GMAT and GRE Tutoring: Our Approach

Guides Not Just Tutors!

The time that you will spend in tutoring sessions will ultimately be only a small fraction of all the time you spend preparing for the GMAT or GRE, so a huge element of our focus is on making sure that the progress you make outside of the sessions is as effective as it can be. People tend to underestimate how important this element of tutoring is, but this is where our decades of experience tutoring people for the GMAT and GRE is critically important: we know from experience what methods and what resources get results and this knowledge and expertise is as valuable as any of the actual tutoring we provide!

The truth is that we are not just tutors, we are your Guides through the whole process and manage every aspect of preparing for the test. We guide you in what resources to use, when to use them, how to use them, how to do practice questions effectively, how to maintain progress over a long timeline, when to take practice tests (and which ones to take and in what order), when to schedule the actual GMAT or GRE, whether to do it in-person or online, and so on. In short, we bring our experience to bear on EVERY aspect of preparing for the test!

Brian knows the test inside and out. He has a mastery of which concepts tend to appear on the test more frequently than others, and, as a result, he directs his students to expend time and effort in the most efficient way possible. He devises a well-thought-out preparation gameplan catered to each student’s areas for improvement and test goals.

Drew S. (Yelp Review)

Reasoning First

Our approach to GMAT and GRE tutoring is almost the same since the tests are very, very similar: they are both reasoning tests built upon almost the same content foundation and both impose similar timing constraints on test takers. At RTP, we take a “reasoning first” approach since that is what the tests are designed to measure and reward. The test makers didn’t name the main sections of both the GMAT and GRE “Quantitative Reasoning” and “Verbal Reasoning” for nothing! Ok, so what does a “reasoning first” approach really mean? Let us explain!

There is a body of content knowledge that you need to master and we’ll make sure you have that mastered, but we want to put you in a position to get questions right regardless of your content foundation! There are 2 reasons for this. One is that no matter how much “knowledge” you acquire, there will always be things that you just don’t know, and reasoning/problem solving ability IS what you need to fall back on. More importantly, although the GMAT and GRE expect you to have a basic body of knowledge mastered, the questions are designed to test your ability to apply that knowledge in creative ways, not just regurgitate it!

So in tutoring sessions, if you struggle with a question we almost always begin by trying to demonstrate how you could have gotten the questions right without any additional content knowledge. After that, we’ll shore up any content weaknesses that contributed to your difficulty on that question, but the most important thing is that you learn how to be scrappy and approach questions effectively regardless of the content foundation that you have in that moment, since that is a position you are guaranteed to be in on the test! And this is not just true for Math. In fact, it’s probably even more true for Verbal! You will probably never understand all of the jargon that appears in Reading Comprehension passages and you will definitely never know all of the vocabulary words that could appear on the GRE, so learning how to effectively approach questions in the absence of complete content knowledge is critical to success on the tests!

There is one more point here that will help illustrate the importance of the reasoning first approach. Most people who study for the GMAT or GRE, including those who take classes and receive tutoring, don’t understand the true nature of the tests. They believe, and are often taught to believe, that the Quant sections of the GMAT and GRE are just tests of one’s pure Math content knowledge. Remember, these are the people who you are competing against! Your score is only a “good score” insofar as it’s better than the scores of others. Many of these other test takers may in fact be better than you at pure Math (this is pretty likely to be true on both tests, especially on the GMAT). So the question is this: if the name of the game is outperforming other test-takers, do you want to go toe-to-toe in a pure-Math battle against people who are better than you at Math? Or do you want to out-smart, out-fox, and ultimately out-perform people by learning to be a creative problem-solver and aligning yourself with what the test is really about?

The GMAT is a reasoning test, not a math test, and it rewards people who understand how to play the game. Brian shows you how the game works, what the GMAT is looking for, and most importantly, provides structure and sense to an otherwise unstructured, frustrating process.

Brian S.  (Google Review)

Time Management and Navigating the Scoring Algorithm

Nearly everyone we tutor suffers from some kind of time management issue and this usually has a significant impact on their score, so a HUGE part of what we do is help people understand the scoring algorithm of the GMAT or GRE and learn how to optimize their allocation of time in order to maximize their score on the test. It would be hard to overstate the importance of this element of the GMAT or GRE tutoring we provide.

The causes of people’s timing woes can be many. Sometimes the issue is really about the way in which a student approaches questions: often there is a tedious, time-consuming path to the right answer and a more clever, efficient path that one could take, and the solution is to tweak the way the student is choosing to attack questions in the first place. The fact that questions can be approached in different ways, some laborious and time-consuming and others virtually effortless IS part of the design of the GMAT and GRE in the first place!

Test-takers might get questions right, but someone who fails to problem-solve effectively and who takes the “long route” over and over will ultimately be “punished” by failing to finish some sections of the test. Again, this IS by design and is a way in which the test-makers can differentiate people who apply good reasoning and problem-solving strategies from those who don’t!

