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27 Mar 2017, 18:20
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For those with generic profiles who feel the need to get an exceptional (760+) GMAT score, hopefully some of these tips will be helpful for you. I initially got a 740, which I was disappointed with to be honest. 740 is still 97th percentile though, and climbing from 740 to 770 is (probably) tougher than climbing from say 710 to 740. I felt what helped me the most was really a few odd tricks that helped me speed up and think more clearly - I didn't actually study or practice too much more for the 770 take. I focused more on test-taking tactics. I think they will be useful for people aiming to go from low 700s to high 700s. If you can't be bothered to read all - read tip 5. It's a slightly crazy one, but was the most useful one for me.
Legendary Tactical Tips for GMAT
1. Sleep: I made sure I got a good night's sleep not just the night before, but in the few days leading up to the exam. I felt like I made some careless mistakes in the first exam and generally made quite a few careless errors in mock exams (usually operate on few hours of sleep). But being fully focussed does make a huge diff in an exam like this.
2. Use Keyboard Shortcuts: You must use the Alt+N (for next) and Alt+Y (for yes) shortcuts during the exam like Kellyanne Conway use duplicitous evasion tactics during televised interviews. These keyboard shortcuts will honestly save you about 60-90 seconds across the whole exam. Remember if that means you can answer one more question right in each section, that'll likely take your score about by maybe 10-20 points. It takes about 2-3 seconds for you to scroll to the bottom right of the screen to click next and then carefully scroll to the Yes confirm button. Using the shortcut keys is a lot quicker. And in both my Verbal and Quant sections, I literally worked out the final answer in the section in the last few seconds of the section.
3. First 10 **** questions: It is now perfectly clear to me just how important these are for each section (especially when I compare my score report with my previous one and that of others). You're better off spending a bit more time on these first 10 and then maybe "guessing" the odd one here and there later to make up for time. In fact that's what I did for Verbal. I spent a lot of time on the first ten, and would basically take a very quick guess (after a brief glance) on questions 21 and 31 (unless they were RC). It was a necessary sacrifice. I got 4 questions wrong totally in Verbal (out of 30 counted) and got V44. In my 740 attempt I got 5 questions wrong and got V40. Big difference was where I got the questions wrong.
4. Get the Enhanced Score Report: this is for repeat takers obviously, but it was useful for me to see which topic groups I was weak in (Sentence Correction was relatively bad in Round 1), and as importantly the time (first 10, middle 10, last 10 etc) that you got the questions wrong. Remember you want to avoid successive wrong answers on the GMAT, so having to rush guesses towards the end is gonna crush your score like Trump crushes the hopes and dreams of Mexicans. You're much better off guessing the odd question in the middle rather than having to rush at the end.
5. The Incredible Hand Trick: This is a weird one but probably the key difference for me in verbal in getting to that 98th percentile. This is def more useful for Verbal than Quant but you can obv use it for either. Now many times with any type of question you will skim the answers and eliminate some but return to the rest to examine further. This can sometimes be inefficient as you may lose track of which answers you 'eliminated'. So during practice exams (and this must be tested during practice exams first obv), when I started looking at the answer options for a given question, I would keep my left palm open with all five fingers. Each option had a corresponding finger - (A thumb, B pointer, C middle, D ring, E little). As I eliminated an option, I would "close" the corresponding finger. This way after round 1 of eliminations, you just peak at your hand and you know which answers you need to re-examine rather than go back and sort of lose track and be like "oh wait did i eliminate this one? and why was that?" etc etc. Trust me - if done correctly, this can save A LOT of time. It certainly did for me. So just as an example say you look through the answers and you spot immediate mistakes with C and D, then you're making the spiderman sign with your left hand, and then you go for the next round and just examine A, B and E. Yes, it's weird - but genuinely this helped me a lot. My initial GMAT (V40) was marred but having to rush at the end and get successive answers wrong.
6. Data Sufficiency Ego: Don't let your ego control data sufficiency like the NRA controls the Congress. Often when doing calculations in the exam, to test whether or not you have the info to answer the question, you'll kind of go through with the whole calculation just to be sure - perhaps maybe even to prove a point to yourself or some other weird reason. But to speed things up, you should get into the habit of really knowing when you have the info and can definitely reach an answer, and then stop wasting time with calculations and move on with your life. For example, if the question is "what is the area of triangle on the coordinate plane if it has one coordinate (0,5). Statement 1: one coordinate is (1,7). Statement 2: third coordinate is (3,4)". Now you obv have all the info you need with two statements - don't **** waste time trying to calculate, just click C and get on with it. That's a v simple example, but hopefully you get the point.
