Understand the GMAT before taking it

Knowing the test designers' tactics will help you use them effectively

Many of us have at some point taken a crack at an IQ test we stumbled upon on the internet. Or we might have tried our luck with a magazine quiz just for fun.

Yet when it comes to school and college entrance exams it is a different story. These tests do not leave us laughing at the end of the day, but actually influence where we stand on the college admissions list.

We worry that our "intelligent" answers will not be up to standard, and that our essays will not be considered creative and smart enough.

We hate the mathematics questions because they are tricky and struggle with long reading passages to find the right answers. Overall, an exam is often a terrible experience.

In reality, many of the exams students take are not that difficult. The SAT, TOEFL, O and A levels and others are not complicated. Students have to simply understand the mechanics of each exam.

The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is no different. All the student need do is work with multiple-choice questions, said Paul Hidalgo, a trainer at The Princeton Review, during a GMAT strategy session held during the recent GETEX 2005.

"Students need to keep in mind that this test is like the SATs. It does not measure student intelligence," he said.

Hidalgo provided tips on how to tackle the exam. He said: "The beginning is the most important part of the test. When you start, the computer already ranks you in the 500 levels.

"So, if you get the first question right, the rest of the questions will become harder. This means that if at some point during the exam you come across a question like 1+1=x, then you are not doing well."

Hidalgo added that a student's score will be high if they get the first 10 questions right. "The better you know about the test designers' tactics, the better you will be able to use their tactics against them," he explained.

Watch out for the language

The GMAT exam consists of three sections: a quantitative section of 37 maths questions, a verbal segment of 41 questions and an analytical writing section.

"People tend to be afraid of the mathematics questions. It is grade eight mathematics. Students can get a perfect score if they passed grade eight," said Hidalgo.

According to him, it is the language they use that makes it sound difficult, not the questions. "The hardest you'll do is square root questions," he said.

The essay template

The verbal section will include reading comprehension, sentence correction to test student grammar and problem-solving questions.

In the analytical writing section, students will have to write two essays.

The first one requires them to pick one side of an argument and give examples.

The second essay is argumentative where students are required to plan and critique a written passage. They should identify its flaws without taking sides and provide ideas that can improve the piece.

"Essays for such exams follow a template. The first paragraph is an introduction. Provide examples for the next three paragraphs then a conclusion in the last one," Hidalgo said.

"You have to have a template mentality. This question requires grade 10 essay skills," he said.

The verbal and quantitative sections will include some experimental questions to help determine their level of difficulty and if they can be used in future tests.

What is the passing grade?

"There is no passing score in the GMAT exam," said Hidalgo. "The score you need to get is what the university you plan to go to asks for. So before you take the exam, check what the university requires."

The exam scores will be calculated immediately after you are done. In the end, students are presented with a choice of accepting or declining the test.

He said: "Every single exam you take will appear in your records and will be sent to your college. So you have to be careful.

"If you decide to accept the exam, you'll get the score directly. But if you choose to decline it, the test will be cancelled.

"There will be no harm done and you will neither carry the score nor will you know what it was."

The GMAT

• n The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is used by many graduate-level business and management-related programmes in the United States and at international universities as part of their admissions process
  
• The exam is held every Saturday at the American-Middle East Education and Training Centre (AmidEast). Students can take it once a month, five times a year.
  
• The GMAT score is valid for six years