{"id":4101,"date":"2010-08-11T15:46:17","date_gmt":"2010-08-11T23:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=4101"},"modified":"2010-08-11T15:46:17","modified_gmt":"2010-08-11T23:46:17","slug":"veritas-prep-gmat-tips-down-to-two-what-should-you-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/veritas-prep-gmat-tips-down-to-two-what-should-you-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Veritas Prep GMAT Tips: Down to Two – What Should You Do?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian Galvin is the Director of Academic Programs at Veritas Prep, where he oversees all of the company\u2019s GMAT preparation courses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A common concern of standardized test takers everywhere, and certainly of GMAT students, is the worry that \u201cI can usually narrow the answers down to two, but I\u2019m not much better than 50% once I do.\u201d\u00a0 Has this happened to you?\u00a0 It\u2019s maddening \u2013 you do most of the work correctly, but feel as though you can\u2019t confidently answer in the end.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a common reason for that, and to understand it you may want to take a mental trip to the California coast, where if we\u2019re not surfing or skiing we\u2019re probably wine-tasting or eating sushi.\u00a0 When wine-tasting or eating sushi, the proprietors put a large emphasis on \u201ccleansing your palate\u201d between flavors so that you can rid your mouth of aftertaste and truly appreciate what\u2019s next.\u00a0 The ideology is that, for the subtle-but-meaningful changes in flavor that await you, you can\u2019t afford to have your senses numbed by the remnants of what came before, and so you\u2019ll eat ginger leaves or soda crackers between bites or sips in order to prepare yourself to recognize and appreciate that subtle change.<\/p>\n

GMAT questions are a lot like that, as well.\u00a0 Difficult, well-written verbal questions will rely on subtle-but-significant phrasing that makes an incorrect answer seem correct or vice versa.\u00a0 The test-taker with the most \u201csophisticated mental palate\u201d is the one who is best suited to appreciate these differences, and examinees who find themselves with the \u201caftertaste\u201d of irrelevant answer choices or information may find their senses numbed to the point where the differences are unclear.<\/p>\n

Consider your typical approach through a verbal problem \u2013 you likely go through each answer choice, \u201chold on\u201d to any that look like they could be correct and eliminate those that are certainly wrong.\u00a0 So, when you\u2019re down to two answer choices, four of the last five sentences that you\u2019ve read are wrong answers<\/em>!\u00a0 Your mind is cluttered with misinformation and its \u201caftertaste\u201d, and it\u2019s no wonder that sometimes you can\u2019t make a clear, efficient decision between those final answers, as it\u2019s been a while since you\u2019ve read the question at hand and its most important components.<\/p>\n

The solution?\u00a0 Cleanse your mental palate, so to speak, by taking 5-10 seconds to refresh yourself on the question before you make that final decision.\u00a0 Simply treating the question as a new one with only two answers will help you to focus on what really matters, and to appreciate the subtle difference between the two remaining answer choices.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, consider how you\u2019ll likely use process of elimination \u2013 you\u2019ve seen 3\/2 splits in Sentence Correction (three choices use \u201cits\u201d and two use \u201ctheir\u201d, forcing you to make a singular-vs.-plural decision), and they also exist in Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension questions, in which three answer choices may be \u201cout of scope\u201d while the remaining two have a more subtle difference between them.\u00a0 If you treat the question as a new one, you\u2019re far more apt to use a new thought process to make that last decision, as opposed to trying to force the prior thought process to work (when it didn\u2019t give you a decision the first time through).<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re down to two answers, you\u2019ve already put yourself in a terrific situation, so take the extra few seconds to reframe the question as you \u201ccleanse your mental palate\u201d of aftertaste in order to make that all-important final decision.<\/p>\n

Ready to sign up for a GMAT course<\/a>? Enroll through GMAT Club and save up to $180 (use discount code GMATC10)!
\nEnroll now. Pay later.<\/span> Take advantage of Veritas Prep\u2019s flexible payment plan options.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Veritas
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian Galvin is the Director of Academic Programs at Veritas Prep, where he oversees all of the company\u2019s GMAT preparation courses. A common concern of standardized test takers everywhere, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4101","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\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4104,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4101\/revisions\/4104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}