GMAT Prep: Stop Wasting My Time
Have you ever worked with someone who inevitably managed to come up with things to do that were a complete waste of time? Maybe it was an insecure boss who was never confident about what he was doing, so he went for the everything and the kitchen sink approach to generating deliverables in the last few days before the deadline. Or maybe it was a fellow student on a group project, someone so diligent (cough, cough) that she wanted to turn in a 20-page report when the teacher suggested 10 pages (and actually specified a 12-page limit).
You know who Im talking about, right? Weve all run across these situations in our academic or working lives. You want to be polite but you also want to get your work done and not waste time on activities that dont really help you reach the overall goal.
The GMAT is trying to waste your time
Okay, the test writers are not literally sitting there cackling and saying, How can we get them to waste their lives?!? But the overall sentiment still holds because of the way that the GMAT is constructed. You already know the classic If you get something right, they give you something harder pattern, right?
Well, at some point, that something harder is going to be something that isnt worth your time. Youre probably not going to get it right no matter what you do. Even if you do, youre going to use up valuable time that you could be using on other problems.
Most important of all, youre going to be using up your finite brain energy on something that probably isnt going to pay off. How many times in your life have you crashed towards the end of a test or a long day at work because your brain just couldn't keep going any longer? The GMAT is a where you end is what you get test: if you crash before the end of the section, your score will suffer greatly.
This is basically no different than that co-worker whos trying to get you to build a marketing presentation when the client has specifically requested that you analyze the pros and cons of acquiring a competitor. Tomorrow at the client meeting, it wont matter how good your intentions were. Your client is going to be mad that you wasted time on something that doesnt actually help them.
So turn to your co-worker and say, Stop wasting my time!
No, dont really do that! Be nice to people. But do turn to the GMAT and say that when the test gives you something thats just too hard or will take too long. Dont feel that you didn't study enough, that you've failed and this is all your fault. Look at the test and say, Are you kidding me? Get out of my way. Ive get better things to do.
Really? But I cant just give up
Sure you can. You can train yourself to do anything. You just have to believe that this is what youre supposed to be doing.
The GMAT is not an academic test, though it can feel like one. Its a test of your Executive Reasoning skillshow well you make decisions, manage scarce resources (time and mental energy), evaluate opportunities. A good business person needs to know how to assess various opportunities and when to decide to pursue certain ones and dump others. Thats what the GMAT is really testing.
Okay, how do I learn to internalize this?
First, literally have that person in mind, the one you know who usually manages to find a way to waste time. Youre going to visualize that person and push the problem onto him or her: Yeah, why dont YOU go work on this? Ill be spending my time on more useful activities.
Second, know the hallmarks of a time-waster problem. Roman numeral quant problem? Usually a time waster (TW). CR and RC EXCEPT questions? TW. The entire sentence is underlined and when I read it for the first time, I cant even follow the sentence? TW. I recently saw a GMATPrep quant problem that was a roman numeral and gave an inequality with 4 variables and fractions. No, thanks!
Second, know your strengths and weaknesses. Those weaknesses that are also infrequently tested are TWs for you. 3-D geometry? No wayunless it's literally just plugging given numbers into a volume formula, I'm probably going to mess it up. But give me any weighted average problem and I can do it on time. You might be the exact opposite. As long as the topic is not something that is frequently tested, you can get away with knowing the basics (in case you get an easier question) and bailing if you get a hard one.
Third, know where you are on your pacing. When the deadline is in an hour, your priorities change: you get even more ruthless about how to spend that precious time. If you are behind on time, bail even faster when you hit a weakness or a time-waster problem. Dont even try to make an educated guess; just pick your favorite letter and move on.
In sum, change your mindset.
This isnt the first time Ive written about the optimal mindset for the GMAT. People who struggle on this test almost universally struggle with mindset (among other things). People who score 720+ on the GMAT have at least partially mastered the optimal mindset. Its that important.
So here it is in a nutshell:
The GMAT is not an academic test; it is a test of executive reasoning skills. (Yes, this is the same article I linked to earlier. Its that important.)
Good business people know how to distinguish between good opportunities and bad onesand dont hesitate to dump the bad ones.
Great business people can make the hard decisions to manage scarce resourceson the GMAT, time and mental stamina. (Id also link to this article that youre reading right now, but that would be kind of redundant.)
Approach this test with a business mindset, not an academic one, and youll lift your score!