7. Avoid a situation where you have to rush the end: As mentioned, successive wrong answers will destroy your score like the rust belt destroyed Crooked Hillary's hopes and dreams. You want to sort of pre-plan how much time you spend on each "section". So for example for me, it was 21 minutes for first 10 questions of Verbal, 19 minutes 11-20, 17 minutes for 21-30 and 18 minutes for 31-41. Now that's just a rough guide. But if you notice at the 21st question you're significantly behind schedule you may be better off "guessing" (i.e. answering very quickly while sacrificing your ego) a few answers sporadically, like taking 20 seconds for Question 22 and Question 29. Do NOT do this random guess for two successive questions. We need to spread out the mistakes. Also better to do this "guess" after a question that you're certain you've got right. Remember, we like successive mistakes as much as Ted Cruz likes Gay Marriage. Ideally you obv want to manage your time so you don't have to make any guesses, but being pragmatic and accepting you may have to bite the bullet on 1 or 2 questions is not a bad idea.
Happy to help with any other specific questions. At the risk of sounding arrogant, it's very satisfying to get that 760+ score, it must be said. So if you're doing this exam again and want to push from say a low 700s to a high 700s, it's best to deploy every useful tactic available. Each point on it's own may make a very small difference, but the cumulative effect of implementing these small tactics may be 20-40 points.
Good luck! May the force be with you
Legendary Tactical Tips for GMAT
1. Sleep: I made sure I got a good night's sleep not just the night before, but in the few days leading up to the exam. I felt like I made some careless mistakes in the first exam and generally made quite a few careless errors in mock exams (usually operate on few hours of sleep). But being fully focussed does make a huge diff in an exam like this.
2. Use Keyboard Shortcuts: You must use the Alt+N (for next) and Alt+Y (for yes) shortcuts during the exam like Kellyanne Conway use duplicitous evasion tactics during televised interviews. These keyboard shortcuts will honestly save you about 60-90 seconds across the whole exam. Remember if that means you can answer one more question right in each section, that'll likely take your score about by maybe 10-20 points. It takes about 2-3 seconds for you to scroll to the bottom right of the screen to click next and then carefully scroll to the Yes confirm button. Using the shortcut keys is a lot quicker. And in both my Verbal and Quant sections, I literally worked out the final answer in the section in the last few seconds of the section.
3. First 10 **** questions: It is now perfectly clear to me just how important these are for each section (especially when I compare my score report with my previous one and that of others). You're better off spending a bit more time on these first 10 and then maybe "guessing" the odd one here and there later to make up for time. In fact that's what I did for Verbal. I spent a lot of time on the first ten, and would basically take a very quick guess (after a brief glance) on questions 21 and 31 (unless they were RC). It was a necessary sacrifice. I got 4 questions wrong totally in Verbal (out of 30 counted) and got V44. In my 740 attempt I got 5 questions wrong and got V40. Big difference was where I got the questions wrong.
4. Get the Enhanced Score Report: this is for repeat takers obviously, but it was useful for me to see which topic groups I was weak in (Sentence Correction was relatively bad in Round 1), and as importantly the time (first 10, middle 10, last 10 etc) that you got the questions wrong. Remember you want to avoid successive wrong answers on the GMAT, so having to rush guesses towards the end is gonna crush your score like Trump crushes the hopes and dreams of Mexicans. You're much better off guessing the odd question in the middle rather than having to rush at the end.
