The Graduate Management Aptitude Test (GMAT), a major prerequisite for admission to top business schools and management institutes across the world, is likened to running a marathon race signifying preparations over a period of time for best results. But what happens when it becomes more like a 100-metre sprint with hardly a week for preparation and still emerge a winner?
Alex Mesterton-Gibbons, Recruitment Manager, Early Careers Programmes at the London Business School (LBS), has, in the Students and Admissions blog, compiled the experiences of some of the current batch of Masters in Management (MiM) and Masters in Financial Analysis (MFA) students who provide valuable tips.
Lydia Cambridge (MFA 2018) says her undergraduate final year exams took place during the summer term and as a late applicant for GMAT, she was unable to prioritise the test. She had just a nine-day window between her final exam and the last GMAT test before the application deadline.
Initially, she thought there would be no point in trying to cram with such little time and the £300 exam fee would be better spent on something else. Still, she decided to give it a shot.
Talking about your plans with your peers and supervisors would be helpful. Avoid too much stress, especially during the week closer to the test. Avoid cramming in a new topic on the day before the exam and be well rested.
“Retrospectively, I wasted the first two days by reading techniques in the official GMAT guide. Save yourself time and money by trusting me on the fact that expensive guides/tuition is unnecessary. If you don’t have friends who have previously sat the test, then use LinkedIn to connect with those that are happy to help share their papers.
“You will definitely need practice exams, they are the key to success. Learn by scrutinising your errors in the tests, and build stamina by practicing them as entire exams. A common downfall is not having the ability to concentrate acutely for almost four hours,” she says.
She also took recourse to some “strategic shortcuts.” She found that the mathematical and verbal sections do not carry equal weight. Thus, having an 80th percentile score for verbal and 70th for maths would give a stronger overall score than the reverse. Assuming your maths is at a reasonably good base level, there are greater returns to improving your verbal score, Lydia says.
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Jana Weinand (MiM 2018) says she sat for GMAT late in February to apply by April. She too faced severe time constraints, having had to deal two full-time consulting internships and a summer study programme in China after submitting her bachelor thesis.
Her advice, in such a situation, is to plan ahead and take a few mock tests up-front to get an idea about your core strengths and weaknesses. You have to focus on improving your major weaknesses, before fine-tuning your strengths. “Sit down, find a large calendar (an actual calendar, not just your phone) and plan out your preparation roadmap over the whole time you have allocated yourself (including when to take mock tests or which free resources you can use, i.e. the Economist),” she says.
Talking about your plans with your peers and supervisors would be helpful. Avoid too much stress, especially during the week closer to the test. Avoid cramming in a new topic on the day before the exam and be well rested.
Florina Toma (MFA 2018) says she prepared for the GMAT in less than a month using the official practice questions and familiarising herself with the format and timing of the test. Identifying the types of questions you find challenging and focusing on those in a structured way, you could dramatically improve your score over a very short period of time, she says.
Geraint Kong (MFA 2018) completed the GMAT preparations in around three weeks, taking one week to get familiar with the possible question types and then spending about two weeks doing the practice tests online. “By doing this I got the required score on the first attempt. I did buy the whole set of the “GMAT official guide” but barely touched it, except for using the access codes to online tests,” he says.
Sanskriti Mittal (MiM 2018) was engaged in a full-time job when she decided to apply for a Masters degree and was sceptical about being able to manage the applications in her limited free time. However, she decided to consciously adopt a positive outlook towards the entire process, beginning with the GMAT preparation.
Considering GMAT only as a learning opportunity, she says she enjoyed preparing for it and took the exam on her birthday. “I would highly recommend you to take a step back, and start by tackling your fear or resentment towards the exam. Developing a positive state of mind can make a huge difference,” she says.
