GMAT Study Tips: How Do We Learn?
This post was written by Manhattan Prep GMAT, GRE, and LSAT instructor Chris Gentry.
As a standardized test teacher (I started teaching LSAT classes back in 2003, and now teach GMAT, GRE, and LSAT classes), I’ve come to realize that one of the most impressively unfortunate aspects of test preparation is the simple fact that many people don’t know how to study! This is especially true for those of us who have not entered a classroom environment for several years—also known as most of my students preparing for the GMAT.
Let’s start with learning itself: how does the brain learn?
The brain learns by forgetting.
This is the first principle we need to embrace. The brain is a ruthless forgetting machine: it forgets really, really well! And when we begin studying, we will forget. A lot.
This is, ironically, one of the first steps to learning. To learn, we need to allow ourselves to forget. So we don’t try to learn a topic entirely in one study session. And we don’t try to learn a topic in sequential study sessions. We learn by spaced repetition: study an element of the test for a short period of time, then walk away.
And stay away. For at least a day.
Then, after you’ve started to forget, you return to that material.
On the GMAT, the most elementary way to implement this learning principle is to alternate study sessions between Quant and Verbal topics. Don’t study exponents on Wednesday, and then on Thursday come back to study exponents again. Study exponents on Wednesday, and then study parallelism on Thursday. Move things around! Embrace the forgetting! When we familiarize ourselves with material, we only think we’ve learned… but sadly, we have not. We need to forget, then re-familiarize, then forget, then re-familiarize; now we are starting to learn!
Look up the “Leitner box schedule” online. You’ll want something akin to this as you begin your studies.
The brain learns through association.
This second aspect is more about where we study than how we study. Don’t study in the same place, at the same time, drinking the same ice water with lemon, all the time. Mix it up! Give the brain some variety! Study at a coffee shop, or a park, or at a library table that people walk by. Moderate levels of distraction are, oddly enough, contributions to your studies!
The brain learns through failure.
Or, as I put it to my classes, we learn best when we’re a little bit angry. Don’t start by reading a chapter. Start by attempting problems. Embrace that failure!
When we look at a curriculum, we should start with the problem sets. Attempt them, but don’t check the answers: not yet. Let our comfort, or lack thereof, dictate how carefully we read the content explanations. After we’ve read, we return to the problems we attempted, and we make any desired revisions to our work. Then we check our answers. But we don’t read explanations…not yet.
If we answered the problem correctly, can we write an explanation? And not just ‘Answer C is correct because of this equation’, but ‘Because the problem begins with exponents and addition, consider whether there is a common term manipulation available’. An explanation isn’t what answer is correct: an explanation is how we knew to apply the process that led to that correct answer. And especially what aspect of the problem we will expect to see again in a future problem!
If we did not answer the problem correctly, now that we know which answer is correct, what process elements will we implement to arrive at that correct answer? And again, what in the problem should suggest those process elements?
We try to craft our own explanations before we read someone else’s. An explanation written by someone else tells us how that other person would solve the problem…but it might not be how we would solve the problem! Even as a GMAT instructor for Manhattan Prep, I read some of our explanations and think ‘Huh. I can see why that works, but I would never have solved it that way.’ And that’s ok. That’s good. The ultimate goal is to build our own processes to arrive at correct answers.
Oh, and one other thing…without looking, do we remember what the last piece of advice was in the first bullet point? What was the name of that review schedule? Or have we forgotten it…
Good luck, and happy testing!
KEEP READING: 8 Essential GMAT Study Tips
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Chris Gentry is a Manhattan Prep LSAT, GMAT, and GRE instructor who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Chris received his Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Clemson and JD from Emory University School of Law before realizing that he genuinely enjoys the challenge of standardized tests, and his true passion is teaching. Chris’ dual-pronged approach to understanding each test question has helped countless of his students to achieve their goal scores.