Events & Promotions
|
|
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Apr 2711:00 AM EDT
-12:00 PM EDT
Prefer video-based learning? The Target Test Prep OnDemand course is a one-of-a-kind video masterclass featuring 400 hours of lecture-style teaching by Scott Woodbury-Stewart, founder of Target Test Prep and one of the most accomplished GMAT instructors
Apr 2808:00 AM PDT
-11:00 AM PDT
Whether you are just beginning your MBA journey or fine-tuning your path to a 700+ score, GMAT Day is designed to give you a competitive edge.
Apr 2912:30 AM EDT
-01:30 AM EDT
Learn how Kamakshi achieved a GMAT 675 with an impressive 96th %ile in Data Insights. Discover the unique methods and exam strategies that helped her excel in DI along with other sections for a balanced and high score.
Apr 3001:30 AM EDT
-02:30 AM EDT
At one point, she believed GMAT wasn’t for her. After scoring 595, self-doubt crept in and she questioned her potential. But instead of quitting, she made the right strategic changes. The result? A remarkable comeback to 695. Check out how Saakshi did it.
May 0111:00 AM PDT
-12:00 PM PDT
Free- full-length test + 15 concept videos + 150+ short videos + study plan!
May 0306:30 AM PDT
-08:30 AM PDT
Verbal trouble on GMAT? Fix it NOW! Join Sunita Singhvi for a focused webinar on actionable strategies to boost your Verbal score and take your performance to the next level.
04 Sep 2021, 15:58
Kudos
Bookmarks
I was working with a student recently, and I was reminded of a hugely important GMAT skill that doesn't often get discussed: the ability to avoid false certainty.
This issue arose--as it often does--pertaining to Reading Comprehension. As we discussed a passage, I asked her to tell me how confident she was she understood the main point of the passage. She was about 90% sure she got it. So I had her explain to me the passage. And she had not understood its major points. She had some nuggets, but some of them were subtly misunderstood (and in fact, in one instance the exact *opposite* of her interpretation was the case), and the thread connecting everything was missing.
This is hardly an uncommon experience.
You need to develop the skill of knowing what you don't know. It is so much more useful to be 100% sure that you have no idea what a passage is driving at than to be 100% you do, and be wrong. The first can be corrected! You can keep reading and re-reading, piecing together the logic of the passage. The second is very hard to correct. Once your brain has 'bear-trapped' on an interpretation or line of reasoning that is incorrect, it's very hard to un-bear-trap.
The GMAT is full of passages or problems that, by design, require time, effort, and thought to untangle, interpret, and figure out. The thing is, brains do not like to be confused. Evolution had two ways to deal with this discomfort: make someone work until the thoughts are correct, or have a brain trick itself to think it isn't confused even though it isn't right. Unfortunately for the GMAT, evolution chose the latter. Your brain will be begging you to let it go on autopilot and 'bear-trap': to get something *pretty close* or form a thought that uses similar vocabulary. But you need to recognize when this process is happening and hold your first interpretations up to close scrutiny.
It's very important to realize that there's nothing wrong with being *wrong*. Your brain's first, automatic thoughts are very hard to control. So there's nothing wrong with your brain being wrong at first. You just then have to *take executive control* (it's an executive reasoning test, after all), and mechanically work through the problem to get an accurate interpretation. Now--that's a difficult skill on its own, but it's one you *cannot improve* if you don't first recognize your brain trying to avoid doing it.
This issue arose--as it often does--pertaining to Reading Comprehension. As we discussed a passage, I asked her to tell me how confident she was she understood the main point of the passage. She was about 90% sure she got it. So I had her explain to me the passage. And she had not understood its major points. She had some nuggets, but some of them were subtly misunderstood (and in fact, in one instance the exact *opposite* of her interpretation was the case), and the thread connecting everything was missing.
This is hardly an uncommon experience.
You need to develop the skill of knowing what you don't know. It is so much more useful to be 100% sure that you have no idea what a passage is driving at than to be 100% you do, and be wrong. The first can be corrected! You can keep reading and re-reading, piecing together the logic of the passage. The second is very hard to correct. Once your brain has 'bear-trapped' on an interpretation or line of reasoning that is incorrect, it's very hard to un-bear-trap.
The GMAT is full of passages or problems that, by design, require time, effort, and thought to untangle, interpret, and figure out. The thing is, brains do not like to be confused. Evolution had two ways to deal with this discomfort: make someone work until the thoughts are correct, or have a brain trick itself to think it isn't confused even though it isn't right. Unfortunately for the GMAT, evolution chose the latter. Your brain will be begging you to let it go on autopilot and 'bear-trap': to get something *pretty close* or form a thought that uses similar vocabulary. But you need to recognize when this process is happening and hold your first interpretations up to close scrutiny.
It's very important to realize that there's nothing wrong with being *wrong*. Your brain's first, automatic thoughts are very hard to control. So there's nothing wrong with your brain being wrong at first. You just then have to *take executive control* (it's an executive reasoning test, after all), and mechanically work through the problem to get an accurate interpretation. Now--that's a difficult skill on its own, but it's one you *cannot improve* if you don't first recognize your brain trying to avoid doing it.
