GMAT Strategy

I just took one of GMATPrep practice tests, and got an unexpected low score. I then redid the questions WITHOUT reading the answer key and the explanations first, and got most of the incorrect answers correct the second time. This is disturbing because I know how to do these problems in the given time limit, but somehow my brain goes whack during actual test time.

I don't know what's wrong with me, or how I can fix this so that my test score will reflect my true aplitude.

Always remember 3P... that is Practice, Practice and Practice....
Also see BTG's strategy section... https://www.beatthegmat.com/gmat-strategy-f3.html

Its better to be making the mistakes now than test day. Keep taking more practice tests, time yourself in your study, and develop a calm approach. Anxiety is a KILLER.

Perhaps read the question. Look at the choices. Start solving. Don't know if it helps.
Look up George Polya and read about him and his problem solving approaches - he is a genius.

Also perhaps this debrief helps you - I like the title...

https://www.beatthegmat.com/770-50-q-46- ... 40093.html

Wish you the best,
Jas

Hi Cinji,

I couldn't resist checking this one after reading the subject line - the answer is "nothing"! The GMAT is designed to get you to make mistakes that you shouldn't. They know that you're under pressure when it comes to the test - the pacing, the fact that each question is scored, the rapid succession of new questions, the duration of the entire test...they all add up to put you under enough stress and pressure that you'll make mistakes that you otherwise wouldn't. To a pretty large extent, that's the purpose of the test: as a manager with an MBA, you'll be called upon to frequently make good, logical decisions with some pressure on you. To combat this:

1) Know your likely mistakes before you make them. Like Jas said, it's better to make them now, in practice, because you can take note of them and be on the lookout for them on test day.

2) Get used to and overcome the pressure. If you've practiced pacing to the point where it's not an issue, the clock management component becomes much less of a factor. If you know which mistakes you're prone to making, you can trust your internal filter to help you catch them, and not worry about little things as much. And if you go in to the test knowing that it's designed to make you feel stress, you can also realize that, as I told myself repeatedly on test day, "if the questions themselves were so hard, they wouldn't need to rely on artificial stress to keep my score down".

3) Pay attention to the questions that are taking you longer than you'd like, and search your work on those to see if you can get faster (you'll probably find that it's taking you too long to find certain relationships, or that you're missing opportunities to cut down on the amount of work you're doing). More time means more confidence - it's more time to check your work to avoid mistakes, there's less pressure on you to work quickly (and therefore you'll make fewer mistakes in the first place), etc.


The fact that you're finding yourself held back by mistakes on things you should be getting right is a great thing - if you can position yourself to clean up those little mistakes, you're there!

Thanks for the advice everyone. Time has never been on my side. As my first grade teacher used to ask, "Why does it take you this much time to do one problem while it takes others the same amount of time to do four?" Yet, I got pretty good grades in math. I suppose now is as good a time to fix this problem as any.