mark with no way forward on a particularly dastardly problem, tell yourself that the problem probably doesn’t even count.  Then, take your shot and move on.

Save your time to invest in problems you really know how to do.
3) Do your work on the scratch paper, not in your head.

Now you get a problem involving odds and evens.  The problem looks pretty straightforward, so you start thinking, “Okay, let’s see, x odd plus y even is odd, then I multiply that odd by this other odd and I get odd.  Or I could have x be even, so then even plus even is even, then I multiply that even by odd and I get…”

Stop.  You are setting yourself up for a fall.

Your working memory can only hold a few items at a time – under the best conditions.  And studies have shown that under test pressure, the powers of your working memory shrink even further.  Remember that other odds and evens problem you did in your head while you were sitting at your kitchen table with a plate of cookies?  That problem won’t be so easy right now, here in the exam center.

Write out your steps.  Put the scenarios down on the scratch paper.  Make the process as easy on your brain as possible.

And be organized.  Be a friend to your future self – the self you’re going to be in thirty seconds, when you’re looking back over all these scribbles and trying to figure out what you just wrote down.
4) Check the time periodically  – but don’t be clock-paranoid.

Now you’re into another problem, and you’re worried you’re spending too much time.  Your eyes dart to the clock every half a minute; you can just feel the seconds dropping away, like grains of sand through the neck of an hourglass.  There go a few more.  And a few more…

Stop.  Focus on the problem you’re doing.  By checking the clock so often, you’re taking your mind off of solving the problem itself. 

Moreover, you’re liable to think you’re taking more time than you actually are.  As a result, you may put in too little effort and bail out too quickly.

Manage time by keeping to a rhythm, a kind of internal drumbeat.  Then, every so often, check the clock and figure out if you’re ahead, behind or right on pace.  You can use benchmarks (where should you be every 15 minutes?) or simply compare the time left to the number of problems remaining.  You should have 2 minutes per math problem and approximately 1 minute & 50 seconds per verbal problem (don’t compute that precisely – simply figure 2 minutes per problem, then take off about 10%).

If you’re behind, adjust your drumbeat accordingly.  You’ll need to shave seconds here and there.  Don’t try to make it all up in one fell swoop.
5) Take a moment to smile.

You’ve got 10 minutes left and 7 math problems to do.  Panic has set in.  You’re about to start randomly guessing, even though you know how to do this problem in front of you.  And you can’t help thinking that the whole exam has gone horribly wrong.

Okay, this last prescription will seem extremely difficult at first.  Apply the muscles of your face to your tightly pursed lips, causing the corners to arch upwards as you breathe in deeply through your nose.  Now let the breath back out.  Keep smiling, even if it’s forced.

Emotion affects cognition, for good or for ill.  If you panic, you can’t think.  And a direct way to change your emotional state is simply to fasten a brief smile on your face. 

Now get back into the fight.  But stay positive – it’s the best way to ensure that your performance measures up to your abilities.

*****

The GMAT is like a tennis match at Wimbledon.  And like a tennis pro, you should recognize that the game is not truly physical: it’s mental.  Control your mind on the court, and your body will take care of itself.  In a similar way, if you control your mind during the exam, using the strategies described above, your hard-earned GMAT skills will show up and take care of business.  Good luck!

In the past, we have commented on how the MBA has been under attack from academics. Well, here is an interesting switch: academics at MBA programs are now under attack from MBAs. The Financial Times recently commented on why, unlike lawyers who devour journals, MBAs choose not to read publications from top-business schools or attend academic conferences. The FT concluded that such articles can be arcane and overly-theoretical, while management is more practical. Further, the FT commented that publications are typically backward-looking, while management is forward-looking.

For an interesting and somewhat amusing read click on the link below: 

Why Businesses Ignore the Business Schools

Recently, the New York Times published an article about the “The Falling Down Professions,” citing medicine and law, as two well-paid professions that are now falling out of favor. What was interesting about this article is that it did not appear in the Business section, but in the Style section, which clearly suggests that this not just a matter of dollars, but a matter of changing tastes in society.

The times writes of significant drops in law school (83,500 in 2006 from 98,700 in 2004) and med school applications (42,000 in 2007 from 46,000 in 1997) and suggests that the reason for this is that a previous societal respect for the “prfoessional” has now transitioned to entrepreneurs. So, why are we, at MBA Mission, writing about this? Well, with a drop in interest in these areas, this shift has likely led to an increase in MBA applicants, amid an already crowded fielded. Further, it is quite possible that this trend will continue….

At MBA Mission, our mantra is “differentiation, differentiation, differentiation.” Well, we have now been featured in an article on Businessweek.com, alongside Wharton’s Director of Admissions, Thomas Caleel, entitled “How to Stand Out from the Herd,” exploring and emphasizing this topic in depth.

