10 things I wish I had known before starting preparation for GMAT

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I took my first ever GMAT in 2019 and scored a 730. People say it’s a good score, but I know I could have done better if I had known better. I thought of taking it again but my bank balance suggested otherwise. If you are planning to take GMAT, do give this post a read and see if there’s anything that you can take away from this.

1. It’s not your only shot: I had made it a matter of life and death (not literally but you get the sense) as a result I procrastinated for a long time before I started prepping for it. The beauty of GMAT is that you can take it multiple times and it is not that big a deal if you don’t score well because at the end of the test you get an option to submit or reject your score and if you end up rejecting it, it won’t be counted (yes that’s true!).
2. It will improve your English: While it won’t turn you into a grammar nazi but it will certainly improve your English (spoken and written), the sentence correction section of Verbal focuses on correct usage in complex sentences, but also helps in developing an intuition for correct sentence structure. (Can you spot the mistake in my previous sentence?)
3. It is not that easy: While some people out there may disagree but in general it isn’t that easy for an average person like me. Generally a person is either strong in Verbal or in Quants ( no points for guessing my area of strength), you will rarely come across a person who is strong in both. This is because of the education system we grew up in, our reading habits, our choice of reading material, our field of study and work etc. So it is easier to master one but to master the other it takes time and effort.
4. It is not that tough: I know I just said that it is not that easy, but it is not that tough either. In short, it is doable if you put your mind to it, follow a plan of action and focus on your weak spots.
5. It is not that important: While a lot of schools have a cut-off score, but most of these B-schools are not very heavily reliant on your GMAT score. The selection criteria is divided into multiple buckets like leadership, academics, extra-curricular, interview etc. GMAT score is just one of the many parameters in one of the many buckets. So chill.
6. Technical trouble is real: Have you heard of Murphy’s law? (“Everything that can go wrong will go wrong”). Well, it is somewhat true, not always but there are high chances that your test might get stuck on a question or the computer might crash or any of the 100 other things but remember to stay calm. First of all the timer stops 99% of the times when something like this happens. As for the other 1% you might hardly miss a minute but if you allow yourself to get rattled you might miss a lot more. Which brings me to my next point.
7. Nerves play a major role: While this is true for most tests, GMAT specially requires you to have good control on your nerves. Because the time per question is less, if you answer incorrectly the question you get next will be decided accordingly, you might have more than one answers which appears right, verbal questions might require a second and third reading — you get the drift. Hence, you need to keep calm and focus.
8. Mock tests help more than you think: Not only do they help you evaluate yourself but also help you develop a habit of sitting for long periods and maintaining your focus. If you take official mocks (which I highly recommend) they familiarise you with the UI. Another benefit of taking the official tests is that the level of questions is very close to the ones you’ll encounter in the actual test.
9. Coaching?: I have been asked by a lot of people if coaching helps. I went down the coaching path and found it to be a waste of time, money and effort. The material wasn’t good enough, the test questions weren’t of GMAT level, the teaching was mediocre at best and nothing that official books don’t already teach you. So my personal opinion is coaching is not required for GMAT.
10. You don’t need so much (material): Another question that I have been asked very frequently is what material to use? The answer is official books are sufficient. I was lost in the sea of material and nothing made any sense till I started studying from the official set and voila it was like a whole new world. Again, a personal opinion — go with the official material and tests.

BONUS: This is my little trick that I found helpful- maintain a notebook of all your mistakes, note down the source, the type of question and the error that you made in that question. Read through your error log. It is important to practice a lot of questions but it is more important to analyse your mistakes so that you don’t repeat them. Learn from your mistakes, only then you will be truly moving forward in your prep.

These are some pointers that I wish I had known when I started my prep for GMAT. Though I learnt all of this the hard way but I am truly glad that I did learn it after all. I hope you derive some value from this post. Feel free to reach out for any queries. Good Luck!