The Last Two Weeks Before Your GMAT
In the final two weeks before your official GMAT, your focus needs to shift. You’re no longer trying to lift your scoring level. Instead, focus on hitting your peak performance on Game Day—like an Olympic athlete who’s trying to peak for the gold-medal match.
Your current scoring level isn’t just a single value. It’s actually a range of values—and a pretty wide one, probably about 30 to 60 points, depending on your scoring level.
On Game Day (the day you take your official test), you could have a great day and hit the top of your range…or you could have a bad day and hit the bottom of your range. So let’s talk about how to hit your peak performance on Game Day! (This post has been updated for the new GMAT.)
Week 1: Develop your game plan
At two weeks out from Game Day, your skills are what they are and your scoring range is what it is. These things are not going to change substantially in the last two weeks. But there’s a lot you can do to increase your chances of scoring at the top end of your current range on game day.
Your mantra for the last two weeks:
I’m no longer trying to increase my skills. Now, I’m trying to minimize mistakes and maximize performance on the things that I already know how to do.
What not to do
You don’t want to hit your trough—your lowest level—on game day. That’s a real risk if you spend the last couple of weeks trying to cram because you’re desperate to add another 100 points before your official test.
The hard truth: It’s very unlikely to improve by 100+ points in two weeks. If that’s your goal, it’s better to postpone your test date. If you can’t postpone your test, then be realistic and lower your goal score to something more reasonable.
If you’re already within the window where you have to pay a lot of money to reschedule, consider keeping this test date as your first “dry run” and then take the official test again in 6 to 8 weeks, after you’ve had a chance to do more to lift your skills.
What’s a Game Plan?
Your Game Plan is the decision-making plan you’ll use during your test. For example:
- What are you going to do if you find yourself too far ahead of time or too far behind on time?
- On what types of questions do you want to guess immediately and move on?
- When are you going to invest a little extra time?
- How will you know when to cut yourself off and let go of a problem?
You’re also going to review your major strategies, the major content areas, your time management plan, and so on—we’ll get to that a bit later.
Building Your Game Plan
Your Game Plan is a dynamic plan. You perfect it a little bit more every day as you gather more data during your review.
What Does My Gut Say?
First, make a list of your major strengths and weaknesses. Start with the eight GMAT question types, but also drill down further into specific quant content areas (eg, statistics, ratios, and so on) as well as question sub-types (eg, logic problems, inference problems, and so on).
- Strengths: You usually get these right. You’re usually on time (maybe even fast). You feel pretty good about these when you see them.
- Medium: You can get these right, but you do make mistakes sometimes. You may need an extra 30 to 45 seconds at times. You don’t dislike these, though you may not like them either.
- Weaknesses: You often get these wrong even when you spend extra time, or you need an extra minute or more to get these right. These often feel stressful or frustrating.
What Does The Data Say?
Your gut is often accurate—but it is sometimes wrong, so it’s also important to check your data.
Take a full-length official practice test under 100% official test conditions (you can find the official practice tests on mba.com). After you’re done, take a break (your brain needs a little rest after that ordeal!). Then, log into your account on the Manhattan Prep site and find the practice test analysis tracker; it’s linked wherever we assign you a practice test. (If you aren’t in a study program with us, you can find this tracker in the Free GMAT Starter Kit syllabus—which is, as the name implies, completely free. 🙂)
First, look at your results globally.
How was your time management?
- Running out of time / rushing at the end:
- Where did you spend too much time?
- What action are you going to take if you find yourself > 3 min behind in the section?
- Finishing more than 5 minutes early:
- Where did you rush too much?
- What action are you going to take if you find yourself > 3 min ahead in the section?
- Up-and-down timing: On time at the end, but multiple too-slow and too-fast problems throughout the section:
- On which problems should you have cut yourself off faster so that you don’t have to rush so much on others? How are you going to recognize when to cut yourself off on future, similar problems?
If you are using our time management strategies to manage your time in each section, review those strategies. (That article will also help you to answer some of the questions in the above list.)
How were your mental stamina and nerves?
- Getting tired / making careless mistakes:
- Where did you spend too much time / mental energy? These problems are hurting your overall mental stamina reserve for the entire test—cut them off next time!
- What are you going to eat and drink before the test and on your break?
- What physical activity (e.g., stretching, jumping jacks) will you do before the test and on your break?
- What stretches can you do during the test / without leaving your chair?
- Too much adrenaline / got nervous or raced through test:
- What mindfulness mantras or other techniques can you use to manage your performance anxiety on test day? (If you’re in one of our study programs, check the weekly Study Strategy sections for resources; our Free Starter Kit also contains mindfulness resources.)
- Start building these habits today.
Next, analyze the individual problems, but not in the same way you have in the past. Instead, do this:
Is this a Strength, Medium, or Weakness problem?
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- For Strength and Medium problems:
- Articulate what approach you want to use for each one, in case you see something similar on the real test.
- Articulate how you’ll know when things aren’t playing out the way you’d planned—so that you can make a guess and move on.
- For Weaknesses:
- Articulate how to recognize these fast, so that you can guess immediately and move on.
- You are no longer trying to improve your weaknesses! Acknowledge that they’re weak. Move on.
- For Strength and Medium problems:
Did I make any careless mistakes?
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- What was the mistake?
- Why did you make it?
- What new habit can you implement that will minimize that type of careless error?
- Spend the next two weeks building that new habit.
As you do new problem sets or work from the Official Guide during your review this week, analyze every problem in the same way as described above.
And that’s it in terms of learning from your practice test or your practice problems. In the last two weeks, you’re no longer trying to lift your score / skills to some level you don’t currently possess. Rather, you’re trying to earn every point that you are currently, already capable of earning on the test.
