Practice tests or mock exams are one of your most valuable tools as you get ready for your official GMAT—but there’s definitely a wrong way to use your CATs. Here’s how to know when to take your CATs.

When should I take a practice GMAT?

Practice CATs (or mock GMATs) are very useful for three things:

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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?

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Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

If you read the first post in this series, then you already know how to get the most you can out of the first 5 seconds of a GMAT Quant problem. But what about the other 1:55? Let’s continue to delve. Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

Halfway through a GMATPrep® free practice test, I hit the passage I’m going to discuss in this series—and I groaned aloud the second it appeared on the screen.

Why? Here’s what I saw (without really reading much of anything!): Read more

Most of my students are driven crazy by GMAT Number Properties. On the face of it, the topic seems straightforward: I know what positive and negative, odd and even are. Divisibility stuff is a little more complicated, but come on: this was taught in school when we were 10! How hard can it be? Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

Two minutes is not a huge amount of time. Yet if you want to finish the entire GMAT Quant section in 75 minutes, two minutes is about all you have to solve each problem. Don’t interpret that to mean you just have to go quickly or skip important steps like checking your work. Instead, seek out a more efficient process for dealing with GMAT problems.

Better yet, read along as I detail an efficient process for dealing with your two minutes. Read more

I ran across the GMAT problem below when I was reviewing a GMATPrep® test that I took a while back, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I needed to share it with you. There are some really intriguing aspects to this one. Read more

Sometimes the whole point of a specific GMAT problem is to convert between miles and kilometers, or meters and centimeters. In other problems, you’ll need to do a unit conversion as part of a longer solution. It’s easy to mess up unit conversions, and the GMAT writers know this — they include them on the test in order to test your level of organization and your ability to double-check your work. Here’s how to add fast unit conversions to your repertoire of skills.   Read more

The GMAT Critical Reasoning question type “Explain a Discrepancy” has a very specific goal. If you know what your goal is, you’ll be much more likely to answer the question correctly. If you don’t, it can be very easy to get turned around and fall into a trap.

Try this problem from the free questions that come with the GMATPrep® software and then we’ll talk about how Discrepancy questions work! Read more

Last time, we talked about how to avoid annoying calculations on Data Sufficiency. It’s not so surprising that you can do this on DS, since you don’t “really” have to solve all the way on this question type.

But you can avoid annoying calculations on Problem Solving, too! Try this problem from the GMATPrep® free exams to learn how. Read more