5. The Incredible Hand Trick: This is a weird one but probably the key difference for me in verbal in getting to that 98th percentile. This is def more useful for Verbal than Quant but you can obv use it for either. Now many times with any type of question you will skim the answers and eliminate some but return to the rest to examine further. This can sometimes be inefficient as you may lose track of which answers you 'eliminated'. So during practice exams (and this must be tested during practice exams first obv), when I started looking at the answer options for a given question, I would keep my left palm open with all five fingers. Each option had a corresponding finger - (A thumb, B pointer, C middle, D ring, E little). As I eliminated an option, I would "close" the corresponding finger. This way after round 1 of eliminations, you just peak at your hand and you know which answers you need to re-examine rather than go back and sort of lose track and be like "oh wait did i eliminate this one? and why was that?" etc etc. Trust me - if done correctly, this can save A LOT of time. It certainly did for me. So just as an example say you look through the answers and you spot immediate mistakes with C and D, then you're making the spiderman sign with your left hand, and then you go for the next round and just examine A, B and E. Yes, it's weird - but genuinely this helped me a lot. My initial GMAT (V40) was marred but having to rush at the end and get successive answers wrong.
6. Data Sufficiency Ego: Don't let your ego control data sufficiency like the NRA controls the Congress. Often when doing calculations in the exam, to test whether or not you have the info to answer the question, you'll kind of go through with the whole calculation just to be sure - perhaps maybe even to prove a point to yourself or some other weird reason. But to speed things up, you should get into the habit of really knowing when you have the info and can definitely reach an answer, and then stop wasting time with calculations and move on with your life. For example, if the question is "what is the area of triangle on the coordinate plane if it has one coordinate (0,5). Statement 1: one coordinate is (1,7). Statement 2: third coordinate is (3,4)". Now you obv have all the info you need with two statements - don't **** waste time trying to calculate, just click C and get on with it. That's a v simple example, but hopefully you get the point.
7. Avoid a situation where you have to rush the end: As mentioned, successive wrong answers will destroy your score like the rust belt destroyed Crooked Hillary's hopes and dreams. You want to sort of pre-plan how much time you spend on each "section". So for example for me, it was 21 minutes for first 10 questions of Verbal, 19 minutes 11-20, 17 minutes for 21-30 and 18 minutes for 31-41. Now that's just a rough guide. But if you notice at the 21st question you're significantly behind schedule you may be better off "guessing" (i.e. answering very quickly while sacrificing your ego) a few answers sporadically, like taking 20 seconds for Question 22 and Question 29. Do NOT do this random guess for two successive questions. We need to spread out the mistakes. Also better to do this "guess" after a question that you're certain you've got right. Remember, we like successive mistakes as much as Ted Cruz likes Gay Marriage. Ideally you obv want to manage your time so you don't have to make any guesses, but being pragmatic and accepting you may have to bite the bullet on 1 or 2 questions is not a bad idea.
Happy to help with any other specific questions. At the risk of sounding arrogant, it's very satisfying to get that 760+ score, it must be said. So if you're doing this exam again and want to push from say a low 700s to a high 700s, it's best to deploy every useful tactic available. Each point on it's own may make a very small difference, but the cumulative effect of implementing these small tactics may be 20-40 points.
Good luck! May the force be with you
Mimster
Joined: 25 Jul 2015
Last visit: 23 Jan 2020
Posts: 104
Given Kudos: 52
Location: Thailand
Concentration: Entrepreneurship, Marketing
Schools: Anderson '19 (A$) Marshall '19 (A$) McDonough '19 (A$) Sloan '19 (D) Kellogg 1YR '18 (A) Kellogg '19 (M)
GMAT 1: 550 Q37 V28
GMAT 2: 660 Q47 V34
GMAT 3: 650 Q44 V35
GMAT 4: 680 Q49 V32
GMAT 5: 740 Q49 V42
GPA: 3.33
Products:
Schools: Anderson '19 (A$) Marshall '19 (A$) McDonough '19 (A$) Sloan '19 (D) Kellogg 1YR '18 (A) Kellogg '19 (M)
GMAT 5: 740 Q49 V42
Posts: 104
27 Mar 2017, 20:40
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Damn that's phenomenal. If I ever feel like I should take GMAT again (probably for PhD but life is uncertain) I'll definitely refer to you. Good job and BRILLIANT write up. If you have a blog I'd definitely read.
28 Mar 2017, 06:40
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Hey thank you so much for the amazing tricks and congratulations on your score. Could you please share your quant and verbal strategies such as the courses you took? Further it would be nice if you can share your practice test experience. Thanks
28 Mar 2017, 07:38
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Thank you for sharing 
Especially your hand trick Although it seems weird, I think I'll try to apply that trick too LOL
Especially your hand trick Although it seems weird, I think I'll try to apply that trick too LOL 