Content and Skill Review: Week 1
As you develop your game plan, you’ll also start your comprehensive review of all of the main problem types, strategies, and content areas tested on the GMAT, with a concentration on those that are the most frequently tested.
Math-based content and skills are tested on the Quant and Data Insights (DI) sections. Verbal-based skills are tested on the Verbal and DI sections. As you review these areas, do practice problems from across all eight GMAT problem types so that you get practice in every format.
Do timed sets of random practice problems and then review those problems. For Official Guide problems, use our GMAT Navigator random set generator feature or the Official Guide’s online access. For Manhattan Prep problems, use our Dynamic GMAT Question Set Builder.
An important note: Don’t reread chapters in your books. Only go back to your books to look up specific things based on a specific need that you identify while reviewing your practice problems.
Math-Based Content Review
The following math-based content areas are frequently tested on the GMAT:
Do still review the rest of the quant content areas discussed in your books, but give extra attention to things on the “frequently tested” list.
It’s also a good idea to choose a few less-frequently-tested areas as your bail-fast categories. You can literally not review these areas at all; just know enough to recognize the problems fast so that you can guess fast and move on.
Good candidates for the bail-fast group include:
- Coordinate plane
- Combinatorics
- Remainders
- Sequences and functions
- Complicated story problems that are pure algebra (you can’t use real numbers to solve)
- Roman-numeral-format problems
- A problem with 4 variables
The list is not limited to the above! Basically, you can put anything you hate on your bail list as long as it’s a narrow topic/skill area or problem sub-type (ie, it won’t show up on 4+ test problems).
Math-based Strategy Review
These skills are commonly needed throughout the Quant and DI sections and are taught in our All the Quant guide:
The chapters listed introduce or provide additional instruction on these strategies. You’ll also see the strategies used elsewhere in the book, after they’ve been introduced.
Verbal-Based Skills Review
Verbal-based problems don’t test you on formulas or rules that you have to learn before the test starts. Rather, these problems present you with the necessary facts or scenarios and then test you on your comprehension and analytical reasoning skills.
These are the most commonly tested verbal-based skills, all of which are covered in our All the Verbal book:
Note: If you’re already in one of our study programs, you have access to all of our books and online resources, including GMAT Navigator and the Dynamic Question Set Builder. If you aren’t in one of our study programs, our All the GMAT book set also includes those online resources.
Week 2: Test and revise your game plan
One week before your official test, take your very last practice test.
Right before you start the test, review your game plan, including:
- Your time management strategies
- How you’ll keep track of your time in each section
- What you’ll do if you find yourself too far ahead or behind on time
- Your bail-fast list
- Where you do—and don’t—want to invest a little extra time
- How you’ll maintain focus during the test (mindfulness mantras, etc.)
- What you’ll eat on your breaks
- How you’ll keep your neck, shoulders, and the rest of your body relatively loose as the test continues
Ready? Take your practice test. Use your game plan. Good luck!
Revise your game plan
When you’re done, review your test solely from the perspective of revising your game plan.
Don’t try to learn new stuff! Don’t analyze the way you have in the past! Literally just go through the whole game planning process again, asking yourself whether you want to tweak any part of your game plan based on how that test just went.
Maybe you need to add something to your bail-fast list or even move something from your bail list to your Medium list. Go for it!
Maybe you realize that something you thought was a Strength is actually a Medium or vice-versa. Make a note of that; you’ll use that knowledge on test day to make better decisions.
And think about how to refine the decisions that you made. For example, if a Strength problem is longer/harder than usual, it might be worth an extra 30 or 45-second investment. But if it’s a longer/harder Medium problem? That might push the problem towards guess-fast.
Do NOT try to learn new skills or substantially improve existing skills this week!
Seriously. Well, okay: You can address any careless mistakes. Use the same process as before (what mistake did I make, why did I make it, what new habit can I implement?).
Other than that, though, your skills are what they are. Spend this last week practicing the major question types, content areas, and strategies. Do random problem sets, as you did last week, and review afterwards. Let your problem review guide you on what else you may need to review from your notes or books.
Forgot an exponent rule? Look it up, make a flashcard, do a few Foundations of Math drills to solidify the rule.
Just did your first Critical Reasoning Assumption problem in a month and feeling a little hazy on that sub-type? Review the strategy just for that question sub-type in your book.
Struggling with how to map out a Multi-Source Reasoning passage on your scratch paper? Retry a few problems you did several weeks (or longer) ago. When you’re done, keep rewriting/revising your scratch work until you feel comfortable with the abbreviations and symbols you’re using and the way in which you’re organizing the information.
As you do this final review, continue to tweak your game plan as needed.
Takeaways for your last two weeks
- Change your focus during the final two weeks before your GMAT: Your strengths and weaknesses are what they are and your current scoring range is not going to change by test day. Your goal now is to peak on test day and hit the top end of your current scoring range.
- In the first week, develop your game plan. Know your Strength, Medium, and Weakness problems so that you can make good investment decisions during the test. Know what time management strategies you want to use during the test, including your test-section management and your bail-fast list.
- Also in the first week, practice the major question types, content areas, and strategies you can expect to need on test day. Do timed, random problem sets. (And when you see something that’s on your bail-fast list…bail fast, just like you want to do on test day!)
- In the second and final week, test out your game plan on your final practice test and then spend the remainder of that week doing and reviewing practice sets under timed conditions, refining your game plan as you go.
Good luck and happy studying!
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Stacey Koprince is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Montreal, Canada. Stacey has been teaching the GMAT for more than 15 years and is one of the most well-known instructors in the industry. Stacey loves to teach and is absolutely fascinated by standardized tests. Check out Stacey’s upcoming GMAT courses here.