GMAT

Many people are familiar with the idea of dieting for weight loss.  It’s a slow process, requiring discipline, mindfulness, and hard work… a lot like studying for the GMAT, right?  During the first few weeks of their weight loss plan, the pounds (or kilos) fall off easily, and they get into a routine of diet and exercise.  After a month or so, though, the progress stops and weight loss slows to a crawl.  Some people even regain some of the weight they’ve lost, despite continuing with the same good habits that took those pounds off in the first place.  Unfortunately for them, those people have hit a plateau.

Plateaus can happen in test preparation, too.  The routines that yield such great results when you start out studying—drilling questions from the OG, reviewing grammar and math concepts, reading explanations and discussing them with fellow GMAT aspirants—don’t lead to the same gains on your practice tests a month later.  Sometimes, your score will actually drop from one test to the next.  And just like those dieters, you can bust through your plateau by mixing up your routine.  Some of the tips and tricks that are used for weight loss will work just as well for you, if they’re adapted to your purposes.

What Dieters Do: Mix up their eating plan

How You Can Adapt This Approach: Think of your “food” as the information you’ve been learning to support your studies.  If you’ve been concentrating on books from one source, and getting all your knowledge from the same place, try reaching out to a different source for the same information.  Learning all your grammar from a text written by Jane Doe?  Maybe John Smith’s text will explain the concepts in a way that gives you a new understanding of them.  Have you been loyal to Company A’s math lessons?  Perhaps trying out the methods espoused by Company B will help.  The basic idea here is that feeding your brain a new kind of information can help you see things in a new way, and that can help you reach new levels in your prep.

What Dieters Do: Change their exercise routine

How You Can Adapt This Approach: Your “exercise” is the time you spend doing timed practice, either on individual question sets or full-length tests.  If you’ve been focusing on one of those—let’s say you’ve been taking a full-length test every week, but not doing much timed practice on individual questions—switch your focus.  Don’t take a test for two weeks, and instead spend that time really paying attention to the specific question types.  Or if you’re a slave to the clock, and all you ever do is timed practice, try turning the timer off.  Give yourself permission to spend 10 minutes on a single question, if that’s what it takes for you to really understand it.

What Dieters Do: Seek extra help

How You Can Adapt This Approach: If you usually study alone, try to find a study group to work with regularly.  It’s great if you can do this in person, but if that’s not an option for you, there are online study groups you can join as well.  Getting feedback from other students can help you improve your approaches, and if you understand something that your fellow group members don’t, explaining it can help to cement your knowledge.  If that doesn’t work, consider hiring a “trainer.”  In weight loss, one great way to break through a plateau is to work with a trainer.  The test prep equivalent is a tutor.  Even an hour a week can give you new motivation and show you methods you might not be familiar with on your own.

The common denominator here is CHANGE.  If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting the same results.  Introduce new knowledge, routines, or resources into your study plan, and you can get your numbers moving back up where you want them.

Have you found a great way to break through a plateau?  Share it in the comments! Make sure to practice on Grockit!

Let’s face it, studying is not fun. It’s usually something you struggle through, is discouraging, tedious and expensive, and requires faith that it will pay off in the end. Here’s the good news: it will pay off, but only if you do it correctly. These are some good rules to follow.

Start Early
Most people start studying between 1 month and 1 year before the GMAT. Remember, starting early doesn’t mean you necessarily have to study more, just over a longer period of time. I would suggest trying your first problem 4 – 6 months before test day. Set aside 2-3 hours a week in the beginning, and gradually ramp up your review. Despite what you may otherwise hear, it’s not a test for which you can easily cram.

Practice Tests
Take practice tests. When you register for the GMAT, you’ll receive a CD (or online code) with two standard practice exams. Grockit will soon offer full-length CAT exams in the same format of the actual test. Plan on taking about 5-7 over the course of your preparation. Don’t cheat by not doing the essay. Yes, I know, it’s annoying; I went though this too. But you have to practice reading long, boring passages after three hours of testing, not just after two. Think of these as scrimmages before the big game.

Learn Actively
Ever sit down to study, turn on music, pick up some coffee, IM friends, check your email, then realize you have to leave in 30 minutes? Great, so don’t do that. Instead, dedicate those couple hours to reviewing the topic at hand, and nothing more. Take copious notes of your trouble spots. Practice many similar questions at once. If you get a question wrong, attempt it a 2nd time before reviewing the explanation. Don’t read through the practice book passively and expect the information to be absorbed through sheer familiarity. If you can’t explain a topic to someone else, you don’t know it well enough.

Targeted Study
Our goal at Grockit is to make the learning experience fun and social, while also isolating students’ weakness through detailed and comprehensive analytics. Use feedback resources like Grockit’s to identify the parts of the tests that are particularly difficult for you. We assign multiple “skill-tags” to each of our questions, and using Grockit’s analytics page, students may review their strengths and weaknesses to create custom study sessions. They are also periodically presented with personalized Challenges and Diagnostics to measure their progress in a variety of areas. Without any (internal or external) feedback of your progress, study time is wasted. Instead, hone in on those nagging topics by giving them more attention. A passive studier goes through the textbook from page 1 to 300. An active (and ultimately more successful studier) creates a personalized “textbook” by assessing and reassessing his/her strengths and weaknesses and targeting their practice accordingly.

Many Small Goals
Each time you sit down to study, set a goal for that practice. This can be, “take notes on key points in Chapter 6,” “memorize these 4 formulas for these type of Quantitative questions,” or “practice and review all 30 sample questions in this section.” You will be more apt to focus and less inclined to justify stopping early or doing a cursory job. On a macro level, set longer-term goals to “get a 650 on my next practice test” or “review all probability questions by next Friday”. Most importantly, constantly reassess and redirect your targets. Maybe one section is giving you more trouble than another – don’t default to spending equal time on each topic because each has 20 practice questions to review.

Expert Help
Don’t expect your tutor or teacher to hold your hand. It may be tempting to drop $1,200 on a class and think you’re done. This will backfire. Trust me. If you do register for a course, show up ready to learn. Use it to identify material that’s confusing, and study that on your own. A more cost-effective approach is to only work with private instructors to target your weaknesses when you really need it. It avoids the fundamental “teach-to-the-middle” flaw of a classroom environment. Feel free to combine courses and private tutoring, but be prepared to spend some money. For private lessons, show up with problems that are troubling you and direct your instructor to your weaknesses. Your instructor cannot read your mind. The more you bring with you, the more he/she will be able to help. For example, Grockit’s instructors may customize practice sections ahead of time based on a student’s personalized analytics, but you are ultimately responsible for directing the study yourself. Intersperse these lessons throughout the course of your study so you have time to reassess where you’re at between each session.

The benefit of working hard while studying is that you ultimately have to do less of it. And when you sit down, do it right and actively, otherwise you are inefficient with your time and money. And any B-School student should know that inefficiency is an automatic red flag. Check out how Grockit can assist in your preparation for test day. Please email me at jakeb@grockit.com with your thoughts and questions.

Good luck!