Repetition, Repetition, Repetition To Improve Your GMAT Preparation

Humans learn through exposure and repetition, so the more time you spend with a GMAT topic and the more often you study it, the better versed in that topic you’ll become and the better you’ll remember it. Therefore, as you prepare, it’s important to regularly re-expose yourself to previously learned GMAT material.

For example, if you learn about number properties on day one of your prep, it would not be wise to wait until day 60 to again review number properties. Instead, spend some time reviewing number properties on day three, day eight, and so on.

When you expose yourself to a topic over and over, you’re basically telling your brain, “Hey, this stuff is important!” You reactivate neural pathways to that part of the brain where the information is stored (and weaken competing pathways), making the information more easily accessible. That neural reactivation is a key to retaining previously learned material and keeping it fresh.

Keep this fact in mind: your brain is not designed to remember everything. In fact, it’s not designed to remember most things. Can you imagine how overwhelming it would be to remember everything you saw, heard, tasted, smelled, and felt each day? Furthermore, can you imagine how much energy it would require to remember all those details? So, by design, your brain remembers only the important stuff. But you must teach it what is important, and one way to do that is to study a topic multiple times, over multiple sittings, thereby making that topic memorable.

Warmest regards,

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
Founder & CEO, Target Test Prep