EssaySnark

($) How many times taking the GMAT is too many?

by EssaySnark

This is a less critical question for a small subset of the test-taker population this days. The GMAC (GMAT test people) announced a policy last year that actually prevents some wayward testers from shooting themselves in the foot with their own overenthusiasm for testing. (Is that the first time in recorded history that the word…

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Here's what others have said about this:

  1. I feel that if someone is on their 3rd or more GMAT try, something is out of whack with the way they are studying. So many of the most popular study aids out there are either:

    A) Focused on understanding test content instead of understanding how to beat the test; or
    B) Have strategies that work when the book is open in front of you, but not on test day. (The WORST offender, in my humble opinion, is **BIGCITY**GMAT, especially in CR and RC.)

    If you aren’t well versed in standardized tests, you are more than likely going to burn all your study time to learn content instead of developing go-to strategies for every type of problem you see OR in BCGMAT’s case, spend all your time memorizing a strategy that is way way way too complicated. This discourages students and pushes them to forgot/not use the strategy. Case in point: algebra vs. plugging in numbers. No one cares that you can solve a huge algebraic proof – you just burned 5 minutes sucka, if you had just plugged in simple numbers for your variables, your woulda been done in 90 seconds.

    – If you are not actively eliminating wrong answers on every problem (esp. Verbal), you are not ready to take the test.
    – If you don’t know your trig and polynomial identities ( (x^2-y^2) = (x+y)(x-y), etc ), you are not ready to take the test.
    -If you can’t tell me what standard deviation is, you are not ready to take the test.

    I could go on and on, but the ONLY way, in my opinion, to really break through to the score you want is to drill problems until you are so bored of getting the right answer that you roll your eyes when you see the obvious answer. How to do this?

    1) Do a practice problem, limit yourself to 2.5 minutes.
    2) Check the answer/solution -whether you get the *answer* right or wrong does not immediately matter, what matters is if the *solution* aligns with your thinking.
    3A) If you were right, you need to understand WHY you were right. Evaluate the solution and validate your thinking. If you were right but for the wrong reason this is just as bad or worse than if you were wrong (false positive fallacy).
    3B) If you were wrong, evaluate the solution and understand the problem’s logic. Try to see what the test makers were thinking and how they structured the solution path.
    4 (critical step if wrong or right for wrong reason!) – redo the problem without the solution, but reference it if need be. Walk through step by step how the problem is solved, and draw out the steps to a correct answer. Really try to identify what made this problem different, and how you can use this method in the future.
    5) Repeat, ad nauseam

    Good luck!
    Jackstack

    • “I feel that if someone is on their 3rd or more GMAT try, something is out of whack with the way they are studying.”

      Or maybe they’re just not studying. 😉