In the article, Businessweek’s Alina Dizik states, “Coming across as genuine in essays is vital. And officials agree that the main reason applicants get rejected is because the application is based on what they perceive admissions people want to hear instead of being truly authentic.”

We could not agreed more. We strive to work with each candidate to create a sincere and unique impression from the start and to harness personal stories to each candidate’s advantage. We are proud that Businessweek recognizes that our opinions on this topic are valuable and worth sharing with its readers.

At MBA Mission, we take pride in our strong relationship with Manhattan GMAT. Recently, we contributed a piece on avoiding the perils of over-representation for their “GMATTERS” newsletter. We thought that we would share it with our own blog readers as well:

Investment bankers. Consultants. Software Engineers. What do these three groups have in common? You may have answered, “over-representation,” and if you are among these groups, you probably groaned as well.  Well, all is not lost for the over-represented. While you cannot change your work history, you can change the way you introduce yourself to the Admissions Committees. So, we, at MBA Mission, have compiled a few simple strategies for introductory paragraphs, as they pertain to personal statements (Questions like: “Discuss your career history. How will an MBA help you achieve your goals?”), which will help you standout. 

Our first strategy is more of a “don’t” than a “do.” We find that many candidates start with straightforward introductory lines, where they over-represent their over-representations immediately. For example, a candidate might write, “When I started as an Analyst at Morgan Stanley in 2005, I was immersed in excel spreadsheets…” Via this introduction, the writer has basically written: “As one of many indistinguishable banking candidates that you will see, I have done what everyone else does….”

Candidates should be mindful of their very first lines and might consider a non-introduction introduction, where the reader is immediately immersed in a career highlight, instead of a formal and typical chronology. For example: “Touching down in Houston at 5 am, I immediately went to meet the CFO of ABC Healthcare. As an investment Banking Analyst, it was unusual to be seconded to an outside firm, but ABC was one of Morgan Stanley’s most significant clients and our deal was hanging in the balance.” By launching into a story and incorporating favorable facts, this analyst has put him/herself “in action” and created a story to follow, instead of facts to digest.  Indeed, one of the distinct advantages of the “non-introduction introduction” is that, if executed properly, it also creates mystery. Because the reader is immersed in a situation, he/she wants to know what comes next.

Disrupting chronology is another important strategy that can be used. Even if an MBA program asks you to discuss your career history, it does not mean that you must offer a clear chronology of your career, from beginning to end (a method that can be a recipe for over-representing yourself). Consider the case of a programmer who rose to lead a team of thirty. Which of the following is more interesting to you? A) “Joining InfoTech, I spent my first six months writing code…” or B) “Managing a team of thirty at Infotech, I have spent the last six months…” If the candidate were to begin with A, he would risk losing the reader immediately. After all, what is so unusual about writing code? However, few manage thirty people prior to business school, so the opportunity to grab the reader with this fact – from the most current position in this fictional character’s career – is too important to pass up. The writer wants the reader to understand his/her differences immediately and he accomplishes that with a disrupted chronology. (Of course, it will take some finesse to reconnect and reorder work experience that does not follow a chronology. You will need to be skilled at formulating creative transition ideas and writing interesting transition sentences).

Similar in spirit to disrupting chronology, candidates with unique career goals may also consider disrupting the typical pattern of a personal statement by leading with goals. Consider the following essay for Wharton: “Describe your career progress to date and your future short-term and long-term career goals. How do you expect a Wharton MBA to help you achieve these goals, and why is now the best time for you to join our program? Many candidates assume that they must answer each sub-question, within the broader question, in the very order that it was asked. But, that is not the case – the question is quite flexible and by pursuing your own structure, you can truly engage the reader, who has read thousands of similarly structured essays. Still, while leading with your goals, you must have goals that truly standout. So, the Indian technologist who intends to start a software firm might be advised not to lead with goals, but the technologist who aspires to open a boutique hotel, might make the choice to use his goals to differentiate himself. Similarly, the consultant who aspires to start a competitive windsurfing circuit can use these bold goals to differentiate himself right from the start. We emphasize that such candidates need to have a compelling connection to their goals and do not suggest that over-represented candidates strive to imagine or create “wild” goals. If you have a profound connection to an unusual industry, then reordering the question and ensuring that your goals are out-front can make a difference.

Finally, regardless of the essay question, it is important to give profound thought to your opening lines. Few of us have read Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, but many of us have heard the famous words: “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” A powerful first line can stick with readers long after they have finished reading your essays. Consider the differences between these pairs of openers. Which one captures your attention? A) “After I graduate with my MBA, I want to work in the wine industry.” B)  “Blood runs in the veins of all humans, but wine runs in mine.” There is no formula for opening lines. In fact, the possibilities are endless and each opener depends on the context of the story itself. Nonetheless, our point is that opening lines need to be carefully considered, because they set the tone and determine whether the reader will want to read more. Of course, as an over-represented candidate, you will need them to read more.