More often, however, people fail to understand the scoring algorithm of the GMAT or GRE and make false assumptions that lead them to make poor time management decisions. In some cases this is really the ONLY impediment standing in the way of a person achieving their dream score! So we often have to disavow people of their misconceptions and teach them how to optimize their time management in line with how the test is actually scored. This is usually easier said than done. Students will usually quickly grasp the implications of the algorithm but fail to apply the right techniques in timed conditions. So it’s usually a process of helping students understand the folly of some of their time management decisions, teaching them how to make adjustments, and then reinforcing that with practice, over and over until they reach a point of peak performance!

Getting Into the Mind of a GMAT or GRE Student

One of our core beliefs is that in order to help a student, our tutors must REALLY understand every aspect of the student’s thought process. This is critical for a few reasons:

First of all, in order to help students improve, we first need to understand exactly what students are doing that is causing them to either get the question wrong or spend too much time. So when we watch students work through questions, we ask why they are doing what they are doing (for example, why did they choose to attack the question in that way, where did they think that process was going to lead, why did they eliminate the answer choices that they did, why do they think the answer they chose is correct, etc.). This helps us understand precisely where students are going wrong in the process so that we can make the proper adjustments.

Additionally, it’s worth pointing out that we don’t just review questions that a student got wrong. Even when a student gets questions right we examine and deconstruct the student’s thinking to make sure that the way in which the student approached the question was effective. This is critical because a student’s performance on any single question is relatively meaningless. We want to make sure that on future questions the student will be virtually guaranteed to get the question right!

Lastly, since most GMAT and GRE questions can be approached in a variety of ways, it’s important for our tutors to understand what works and doesn’t work for a particular student. For example, with regard to Quant, some people are more algebraic in nature while others have a knack for doing Math less formally and more intuitively. It is not our goal to mold students into a particular form; rather it is our responsibility to help students figure out what methods work best for them and guide them accordingly.

He has the unique ability to marry his extensive knowledge of the subject matter with a true understanding of the way each student works best. He was able to effectively cater the curriculum to best suit my style. Furthermore, he taught me how to navigate the exam with a strategy I understood. It worked. I scored a 740, which was well and above what I had been reaching for.

Josh J. (Google Review)

The Best Methods for Online GMAT and GRE Tutoring

Since Covid-19, people have gotten used to online meetings and many tutoring companies have shifted to virtual instruction, but we have been doing online GMAT and GRE tutoring since 2011 and have, over the course of thousands of hours of online tutoring, developed what we believe are the best methods for successful online instruction.

All questions and materials are loaded into the interface and both tutors and students can write or annotate directly on the screen (students need not do this, but they can if they want, and we guide them on how if they are interested). After each tutoring session students receive PDFs of all the whiteboards and annotations from the sessions so that they can review everything afterwards. And video recordings of the sessions are available as well for those who are interested.

GMAT and GRE Tutoring for All Levels and Backgrounds

We have a wealth of experience helping students from all different backgrounds and at all different levels. Many of the students we help are non-native English speakers. A significant percentage also have learning disabilities or ADHD and many receive accommodations on the exam (we also know a lot about the process of applying for accommodations and can help guide students there as well). There are often adjustments that need to be made for non-native English speakers or people with learning disabilities and, having tutored hundreds of such people, we understand how to craft an approach to meet the needs of these students.

Additionally, many of our students come to us complaining that they are just “bad at Math” and “haven’t done any Math since high school.” That’s ok too! Helping people who think they are bad at Math is what we do! The truth is that most people are not as bad at Math as they think. While you may not excel at what we might call “pure Math,” the good news is that the GMAT and GRE are not tests of your “pure Math” ability. They are reasoning tests, and many people have reasoning and critical thinking ability that far exceeds their pure Math ability! Our job is to help coax those abilities out of you and help sharpen them, thus aligning you with what the GMAT and GRE are really meant to test.

I had been out of college for 13 years so the idea of taking the GRE was extremely daunting to me. Brian’s technique is gentle but persistent. He really helps you understand what is going on with the math and how to work it through with your own reasoning in addition to the actual mathematical method. In other words, he reminds you that you know a lot of this stuff already – which is a great psychological benefit!

Tola P. (Columbia)

Though most of our students come to us looking for big score increases, we also get many students who arrive with already high scores and who are looking to add just a few more points to their score. It is not uncommon for us to get referrals from admissions consultants for students who have a 720 and need/want a 750! These situations are often the most difficult since the higher one’s score already is, the harder it becomes to get it any higher! This is where our experience diagnosing people’s issues on the test becomes most critical. We are not going to lead such students through a full process of preparing for the GMAT or GRE! Instead, we need to figure out where to find these few additional points! Are there content gaps, strategy/approach issues, time management problems, text anxiety, or something else? Often it is some combination of the above, but usually there are 1 or 2 major factors that need to be addressed (timing is almost always one of them!), so we go guns ablazing at these particular issues to try to grab those last few points. To repeat, getting a significant score increase when one’s score is already very high is extremely difficult, but we have helped scores of students reach 750+ on the GMAT and 165+ on the GRE.