[align=center]Throw Away All Fear of Failure to Improve Your Accuracy on the GMAT[/align]
A psychology-related reason for careless errors is fear of failure. When a person is terrified of disappointment, many things that person does can be colored by that fear and the attitudes engendered by it.
For instance, sometimes test-takers are so afraid of not hitting their goals that they actually sabotage their own progress. One way in which this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy can manifest is via careless errors.
In other words, if you were rather afraid of the thought of not hitting your score goal, then perhaps you would find some comfort in making careless errors, for as long as you were making careless errors, you could blame your not hitting your goal on the errors. So it could be that part of the reason you allow yourself to make careless errors is to protect yourself from disappointment.
One cause of fear of disappointment is tying one’s self image or sense of self worth to one’s GMAT score; when people do this, the importance of a GMAT score becomes huge in their minds. It’s not surprising that people putting that kind of pressure on themselves would make careless errors so as to avoid disappointment.
The truth is that all a GMAT score represents is a person’s skill level at a point in time. If you adopt that outlook, then self-doubt and concerns about self-image become irrelevant. What matters is pulling as many levers as possible to drive your score as high as possible, and one of those levers is getting into the habit of being careful rather than careless in how you go about answering questions.
Check out this article for more tips on how to conquer your fears and anxieties related to the GMAT.
Happy studying!
Warmest regards,
Scott
