Apex GMAT
1Mike Diamond, Head of instruction, and Jaymes Kine one of the lead instructors here are going to talk about some of the questions that we’ve gotten on our social media platforms.
We asked for you guys to give us some questions you have asked the questions and I guess kind of talked ourselves into a corner because now we have to answer them. Do you have the answers? I have the answer guide!
GMAT Prep Materials
What materials to use? But I want to talk especially about the quality materials out there. There’s a wide variety of materials and a wide variety of quality, but even the good materials in terms of the problems often do a great disservice to our clients by saying this is how you do it.
You look in the back and you see this especially, it’s more apparent with the quantitative. Here’s all the algebra you need to do, and so many times it’s not about the answer, it’s about thinking about other solution paths and getting around the answer. Yeah, and this is actually something that happens a lot, it’s mainly one of the major pitfalls for self-prep.
When you’re studying on your own we read through the official guide or whatever books you may have. By the way, we recommend always getting the official guide, other books to supplement are great, but at least the official guide.
We have our own materials that we would recommend obviously, but let’s go to the official guide on the answers there. When people are self-prepping they will go through the official guide, then they’ll be reading the official answers which they start with here’s the algebra problem and work you all the way through every algebraic step.
GMAT Confidence
I don’t know if you guys can tell we haven’t rehearsed and this is actually a GMAT moment. Yeah, we maybe should have rehearsed, you know failing to plan is planning to fail I think is what we say. Yes and no though, but we have all the answers.
We don’t need to go over the answers in advance we don’t need a script because we live and breathe the GMAT, this is all we do. And in that way this is a strong parallel for the GMAT. When you’re sitting the exam you don’t need to know the answers in advance ABCD whatever. If you have the tools and the knowledge, the experience, the expertise, then the answers are going to flow. And all that I think adds up to GMAT confidence to know you can go into that test and you can take it right.
Now we may be overconfident here but it’s something we’re working on. But being confident when you get to the test is definitely key. And it’s often a characteristic of really high achieving test takers. To be sure none of our instructors went to the test saying, “Oh, I’m nervous I’m not going to do well,” and when we take follow-up tests from time to time that’s not a question.
That’s characteristic of just about everyone I’ve met, clients, instructors, whatever that have scored above that 720/730 mark.
I think irrational confidence is probably my best characteristic as a test taker. That’s your best characteristic overall! Oh, thanks man!
If you enjoyed this video, watch Quant Versus Verbal.
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