Remind Yourself That You Don’t Have To Be Perfect

If you expect yourself to be perfect on the GMAT, you’re never going to meet your expectations. And if you never meet your expectations, well then, your confidence in yourself won’t be very high.

Students who strive for perfection see every GMAT question they answer incorrectly as an affront to their vision of how they “should” perform. Thus, their confidence in their test-taking abilities tends to be low. On the other hand, students who view missed questions as opportunities to improve and a natural part of the learning process tend to feel more confident about their GMAT prospects.

Here’s the thing: perfection on the GMAT is not possible or even necessary. For instance, according to ESR data, a test-taker can incorrectly answer around 10 Quant questions on the GMAT and still score Q48. That’s quite a few missed questions! Now, maybe you’re aiming for a Quant score higher than 48, but the point still stands. You don’t have to be perfect on the GMAT to earn high scores. And when it comes to GMAT confidence, expecting perfection from yourself is probably doing more harm than good.

So, do your best. Put your full effort in. But, remind yourself that you don’t have to be perfect to reach your GMAT goals. And if you need some more confidence-building around not being perfect, check out this article on how many questions you can get wrong on the GMAT and still score 700.

Reach out to me with any questions.

Warmest regards,
Scott