Perfectionism is the Enemy of the GRE
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Do you consider yourself a perfectionist?
Maybe you wouldn’t normally use that word to describe yourself, but be honest, didn’t the typo in the sentence above drive you at least a little bit crazy?
It’s not such a bad thing to have a drive for fixing errors, for flawless problem-solving, and for generally holding oneself to tip-top standards. Perfectionism has its darker side, too, though. When studying for the GRE, an urge to solve problems perfectly can keep you from doing what you really should do: get them correct in an imperfect way and then just move on. At its worst, perfectionism can keep you from even picking up the pencil to get started.
Just Start
When I was in college, I had such a hard time starting my essays that I often avoided putting my fingers to the keyboard until the night before the essays were due. Sometimes I’d start a 10-page paper at midnight and have no choice but to power through until 5 a.m. to get it done. I was so worried about writing the perfect paper that I couldn’t write anything at all. Perfectionism and procrastination go together.
If you have an urge to get everything perfectly, beautifully correct in your GRE study, you may never start at all. When you do open a book, it might be tempting to spend most of your time reading rather than solving; it’s a lot easier to hear something explained than it is to put oneself to the test and try solving problems.
What’s the best way to start? Jump into an actual practice exam. Take it cold. Guess on problems you don’t know. Figure out as much as you can while you go along. It’s not as daunting as it seems, I promise.
As you go forward, set easily-attainable completion goals. Shoot for 5 problems finished every day. If you’re using the Manhattan Prep Strategy Guides, start at the back of the chapter, try out 5 problems, and then read about them afterwards if you need to. When you make the goal “getting it done” rather than “getting it right” you’ll have a much easier time getting started. And you’ll be spending your time doing what’s most helpful for you: practicing on actual problems. Strange as it might seem, even if you’re getting them totally wrong, you’re doing more to build your mental muscle than if you just sat and read about how to do them.
Scrappy Problem-Solving: Let It Go
Quick quiz: How should you solve a problem like this one?
The answer is… skip it. In all likelihood, this is the smartest move to make. Unless you’re some kind of function-crushing math machine (and even if you are), the costs probably outweigh the benefits of solving this problem.
Seriously, envision what you’d have to do to solve it. Every step along the way requires a check of whether a sum is even or odd. Depending on the result, the numbers then have to be plugged in for x and y according to the rules given at the top. After doing some arithmetic, one then has to evaluate some equations and an inequality. Because it’s a check-box question, there are 7 different ways to answer it. (You can check any number of them, but you’ve got to check at least one.)
When I did this one out all the way, I counted 25 arithmetic moves it took me. It was all simple addition and subtraction, but it was a heck of a lot of it. And after all that work, I saw the 5 and 3 in the bottom left, thought to myself, odd, and used the wrong function. I blew all my hard work on that one little mistake.
But what about the few, the valiant, who make it through and get the correct answer? What’s their grand reward for this meritorious achievement?
1 point.
For the record, that’s the same 1 point you’d get from answering any other question out there. Whether a question takes 5 minutes or 30 seconds, it’s worth the same in the end. The perfectionist in you might really want to solve every problem, and that urge to solve might feel almost irresistible. But trust me, the correct move is often to plug in a random guess, skip it, and come back at the end if you’ve got time left over. I’ve skipped questions every time I’ve taken the real GRE and I’m confident it’s been the right move.
There is nothing to prove by biting off more than you can chew. Take it from this guy…
If you did try to solve that problem, by the way, the correct answer was A and C only.
Scrappy Problem-Solving: Learn to Switch Gears
Unlike the one above, some problems are just too solvable to let go entirely. After all, if we skipped every one of them, that wouldn’t bode well for our score, would it?
Try another one:
A) Quantity A is Greater.
B) Quantity B is Greater.
C) The two quantities are equal.
D) The relationship cannot be determined from the information given.
You can skip down to the bottom if you’d like to see a full solution and answer for this one, but I’m wondering: did you notice the special products at the top? Did you see the opportunity for some cool substitution and cancellation moves? And did you force yourself to solve the problem that way even if it wasn’t going well?
Sure enough, there is a simple, elegant way to solve this one. Most GRE questions have a “right way” to be solved—one that leads to a crisp and clear answer, confidently proven. If you find that “right way,” you probably feel pretty cool.
If you don’t see the “right way,” you might begin to feel frustrated. The perfectionist in you might try to force that solution path even when it’s not working.
If that happened to you here, try it another way: plug in 1 for z. You’ll get a clear answer about which quantity is bigger. And if you’re not sure that it’ll always come out that way, try plugging in 2 as well. You could keep going like this, or you could make a guess based on the work you’ve done. Either way, you’ll be in better shape than if you were tearing your hair out trying to find the “right way” to do it.
The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good
You don’t have to get them all right. You don’t have to solve them the right way. Your goal is to do the best you can. A desire to be perfect can motivate you and set you down a sedulous study path, but don’t let perfectionism impede you from doing a good job on test day.
Oh, and if you’re really curious, here is how to do that problem the “right way”:
Use FOIL to expand x and y:
Rewrite quantity A:
Substitute x and y into quantity A:
Combine like terms:
Factor out a 2:
Quantity A is now:
And that’s always 1 more than quantity B, so quantity A is the correct answer. But the person who plugged in 1 and got A got the same points you did and is already 3 questions ahead by now. ??
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Tom Anderson is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in New York, NY. He has a B.A. in English and a master’s degree in education. Tom has long possessed an understanding of the power of standardized tests in propelling one’s education and career, and he hopes he can help his students see through the intimidating veneer of the GRE. Check out Tom’s upcoming GRE courses here.