Your frame of mind has a lot to do with the level of success you achieve. Here’s what’s involved in developing your best mindset for the GMAT.
To do your best on the GMAT, you must always keep in mind that the test is unlike other tests that you’ve taken in terms of both the content and the scoring system. If you took a test in high school or college and got a quarter of the questions wrong, you’d probably receive a pretty lousy grade. But due to the adaptive nature of the GMAT, missing only a quarter of the questions would give you a very high score. The test is designed to push test takers to their limits, so people rarely get every question right. In fact, you can get a handful of questions wrong and still score in the 99th percentile.
In other words, don’t let what you consider to be a subpar performance on a handful of questions ruin your performance on the rest. A couple of missed questions won’t, by themselves, spoil your score. But if you allow the frustration of those questions to unnerve you, you could end up compromising your performance on other questions or on the section as a whole. Missing a few points won’t ruin your score, but losing your head will.
The test is designed to find your limits, so it should feel challenging. If you feel you’ve done poorly on a section, don’t worry—you may have done just fine. Keep in mind that the questions that you are likely to struggle on most will be the hardest ones—the ones that hurt your score least if you miss them. To reach your highest potential score, you must remain calm and focused. Simply do your best on each question, and once a question or section is over, forget about it and move on.
Moreover, don’t try to guess which questions are unscored (experimental questions). This kind of speculation has gotten countless test takers into trouble. They have a hunch that a certain question is one that doesn’t count and then don’t take it seriously. You cannot know which questions are experimental, so treat each one as if it counts. That way, you’re covered no matter what. Likewise, don’t worry if a question you get seems “too easy.” This doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re doing poorly; it might be experimental. Or it might happen to align well with your individual strengths. Or perhaps you are just well prepared, have great strategies, and are beating the test! Do your best, get it right, and move on with confidence.
The GMAT is a grueling experience, and some test takers simply run out of gas when they reach the final questions. To avoid this, you must prepare by taking full-length practice tests (not skipping over any sections) so that on Test Day, the 3.5 hours of testing will seem like a breeze—or at least not a hurricane.
Your online resources include full-length CATs for just this purpose. If you finish the tests included with this book, a further option is to download the test maker’s GMAT® Official Starter Kit software, which contains two full-length exams and is available free from mba.com. One drawback to the software is that it does not include explanations, so you will want to rely on your Kaplan materials, which include thorough explanations, for the bulk of your study. However, the test maker’s CATs should give you a good indication of your score range.
Confidence in your ability leads to quick, sure answers and a sense of poise that translates into more points. Confidence builds on itself, but unfortunately, so does self-doubt. If you lack confidence, you end up reading sentences and answer choices two, three, or four times until you confuse yourself and get off track. Or you begin to solve a math problem one way, worry that your approach won’t work and jump to a different approach, and then go back to your first approach, wasting time without making progress. This uncertainty ruins your timing, perpetuating a downward spiral.
If you cultivate a positive GMAT mindset, however, you’ll gear your practice toward taking control of the test. And when you have achieved that goal—armed with the techniques and strategies explained in this book—you’ll be ready to face the GMAT with supreme confidence.
Those who approach the GMAT as an obstacle and who rail against the necessity of taking it usually don’t fare as well as those who see the GMAT as an opportunity. Those who look forward to doing battle with the GMAT—or, at least, who enjoy the opportunity to distinguish themselves from the rest of the applicant pack—tend to score better than do those who resent or dread it.
Take our word for it: developing a positive attitude is a proven test-taking technique. Here are a few steps you can take to make sure you develop the right GMAT attitude: