Stress management tips

Question

I'm surprised I haven't seen a thread on this, but I have to ask are there are good stress management tips?

I'm going through a Kaplan CAT that I took and didn't do as well as I liked in (especially math). At the time of the test I thought that it was the hardest math I've ever seen (maybe a bit of an exaggeration). But anyway, I'm going over it now and I'm knocking them out of the ball park. I've come to the conclusion that I let my nerves get the better of me. I don't think that a lack of nerves would mean that I'll get a perfect score if I didn't have that problem but I think I should be able to get at least high 600s if I just take the test with a clear head and calm nerves. My mind goes blank whenever I get nervous. Anyone have any tips to better manage the stress?

GmatNY86 · Answer

Oops, sorry. Wrong forum. Please someone put this in the correct one.

vanilla · Answer

Hi! I know what you mean about nerves getting in the way during the exam. That was exactly what happened during my actual test. I was scoring between 680 and 720 in my practice exams and scored a meager 510. I couldn't answer very simple questions in the test while I answered similar questions with ease during my practice exams. I will be re-taking in about a month. What I'm doing now is trying to overcome my test anxiety. Starting with quant, I got the gmat club tests. I've gone through 3 and my scores have been improving. I'm becoming less and less nervous. I hope I can replicate this during my re-take. This might work for you as well. So try as many practice tests/CATs as you can. I try telling myself "hey, you've studied and prepared well for this. You can answer this!" For questions that you just can't crack within 3 mins., move on. We have to choose our battles

Best of luck!

saurabhricha · Answer

I am very new to this forum and planning to give GMAT. I don't have any real time exp with GMAT but still I wanted to answer the question posted by you: * Planning is the key to success. Plan what you will do, in what time you will do and keep a track of it. * Don't think of GMAT as a big thing. Take it casually and you will succeed. (By casually, I do not mean study casually..!!) * During mocks, keep a cool head. If you are feeling the stress, take a deep breadth and stop for 5-7 seconds. Believe me, 5-7 seconds invested in regaining the calm and composure is much better than attempting the next 5-7 ques under stress and getting 3-4 wrongs. If you can do it in mocks, you surely can do it in the real exam. Hope it helps..!! :-D

walker · Answer

Stress was the largest my problem and reason why results differ tremendous between two attempts within only a month. Calm is not work for me. I went another way and have come to "fighting for each question" principle. I just imagined that each question as a big monster has a few points to your MBA dream that you can lose or win. So, the exam was like a set of 2-min fights with 41+37 monsters. It helped me to be so concentrated that I was ready to take another exam without break.

I would also highly recommend you to be able to answer a question or make educated guess within any period of time. In other words, it would be great to be able to make educated guess even spending only 20-30 sec on a question. If you can do so, time will not your enemy anymore. So, practice almost always with timer. Moreover during practice, if you know how to solve a problem in 2min, find a way how to do it under 1 min.

GmatNY86 · Answer

Thanks everyone!

I was wondering what do you mean by planning what you will do and in what time you will do it?

I've been thinking of different stress management tricks. One of the what you said, taking a deep breath and stopping. Maybe closing my eyes. I also thought of what vanilla said. Positive thinking. I can take my experience from this test and think "you know how to do this, the nerves are just getting the better of you". I won't know everything, but I think since I've studied a decent amount, I'll know how to do many of these problems. Change the "many" to "few" if I'm nervous. So hopefully those 2 things will help. I always considered myself good in math, hopefully with minimum nerves, my brains will be enough.

vanilla · Answer

That's a good tip Walker, finding a way to solve a 2min problem within 1 min. I always thought that if I solved the problem correctly within 2 mins, I'm fine. But obviously, there are many problems that require more than 2mins. So the others have to take less. How did you do this? You have a very good breakdown of scores! How did you achieve q50 and v40? Perhaps you can share with us "stressed people" your techniques in conquering stress/anxiety/nerves during the exam. Thanks!

Sheila · Answer

Although, I've been visiting this site for a while now, this is my first post in GMATClub, so hello to everyone out here!

I took GMAT recently in August, and was very surprised at being able to stay calm during exam. I'm sure that this was due to the fact that for the last month prior to the test day I used timer on all of the tests. Thanks to you Walker, I used the timer that you've posted in one of the forums, it was a great help.

I definetly agree with Walker, you need to be confident that you learned to manage your time well for GMAT. Basically there are two tips that will kill the panic:

1. Be sure to know everything you need to know (every gmat formula, shortcuts, grammar and etc.) before taking the exam - This was the biggest mistake I made. I rushed in to take the exam too early to be able to apply in 1st round, although I knew I wasn't ready and haven't learned all the needed material.

2. Use timer on all preparation tests! - after a while you'll get to the point where you'll know how much time you spent on question without even looking at the timer.

GmatNY86 · Answer

Hi all,

Update:

I took another Kaplan CAT and I have good news and bad news. I made an effort not to be nervous and stayed composed. I found the test to be a lot easier. I had 9 out of 22 right in problem solving last test and then when I went over the questions and without looking at the explanations answered almost all of them correctly. This time I had a good feeling with math. My feeling was correct and I got a 15 out of 22.

Now the bad news. For some odd reason, the previous test, despite my nerves and 9 out of 22 right in problem solving what prevented my grade from being atrocious was my surprising data sufficiency. I answered 11 out of 15 right on it. Even more surprising considering I got only 6 out of 15 right in data sufficiency the previous test. This time I'm back at sucking at data sufficiency, 6 out of 15 right. I wasn't very good in verbal (but I spend less time on verbal, even though I think I'm better in English in general, I think Quant is harder). So I ended up getting a 600 again! It bothers me that even when I feel good about a test I get a damn 600. The problem is that unlike problem solving I don't "feel" data sufficiency. You get a pretty good idea of how you're doing in problem solving. But data sufficiency is a lot more ambiguous. The same goes for SC and CR (especially SC which I almost always feel like I get right). Not so much RC, because usually when I suck at it, I can tell. Although today I did a lot better at it than I thought. I will say I didn't feel great about verbal, but got almost the same percentile for it as I did Math that I felt good about. Maybe I'm just not smart enough and it has nothing to do with nerves.

shadow · Answer

The GMAT has nothing to do with how smart you are. It basically just tests how well you can take a standardized test. This, in turn, measures preparation and ability to remain calm. It sounds like you've worked on - and mostly dealt with - your stress levels during practice test. The rest can be improved upon through more practice.

1. You say you spend less time on verbal. I was doing the same thing during my practice tests. Timing is probably the most overlooked concept on the GMAT. You don't want to finish with 7-8 mins left in a section, because that means you didn't focus enough on the ones you got wrong. (it's also bad to take too long on a section, but luckily you don't seem to be having that issue). For the verbal on your next few practice tests, I'd work on improving the timing of the section. Don't just pick the first answer you think is right - take the time to examine the other ones and make sure your answer is right. I used this timing strategy and it boosted my V score a lot.

2. Data sufficiency is IMO the toughest part of the GMAT. Only more practice can improve how you do on it. Try to target specific topics in the data sufficiency you are doing poorly in. For example, during my study course, absolute value data sufficiency was killing me. I spent extra time studying these specific types of questions, and it helped in the long run. Do you have any specific strategy for approaching data sufficiency questions? There are some good strategies on the forum about how to tackle these questions, and they should help.

GmatNY86 · Answer

Well, I've never been good at taking standardized tests (I'm good at all other tests, hence my 3.75 GPA, albeit from a city college). I got an 1100 for my SATs and didn't pass a standardized test to get into a specialized High School in NY TWICE. However, I took Kaplan for the Specialized High School test twice and Princeton Review for the SATs and did nothing else. I did my homework but didn't do any supplimentary work. It seems a lot of people here study like crazy. I don't do that. However, in the weekdays I study about 2 hours and 45 minutes in addition to an hour or 2 of Kaplan HW. On the weekends I don't study too much, but take a CAT on Saturday and then have a 2.5 hour Kaplan course on Sunday. Now the other issues:

1) Time IS an issue for me. There was only one test that I ended up not answering questions, and it was the first Kaplan CAT (unless you count the paper and pencil diag where I just lost track of time on a question that at the time I had no chance of answering). I got a 510 on that test. Since then, I've at least finished. However I ended up having to hurry at the end and guess a couple sometimes. The only test where that wasn't the case, I got a 710 in (my only CAT that I'm happy about). Verbal is more of an issue because of reading comp. I had that problem in the SATs too. Math, last test I noticed that I was running out of time and on some questions (mostly data sufficiency). That HAD to hurt my data sufficiency score. I also had a minute left on the last question and the question was so easy that I wish I spent more time on other questions (then again I'd probably get a harder question then). I hurried a bit in verbal in the last test (I lost concentration for a bit and had a damn natural science reading comp that I could barely decipher). The CAT before that I guessed the last few questions and ended up getting the last 3 wrong. So yes time is an issue. If I were finishing with 8 minutes to go I'd be the happiest person ever. That problem would be fixed easily.

2) Well after I bombed data sufficiency 2 CATs ago I did all of the DS problems in the OG. I got something like 40 wrong out of 170. Not jaw dropping, but decent nonetheless. Then I got 11 out of 15 right on my last CAT. But I'm back to bombing it. Much like sentence correction for me, it's a silent killer. Problem solving and reading comp are sadistic killers, data sufficiency, sentence correction and critical reasoning are silent killers. I don't know I'm getting them wrong until I get the results. As far as my strategy goes. I try to write out everything in algebraic form for the appropriate problems and try to simplify as much as possible, or just make a different for (e.g. 1/a=1/b, I would write a=b). Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't. The thing is about data sufficiency, the math is often easier than in problem solving, but it's so much trickier and you're not used to these types of questions. Sometimes the math is just as hard and this it's harder than problem solving. The positive with it is that in an easy data sufficiency question you can finish it faster.

walker · Answer

Sorry, I missed your post. I see a few way to reduce time per question - practice with timer, finding as many ways to solve the problem as you can, and being able to make educated guesses. It is very important to find problem you are not able to solve under 2 min, define why it is a problem for you, and practice till you clearly see improvement in that area. You can find my debrief here: 750-q50-v40-thanks-all-66785.html You may also take a look at: 720-q42-v47-how-to-improve-verbal-tips-50635.html

GmatNY86 · Answer

Thanks walker. Just curious what's a "C-Trap"?

Also, just curious what part of Eastern Europe are you from? I was born in Kiev, but moved here at 3, so I don't have the difficulties of being a non-native speaker. Your verbal improvement is inspiring!

walker · Answer

C-trap is the most popular trap in DS questions and can be recognized by following: 1) One statement is very simple (like x=4) and is obviously insufficient. 2) Second statement is more complex and seems to be insufficient. But eventually it is sufficient. I sent PM you.

GmatNY86 · Answer

Thanks, WOW. That's a great great tip, thank you. I would almost always think that it's either C or E in this situation. I would usually think that it's C and the first statement was just a set up to a C answer. At the maximum I would think that it's E. I would almost never go B.

GmatNY86 · Answer

walker, I realize that you have some very good math background, but I'm wondering was data sufficiency difficult at all for you? It's a type of math problem that even people that deal with math a lot are probably not used to seeing.

walker · Answer

I think GMAT at the heighest level is more about tricks than math.

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