{"id":8942,"date":"2012-05-26T14:45:07","date_gmt":"2012-05-26T20:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?p=8942"},"modified":"2022-01-26T13:15:08","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T18:15:08","slug":"gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"GMAT Impact: Please Don\u2019t Make These Mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>When it comes to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. In this weekly blog series,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.manhattangmat.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Manhattan GMAT<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.manhattangmat.com\/gmat-prep-gmat-instructor-koprince.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stacey Koprince<\/a>\u00a0teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Recently, someone asked me: what is the most common \u201cfatal mistake\u201d people make when studying for the GMAT? I\u2019ve managed to narrow it down to two.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Don\u2019t prioritize accuracy over efficiency.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAccuracy\u201d = answering questions correctly. \u201cEfficiency\u201d = time management. Most people worry much more about getting things right than they do about managing their time well. Here\u2019s the thing: the GMAT is explicitly testing you on your ability to set priorities and make decisions about what\u2019s worth your time. Those are actual business skills!<\/p>\n<p>In other words, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">expect<\/span> to see questions that are too hard for you to do in the average time frame. You should actually have to choose to bail on a small number of questions\u2014if you don\u2019t, then you\u2019re doing something wrong.<\/p>\n<p>If you continue to try to get everything right while taking a CAT, you will almost certainly score lower (possibly <em>much<\/em> lower) than you are capable of scoring. Read the Scoring section of Manhattan GMAT\u2019s free e-book <em>The GMAT Uncovered Guide<\/em>. (If you have any kind of account with Manhattan GMAT, even a free one, then the e-book is already in your student center.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Don\u2019t confuse \u201cdoing\u201d with \u201clearning.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When you start the timer and tackle a set of questions or a practice test, you are <em>not<\/em> <em>learning<\/em>! You are using everything you have already learned to test yourself\u2014to see whether you really learned what you thought you learned. Let\u2019s call this \u201cdoing\u201d or \u201ctesting yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The \u201csmart\u201d students (\u201csmart\u201d in a test-taking sense) know or discover that you learn by <em>reviewing<\/em>\u2014you need to analyze your work on the problems and analyze the problems themselves. What do I mean by \u201canalyze\u201d? Here\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.manhattangmat.com\/articles\/analyze-practice-problem.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">one article<\/a> that talks about analyzing problems. Here\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.manhattangmat.com\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/05\/23\/evaluating-your-practice-tests\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">another<\/a> that talks about analyzing practice tests. These two articles are not comprehensive, but they should give you a good idea of the difference between \u201cdoing\u201d and \u201canalyzing.\u201d I have spent 5, 10, even 20 minutes analyzing a single problem\u2014and that was after I already figured out the answer.<\/p>\n<p>So make sure that you\u2019re not just doing but also learning!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. In this weekly blog series,\u00a0Manhattan GMAT\u2019s\u00a0Stacey Koprince\u00a0teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense. Recently, someone asked me: what is the most common \u201cfatal mistake\u201d people make when studying for the GMAT? &hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/\">Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;<i class=\"fal fa-sm fa-angle-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>GMAT Impact: Please Don\u2019t Make These Mistakes | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GMAT Impact: Please Don\u2019t Make These Mistakes | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When it comes to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. In this weekly blog series,\u00a0Manhattan GMAT\u2019s\u00a0Stacey Koprince\u00a0teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense. Recently, someone asked me: what is the most common \u201cfatal mistake\u201d people make when studying for the GMAT? &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-05-26T20:45:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-01-26T18:15:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-fallback-image.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeremy Shinewald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jeremy Shinewald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"GMAT Impact: Please Don\u2019t Make These Mistakes | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"GMAT Impact: Please Don\u2019t Make These Mistakes | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","og_description":"When it comes to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. In this weekly blog series,\u00a0Manhattan GMAT\u2019s\u00a0Stacey Koprince\u00a0teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense. Recently, someone asked me: what is the most common \u201cfatal mistake\u201d people make when studying for the GMAT? &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/","og_site_name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","article_published_time":"2012-05-26T20:45:07+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-01-26T18:15:08+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-fallback-image.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Jeremy Shinewald","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jeremy Shinewald","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":["Article","BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/"},"author":{"name":"Jeremy Shinewald","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f"},"headline":"GMAT Impact: Please Don\u2019t Make These Mistakes","datePublished":"2012-05-26T20:45:07+00:00","dateModified":"2022-01-26T18:15:08+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/"},"wordCount":406,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization"},"articleSection":["GMAT"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/","name":"GMAT Impact: Please Don\u2019t Make These Mistakes | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-05-26T20:45:07+00:00","dateModified":"2022-01-26T18:15:08+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/gmat-impact-please-dont-make-these-mistakes\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"GMAT Impact: Please Don\u2019t Make These Mistakes"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/","name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","description":"World&#039;s Leading MBA Admissions Consulting Firm","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"mbaMission","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-organization-logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-organization-logo.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"mbaMission"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f","name":"Jeremy Shinewald","description":"In addition to being Founder and President of mbaMission, Jeremy Shinewald is a Darden MBA, published author, and the recipient of Poets&amp;Quants\u2019 Lifetime Achievement Award in MBA Admissions Consulting. 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