Sign in with Google
Sign in with Apple
Brian Galvin is the Director of Academic Programs at Veritas Prep, where he oversees all of the company’s GMAT preparation courses.
As another football season begins, and as you prepare for a degree in management, it may come time to reflect on one of America’s most time-honored managers and leaders, famed football coach Vince Lombardi. Lombardi is famous for leadership and winning, qualities that are undoubtedly important to business schools. While perhaps his most famous quote is “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”, he’s also famed for a quote that contains direct advice for you as you approach the GMAT and it’s computer-adaptive format:
“It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up.”
The GMAT’s scoring algorithm is designed to find your score on both the upper and lower limits by asking you questions that begin to close in on it. Think of how you'd play a game of 20 Questions as you attempt to zero in on the sports figure that your "opponent" has selected:
Was this person famous in the early 1900s? (No -- too early)
Was this person famous before World War 2? (No -- still too early)
Was this person famous before the 1980s? (Yes -- 1980 is too late)
Was this person famous before 1970? (Yes -- 1970 is still too late)
Did this person become famous after 1960? (Yes -- now we're getting close to that period between around 1960-1970)
Did this person participate in one of the first five Super Bowls in the late 1960s? (Yes)
Was this person famous for the first two Super Bowls? (Yes)
Is it Vince Lombardi (Yes -- once you get to the first two Super Bowls, it’s either Vince Lombardi, the coach, or Bart Starr, the MVP. By getting down to that era, we can determine the answer quite readily.)
Essentially, that's what the GMAT is trying to do with the questions it feeds you. "Is this person above a 650? Yes." "Is this person above a 750? No." Because the test needs to get those "no" answers at the upper limit of your ability, it will continue to feed you harder questions that you will likely answer incorrectly as it tests your upper limits, and at the lower end it will provide you with easier questions to determine your baseline. Over time, that algorithm should narrow in on an ability range for you in which you’ll answer that lower level correctly and the upper level incorrectly.
The good news? You're supposed to answer a fair number of questions incorrectly – the algorithm pretty much ensures that you will. But like Lombardi says, it’s not about how often you get knocked down, as long as you get up just as often. Missing too many questions in a small period will continue to move your bottom level down, but as long as you’re getting your lower-limit questions right you’ll be able to climb back up. Accordingly, you should:
1) Let go of questions that will cost you too much time. An educated guess still gives you a fair shot at a correct answer, and may save you enough time to ensure that you get some of the ensuing questions right to avoid that ever-damaging free-fall.
2) Double-check for silly mistakes that could result in your answering questions incorrectly that you really should get right. You can get a couple questions wrong that you shouldn’t and not pay the ultimate price, but missing too many questions at your lower limit will prevent you from opportunities to raise the ceiling while you’re stuck trying to “fix the floor.”
Remain confident throughout. If a question seems easy, answer it efficiently and know that you’ll start to see some higher-difficulty, higher-reward questions soon. If it seems hard, that’s great, as it means you’re likely pushing up on that upper limit. You can’t control the difficulty level of the question in front of you, but only the difficulty level of the next one, which brings up another great Lombardi quote: “The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have
Read more GMAT advice in our GMAT lesson booklets which are now available for individual purchase. Ready to sign up for a GMAT course? Enroll through GMAT Club and save up to $180 (use discount code GMATC10)!
