Nearing the middle of July, many Test Takers are starting their GMAT prep (or are in the midst of it already) in anticipation of applying to Business School before the Round 1 deadlines occur in September\/October. Many of those same Test Takers will face varying challenges during their studies and they won\u2019t know how to go about overcoming those challenges. Worse still, many will be so unable, or unwilling, to do the necessary self-analysis that they will utter the least useful phrase imaginable \u2013 \u201cI have no idea why_____.\u201d As a future MBA, you are NOT allowed to have \u201cno idea\u201d; you have to be able to come up with a POSSIBLE idea, even if it\u2019s not great, complete or ultimately correct.<\/p>\n
I have NO IDEA why I\u2019m so bad at CR and RC\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n Let\u2019s step away from your GMAT challenges for a moment, and instead deal with a simple hypothetical situation. Imagine that you walk into room, lit with sunlight from an open window, and you see a ceiling lamp that is NOT lit. You notice a light switch on the wall and flick it to the \u2018on\u2019 position, but the lamp does NOT turn on. WHY is it not turning on?<\/p>\n Stop. Think. Give me a reason why that lamp isn\u2019t turning on (even if it\u2019s just the first thing that comes to mind).<\/p>\n Don\u2019t read another word until you have a possible reason why that lamp did not light up when you flicked the switch.<\/p>\n Now, from a logical standpoint, the obvious problem is probably the bulb itself \u2013 if the bulb is burned out (or there is no bulb in the lamp to begin with), then flicking the light switch won\u2019t matter. The BULB is probably the problem. If that was your initial explanation, then that\u2019s fantastic, logical and most likely correct. You NOW have something that you can work on, fix and potentially be DONE with the problem!<\/p>\n But what it that\u2019s NOT the answer? What if the bulb is fine? What ELSE could the reason be? Come up with another possibility.<\/p>\n I have no idea why my score is stuck at ______\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n Don\u2019t get distracted by that prior sentence \u2013 we\u2019re still on the issue with the lamp. We checked the bulb and the bulb is FINE, so that is NOT why the lamp won\u2019t turn on. What else did you come up with as a possible cause of this problem? As a future MBA, you have to be able to come up with answers. If you can\u2019t answer questions and come up with possible solutions, then there\u2019s no reason for a company to hire you, much less give you power and responsibility (and lots of money) to do an MBA\u2019s job.<\/p>\n Be critical \u2013 think of this as if it were a big CR question. Is it possible that the light switch that we\u2019re flicking doesn\u2019t actually turn on THAT lamp? Is it possible that the wiring between the switch and the lamp is faulty? Is it possible that the circuit breaker has overloaded and electricity is simply not getting to the lamp? By thinking about what the problem COULD be, you can define what YOU have to do to fix it and then go about the necessary tasks to do so.<\/p>\n I have no idea why my score dropped on Test Day\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n Now, back to the GMAT and a statement that you\u2019ll see many Test Takers making in the Forums. The truth is that you probably DO have the capacity to ask AND answer those bold-faced questions \u2013 so you DO have some idea why you\u2019re stuck, or facing challenges or seeing a drop in your score. Part of effectively solving a problem is in defining it. You might not know the exact solution, but you can then work with an expert, research possible solutions, invest in new resources, etc. and ultimately overcome whatever the challenge is.<\/p>\n The great thing about the GMAT is that it is standardized and predictable. Whatever your problem(s) may be, you are not the first person that they have impacted. We can help you to solve them all, but you have to do some of the work to clearly define them first.<\/p>\n GMAT assassins aren\u2019t born, they\u2019re made, Nearing the middle of July, many Test Takers are starting their GMAT prep (or are in the midst of it already) in anticipation of applying to Business School before the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat","category-uncategorized","category-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29370"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29477,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29370\/revisions\/29477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRich<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"