If you think the GMAT tests your business knowledge or shows how smart you are, you’re in for a surprise. This chapter will give you a new way to look at the GMAT to guide your studies in the right direction.
If you’re like most people, you think standardized tests measure how smart you are. If you score 800 on the GMAT, you may think of yourself as a genius (and the future manager of a corporate empire). If you score 200, you may think of yourself as an idiot (and the future manager of…well…nothing). You may think that the GMAT measures your verbal and math abilities. At the very least, you probably believe the GMAT is an accurate predictor of how you’ll do in business school.
The GMAT is not a test of how smart you are. Nor is it a test of your business acumen or even a predictor of your grades in business school. It’s simply a test of how good you are at taking the GMAT. In fact, you will learn that by studying the very specific knowledge outlined in this book, you can substantially improve your score.
The first axiom of any how-to book on job interviewing is that you must always tell your interviewer what he or she wants to hear. No matter whether this is good job-hunting advice, it happens to be a very useful strategy on the GMAT. The test writers think in predictable ways. You can improve your score by learning to think the way they do and anticipating the kinds of answers that they think are correct.
Very closely. Each year, we publish a new edition of this book to reflect the subtle shifts that happen over time, or, in the case of the introduction of the Integrated Reasoning section, the major changes to the GMAT. For the latest information on the GMAT, please visit our website PrincetonReview.com.
No. You won’t have the benefit of taking ten computer-adaptive GMATs that are scored and analyzed by our computers. You won’t get to sit in small classes with only three other highly motivated students who will spur you on. You won’t get to work with our expert instructors who can assess your strengths and pinpoint your weaknesses. There is no way to put these things in a book.
What you will find in this book are some of the techniques and methods that have enabled our students to crack the system—plus a review of the essentials that you cannot afford not to know.
If at all possible, you should take our course. If that is not possible, then there is this book.
In the following chapters, we’re going to teach you our method for cracking the GMAT. Read each chapter carefully. Some of our ideas may seem strange at first. For example, when we tell you that it is sometimes easier to answer GMAT questions without actually working out the entire problem, you may think, “This isn’t the way I conduct business.”
We’re not going to teach you business skills. We’re not going to teach you math and English. We’re going to teach you the GMAT.