In a previous post I discussed one of the main reasons that a person’s GMAT score can appear not to increase. In this post I will posit what I believe to be the second most common cause: a complete misunderstanding of the test and what it takes to do well on it!
Many prospective GMATers’ introduction to the test is through a major test prep company like Manhattan GMAT or Kaplan. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but often the result is a misunderstanding of the test. The GMAT is a reasoning test, not a test of content knowledge, yet that message is usually not made clear by the major GMAT prep companies. In particular I find that people who go through Manhattan GMAT, whether in a formal class setting or even just self-study using their books, often walk away with the impression that the GMAT measures one’s content knowledge. They go through all of the Math books and try to memorize all of the foundational knowledge that is presented and they often do the same with the Verbal books. Often people go through the classes or the books without ever using the Official Guide or maybe only using it very sparingly. So they have no idea how the concepts in the book will apply to real GMAT questions.
I am not saying that the foundational knowledge presented in those books is useless. It is helpful and in some cases absolutely necessary to know a lot of that stuff. If you don’t know your exponent rules you are clearly at a disadvantage on the test. Indeed, I will often have my students work through selected parts of the Manhattan GMAT books or sometimes those of some other company (depending on the situation and what the student needs). But, it is important to understand that the GMAT is a reasoning test, not a test of content knowledge. Real GMAT questions get much more at your conceptual understanding of things and the questions really reward creative problem solving and logical reasoning more than they reward content knowledge.
This understanding is often not apparent to people who are preparing for the test, especially those who start off with one of the major test prep companies. So if you are struggling to increase your score, you may want to take a look at how you are treating the questions. Are you just trying apply rules and technical methods that you learned in a test prep guide or class? Are you treating the Quant section as a test of your Math knowledge or pure Math ability? If so, you are approaching the GMAT in the wrong way because although the content knowledge is important as a foundation it is only a foundation. Jumping off from that foundation, the GMAT seeks to assess your logical reasoning and critical thinking ability so it is best to try to approach the questions with that understanding in mind.
Obviously this post is not going to magically transform your ability to approach GMAT questions in unbelievably effective ways, but my hope is that at the very least it will help some people better align themselves with what the GMAT is really all about and in so doing potentially nudge them out of the pattern that is keeping them from improving their score. I have tutored many hundreds of people and the large majority of them come to me needing this refocus – they are not approaching the test in the right way and when I reframe it for them and help them understand how to better understand the test they start to improve.
Again, it would be impossible for me to do that for readers through a blog post, but I will give one example just to show how people tend to misunderstand the test. Consider the following question from the GMATPrep tests (for those who can’t make out the numbers, the question is asking you to add the square root of four, the cubed root of four, and the fourth root of four):
People who have never seen a GMAT question before almost stand a better chance on this question than those who have gone through all of the Manhattan GMAT books or through a Manhattan GMAT class or the resources of some other company. That is because people who have been indoctrinated in the Manhattan GMAT ways tend to try to approach this question in a very technical Mathematical sort of way when in fact a more logical approach is really called for. Anyone who has learned how to add and subtract exponents and roots will tend to view this as a question in which one can apply the algebraic technique typically called for in that case: factoring out.
However, taking a more logical and high-level approach to this question, we can see that the answers are given as ranges, not specific values. One must consider then, why would we try to factor out and solve a pretty nasty looking equation when the test-maker is not even giving us specific values as answers? Could it be that we are just meant to estimate here? Well if we start to head down that path we will see that we can very quickly make some positive progress. The first term (the square root of 4) is equal to 2, so we already know that the answer is C, D, or E. Now all we have to do is estimate what the second and third term equal. Well the cubed root of 4 is the number that when cubed equals 4. This is not going to be an integer, but if we try to estimate here we are going to find that the number has to be between 1 and 2. 1 cubed is 1 and 2 cubed is 8 so the number that when cubed equals 4 must be between 1 and 2. At this point the answer must be D or E. Well the same logic that applied to the cubed root of 4 would apply to the 4th root of 4. 1 to the 4th power is only 1, so the 4th root of 4 must be bigger than 1 and so the answer must be E.
Mathematically all that you really need in order to answer this question is a basic understanding of what the cubed root and 4th root of a number means. An overly technical approach on this question (like factoring out) is both unnecessary and likely to lead down a path that will NOT get you to the right answer. What is really needed is a very logical, clever, and intuitive approach and the same can be said of most GMAT questions!
So as you work through questions try to gauge whether you are approaching Quant questions as though they are testing your pure Math ability and Verbal questions as though they are measuring your pure Verbal ability. If you are, you are on the wrong track! Again, foundational knowledge is important, but it is not sufficient. The GMAT really aims to measure your Quantitative and Verbal reasoning ability (with a stress on the word “reasoning”) so you would do well to try to align yourself with what the test is really about. Try to think of the questions more as brain teasers than as “Math” questions or “Verbal” questions of the sort that you encountered in school. And most of all try to be creative and clever in the way that you solve problems, particularly the quantitative ones, since the GMAT, at its heart, is designed to reward creative problem solving and strong logical reasoning ability.