The GMAT Official Guide is probably one of the most important components of any GMAT Prep. But more often than not test-takers do not really use it in a way that will maximize their learning and take them to their dream score.
When it comes to preparing for the GMAT there is a voluminous amount of prep material available. Sometimes the material is so overwhelming that it becomes tough to pick and choose material to suit different parts of your GMAT Prep. To make life simple let us take up this topic in alignment with the structure I suggested for your GMAT Prep in this post. After you take the OG Diagnostic test to identify you learning needs, the three distinct phases of your GMAT Prep are Prep, Practice & Testing As someone who has prepared for and taken the GMAT myself, I can vouch that there is no prep material from any one brand that is best for all three stages.
As mentioned in this post, the first step of your GMAT Prep begins with taking a Diagnostic Test. This need not be a computer adaptive test, the paper-based Diagnostic Test on the OG will suffice. A few rules that need to be followed while taking the test: • Take the test when you are fresh so that you can get the most accurate measure of your competence; you should not have anything other than your own ability to attribute a sub-par performance to. • The test can be taken either as two sections – Quant and Verbal with any length of break in between (even a day or two) – or as five question-types (PS, DS, RC, CR & SC). • Do not break the test either in the middle of a section or in the middle of a question-type. Your performance across five categories will be categorized as shown in the table below. Before we approximate this performance to a score on the 800-scale we have to take a few things into consideration that …
A goal without a plan is just a wish – Antoine de Saint-Exupery If there is one thing that is absolutely essential to successfully prepare your way to a great GMAT score it is a structured GMAT Study Plan that is executed perfectly. It is tough to make a one-size-fits-all study plan for those who want to prepare on their own. Instead we will take up each of the elements of your preparation and discuss those in detail. What you should not do Given that the GMAT is predictable and there is a seemingly huge quantity of actual GMAT questions to practice along two official free tests the usual pattern that test-takers follow unfolds as follows. Take a mock test without any preparation – some test-takers use the first test from the GMAT Prep Software, others use a free test from a reputable source such as Kaplan, some others just take any random GMAT Mock that they can find. Firstly, no test from any player in the market actually simulates the GMAT. The failure occurs …
This is the first question that pops up regarding test-preparation, be it for the GMAT or for any other test. The short answer to this question — it will require a minimum of 2.5 months and a maximum of 6 months. Now let’s try to get inside these numbers. The optimum time needed depends on the test-taker but the prep phase for any test has two components — the prep-phase and the testing-phase. How long should each of these components be? Let’s start by working backwards.
The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution – Igor Stravinsky, Composer The GMAT can be taken the all-year round but test-slots are not available with equal ease all year round — test-slots are easy to get during the first six months of the year (you can get a slot even if you try book today for a slot in a couple of days) but as the year draws to a close it is almost impossible to get a slot of your choice! Most of you would know the reason for the same — the application deadlines of schools start towards the end of the year (around September). So while we are free to choose a test date of our choice, we refuse to do so for a variety of reasons, some valid and some invalid:
All life is an experiment, the more experiments you make the better – Ralph Waldo Emerson The short answer to this question — yes. Now let’s get to the long answer. As we have discussed before in one of the earliest posts on this blog, the GMAT is an adaptive test. The Quant and Verbal sections will start with test-takers being posed a question of moderate difficulty and will proceed based on the test-taker’s response to that question. Depending upon whether the test-taker answers it correctly or incorrectly, the subsequent question will be easier or tougher.
The best way to start is to have a look at what your actual Official GMAT Score Report will look like. The image below is of only a part of the Score Report, so that we do not divulge the details of the test-taker. The Verbal & Quant Scores have a range from 0 – 60 but the actual range of scores that test-takers get is narrower. The actual range of scores is from 9 to 44 for the Verbal section with 45 being rare and 7 to 50 for the Quantitative section, with 51 being rare (though not at the IIT close to where I stay ☺).
What do they know of cricket who only cricket know — from Beyond A Boundary by C. L. R. James While the GMAT structure is quite well known to most test-takers there is much more to the test than meets the eye. Let us try to understand this a bit better since understanding the nature of the test will really help you get the right perspective for your preparation and practice with the right purpose. What you get when you pay $250 to take the GMAT What you get is a statistically valid and universally understood measure of your aptitude (as defined by the GMAC, an association of business schools) for doing a business course. If you take the test today in India and score a 720 and 4 years later someone takes the test in China and scores a 720, schools will accept both of you as having the same aptitude — the 94th percentile. The scores and percentiles have barely changed over all of these years since about 2,50,000 people take the test …
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