3 Phases of GMAT Preparation: Ace GMAT Quant Section

For an effective GMAT preparation acing the GMAT quant section is quite important. The man focus should be on mastering the core math concepts along with regular practice. Here in this article we will be discussing three phases of the GMAT prep by acing your GMAT quant section. Before we delve into details of different phases of preparation let us discuss a few very critical aspects to maximize the outcome from our preparation Guidelines / mindset / protocols one should keep in mind during one’s GMAT exam preparation.

The first and the foremost guideline is that one should critically evaluate and analyze their level at the beginning of the prep. Also, it helps if one knows what is the expected score one is targeting. Secondly, students must know how much time and effort you can dedicate on a daily basis towards the GMAT prep. Lastly, it is very important to design a custom prep study plan for a successful outcome. Have milestones at different phases of prep to critically evaluate whether the preparation is moving ahead as per plan or not. The primary key to maximize your GMAT score is a structured and disciplined preparation. Also, just like it is important to set milestones or goals the goals should be realistic and measurable. For instance after phase 1, one should be familiar with the concepts and can solve questions of certain difficulty. However, if a student takes the FLT after phase 1, he/she may not get an expected score. Wisdom is in realizing that a bad score after just phase 1 is not a reflection of how good or bad phase 1 went. Know where you stand. Evaluation of your skill set is important to know what you need to focus on.

The ideal GMAT preparation time is from 90 days to 3 months. While you are in your GMAT preparation phase, be grounded and give your best shot with the time and resources you have. Don’t be overconfident or underconfident as both are bottlenecks in maximizing your GMAT scores. To know your initial GMAT prep level students can take a diagnostic test. Here are some skills to master your quant section.

3 Phases of GMAT Preparation

Now, coming back to the 3 phases of GMAT preparation to ace the quant section, here we will explain each individually. Disciplined and structured GMAT prep helps a lot in maximizing the results with minimum effort. Also, each of the three phases of prep has a specific intended outcome:

• Phase 1 – Focus on concept learning that are tested on the GMAT

• Phase 2 – Focus on mastering the application of the multiple concepts in a given question

• Phase 3 – Focus on performing under time pressure. Time management is the key

Phase 1 of GMAT Preparation

The intended outcome – Learn / revise / build the foundation / brush up the key concepts tested on GMAT and their application.

This Phase will require you to go through topic wise GMAT prep along with the application through practice questions to build the foundation and to also know the boundary of the GMAT syllabus so that you can clearly focus on what is getting asked in GMAT and how it’s getting asked to develop the reasoning and approach aligned with GMAT exam. This is the foundation building phase, a very critical one before moving on with your prep ahead. Please note if you are comfortable with Quantitative reasoning skills / currently active with academics then this phase will be mastered in a short duration whereas it may take a bit more effort & time to learn the skills required in this phase if you are out of touch with academics. For example, in the first phase one should focus on learning the concepts and understanding the language nuances and application of both in practice questions. While solving the practice questions the intention is not just to get an answer and get to the next questions but the focus should be to deeply understand the application of the learned concepts in the question at hand. Make sure each and every question adds to your learning.

In short, the intention is that once you have solved a question (or a couple of them) then you should be able to solve new questions based on the same concepts with confidence.

Phase 2 of GMAT Preparation

The intended outcome – Master the application of concepts / have an in-depth understanding of the application of concepts through practice of advanced content.

Build up on the learnings of phase -1 through exhaustive practice in this phase. This is critical as the more you build up the reasoning and approaches tested on GMAT the easier it will be for you in the next phase when you will need to perform under timed conditions. It is important to make sure to restrict to the concepts tested on GMAT and follow an approach most suitable for one to perform under time pressure. After learning the basic concepts, spontaneity in applying those concepts to actual GMAT questions should be practiced and any time lag or concept lag should be duly registered and recapped. Here, spontaneity means how quickly the concepts done in Phase 1 are recollected and applied to the questions. Though a quick revision of the concepts / key questions studied in phase -1 could be helpful, practicing advanced quantitative questions in this phase will go a long way to accomplish the intended outcome from this phase. Students must focus on improving accuracy gradually through this phase. Revisiting the error log and redoing the mistakes from the Phase 1 might show significant improvement in achieving the goals of Phase 2.

Important point to note: This is the GMAT preparation phase where most of the aspirants drop out. It is either due to over exposure to advanced level questions which may sometimes demoralize the students and may push them away from your MBA aspirations or due to boredom caused by revising and revisiting the content of Phase 1.

Now as both revision of the content of Phase 1 and practice of advance level questions is very critical to accomplish the intended outcome. So, keeping yourself motivated and disciplined is very important. This phase if handled properly will bring about the mental toughness required to crack the exam with flying colors. It is also time to follow a structured and disciplined GMAT prep which will go a long way to deal with the unnecessary stress and monotony that one may experience in this phase.

Phase 3 of GMAT Preparation

The intended outcome – GMAT Test and time management along with the final check of stamina building along with analyzing the prep level.

Like every phase this final phase is also very critical to get GMAT test ready. This is a phase where you will be learning how to perform in a time bound manner. Till the last phase, we were mastering the concepts in a topic-wise manner but in the exam the questions will be asked randomly from different topics and each question also testing multiple concepts, so it is very important to get comfortable with switching between different topics and concepts with every next question within a given amount of time.

Measure the improvement

Along with focusing on the mistakes, we should also regularly note about the improvements which bolster the spirit of taking the test in a positive manner. We acknowledge that at the end of the day we are targeting a good GMAT score but during preparation focusing too much on the score or just the score is not the best way to improve the performance. Rather than focusing too much on score one should focus on improving conceptual clarity in each and every content area of the test.

Due to the adaptive nature of GMAT mock tests that one takes will typically have all levels of questions and one makes mistakes usually on the harder questions. One should learn from one’s mistakes and thoroughly keep evaluating and analysing that the mistakes of similar kind are not happening over different tests. At times different mock tests have different concepts tested. For e.g., test 1 I made 5 mistakes and test 2 also I made 5 mistakes. At the face value, it looks like no improvement. However, the mistakes in test 1 were not repeated as they were thoroughly analysed. Test 2 were new mistakes that require analysis. In my world, this is an improvement and absolutely on the right track. It really helps if one works with the mindset that each mistake is a goldmine to gain from. It is a process of cumulative positives where you build up the concepts on a daily basis.

Conclusion:

The accuracy in solving questions acquired in Phase 2 should now be put together with efficient time management to create a balance required to nail 21 questions in 45 mins. It is always advisable to start with small sectional tests and then gradually move to Full length Tests. This is all about the three phases of GMAT exam prep. Ace your prep by following these phases in order.