5 Ways to Improve Your GMAT Score

There are lots of ways to prepare for the GMAT, and it seems like everyone has their own advice and school of thought on how to do so.

A solid study plan tailored to your strengths and weaknesses is undoubtedly key, but are there other sure-fire, concrete ways to increase your score?

We happen to think so. No, we’re not talking about a magic bullet that will instantly skyrocket you to a 760, but we can offer you the following five highly tested, reliable ways to improve your performance.

Practice questions and practice tests

Realistic practice questions and mock tests are essential to increasing your score. How else will you know the structure, style, and format of what you’ll see on exam day?

In general, practice exercises highlight your strengths and your weaknesses, allowing you to hone specific skills and master the question types and test sections that you find most difficult. So, they’re ideal if your score is being held back by a particular section.

Practice exams play a pivotal role in building up your strength, stamina, and patience, both mentally and physically, for test day. After all, studying for the GMAT is almost like building muscle strength, where you start out weak but grow stronger and stronger with each “workout.”

Additionally, diagnostic practice exams give you a good idea of where your scores and skill levels are throughout the preparation process. It’s hard to adequately study for any sort of test without knowing how close you are to your score goals.

Please find here Manhattan Review’s GMAT practice questions, which are free and come with detailed solutions.

Pace yourself

I think we can all agree effective time management is a prerequisite to GMAT success. An important phrase to know is “time position” – i.e. the relationship between the test taker’s position on the test (question number) and the time that has elapsed to get to that point in the section.

Quant questions, for example, should take about two minutes each, and if you've just completed question number five and 15 minutes have gone by, you’re five minutes behind.

Your goal on the test is to remain neither ahead nor behind, but on time or neutral. This takes an understanding of what the pacing is for each question type on each section and keeping track of that pacing throughout the exam.

There are severe consequences for poor time management. If you don’t keep up, you’ll probably have to make a mad dash to finish a section’s remaining exercises, and you may even be forced to guess.

This is why those who struggle with timing have to work pacing drills into GMAT prep sessions. By setting and reaching pacing goals, time can be on your side as you gear up for test day.

Review math concepts beforehand

The GMAT quant section consists of trigonometry, statistics, algebra, geometry and probability, so if you’ve forgotten any of those concepts from high school, it’s important to undergo a thorough review.

GMAT quant exercises test you on simple concepts but in complex ways, and you must therefore have those concepts accessible and fresh in your mind.

Read and analyze relevant texts

As the GMAT verbal section asks you to read and analyze short and long complex passages, it’s wise to familiarize yourself with a variety of texts, so you’re not stumbling on GMAT reading like a deer in the headlights come test day.

While it’s obviously impossible to cover everything that could be on the exam, it’s a sure-fire bet that reading articles on the humanities, business, law, and the natural and social sciences will help you better understand subjects and vocabulary relevant to GMAT verbal exercises.

Useful articles can be found in the New York Times, Nature, The Atlantic, and even The New Yorker. Academic journals aren’t a bad place to go, either.

Practice with real GMAT essay prompts

You can’t know your essay prompts in advance, but all GMAT essays require analytical writing and assessment, and you must be able to quickly understand an argument’s key points and accentuate flaws in logic.

Brushing up on possible essay topics by reviewing actual GMAT essay prompts is therefore highly advisable. The point is not so much to memorize them, as that won’t work, but to be acquainted with what might be sent your way.

To achieve the largest GMAT score gains, you have to choose a plan of study and course of action that is specific to your needs and aspirations. While there is no one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach that works for everyone, integrating these five suggestions into your GMAT preparation will more than likely give you positive results.

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About Manhattan Review:
Manhattan Review, the provider of Manhattan Review GMAT Prep, was founded in 1999 by Dr Joern Meissner, an internationally renowned business school professor. Headquartered in New York City, Manhattan Review operates in many cities in the United States and in selected major cities around the world, including London. Our mission as a company is to help students gain entrance to their desired degree programs by working to improve their admission test scores.