The first call in VoiceTAP‘s (what’s VoiceTAP?) in the new Higher Education series was on How to prepare for GMAT – English. The expert on call was Munira Lokhandwala, who has done PGDM from IIM Calcutta and currently coaches students for GMAT at IMS. The call was held a few days ago, so in case you missed it you can listen to a recording by clicking the link given below.
Listen VoiceTAP How to prepare for GMAT – English call by clicking here
Preparing for GMAT (English)
GMAT English comprises of three sections – sentence correction, critical reasoning, and comprehension. The most valuable skill needed for cracking questions in any of these sections is reading comprehension, because most of the questions are variations of reading comprehension throughout the paper. GMAT as a test is similar to the English sections asked in the SAT, with the exception that GMAT English is easier than SAT. GMAT is currently conducted by ACT Inc (makers of the alternative to SAT – the ACT) in association with Pearson Vue who provide logistics support for testing.
Reading material to strengthen your comprehension skills are varied. Reading a newspaper will not do the trick since most newspapers use simplistic language. This bit is high on the list of ‘things not to do when preparing for GMAT’ – and a lot of candidates do make this mistake. Instead, you’re advised to read novels or short stories by ‘classic’ authors. (Yes, that means Chetan Bhagat is out too.) Do keep in mind that you shouldn’t sit down with only one long novel and read that over the time you’re preparing for GMAT. Try to keep some variety within the reading material that you choose. Tests like the GMAT often take fiction passages from 19th – early 20th century authors, while non-fiction passages are taken from contemporary work. Reading works of ‘old’ authors will help you improve your English considerably.
Coaching material provided by Indian GMAT prep institutes is often not as good as those created by US-based companies such as The Princeton Review and Kaplan. Books from these institutes are available fairly easily in bookstores dealing in textbooks. Also, it is advisable to buy the Official GMAT Verbal Review book. The book is expensive compared to books on the same topic from Kaplan and from Princeton Review, but it’s worth the investment because it gives you an insight into what the ‘official answers’ should be. This is a major issue because it may seem to you, without guidance, that there might be multiple correct answers – but that is never true. The test-makers generally look for specific type of answers.
While going through your reading material you might realize that your vocabulary is not that strong. Reading up lists of words could be useful for some people while others can’t bear going through this exercise, so you need to decide for yourself. Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis is a good book to brush up your vocabulary; note that there are multiple books by different authors with the same title, so when you’re going to buy this at a book store make sure that you’re getting the correct edition.
For sentence correction, Manhattan GMAT Prep’s Sentence Correction GMAT Preparation Guide is recommended. (Manhattan also publishes books on other specific GMAT topics – maths, critical reasoning, comprehension.) Also have a look at the ‘further reading’ section for links on this.
Decide on a date to give the GMAT and stick to a schedule to prepare for it. Working professionals might need 1-2 hour preparation daily for 2 months adequate, students might need lesser time to prepare. These are all ballpark figures of course since English – and more importantly GMAT testing – proficiency differs from person-to-person. Do remember to take computer-adaptive tests of the GMAT format, especially in the week leading up to your testing date. The test makers themselves offer an online test series using ‘retired’ questions from previous GMAT papers; other companies offer online GMAT test series too. You can take a free Princeton Review GMAT test, or check out the online courses Kaplan has to offer.
Essay-writing section is often ignored by candidates when preparing for GMAT. Don’t. It’s an important part of the test and just pulling something out of your hat doesn’t work. Essay scoring rubrics have quite specific requirements which you must learn to meet. Sticking to the ‘preferred’ format is necessary because essays are not scored by human readers, but by an automated scoring engine. GMAC (the test makers) also offer a separate test series where you can test your essay writing skills with the actual automated scoring engine used for GMAT. Do check out this list of GMAT essay topics from GMAC – it’s not necessary that the same topics will come (most probably they won’t), but it’ll give you an idea of what kind of topics to expect.
Whether to join a coaching institute depends from person-to-person. Most Indian coaching institutes offer you a diagnostic test to find out where you stand – take the test. Even if you are good at reading you need to change you way of thinking to adapt to the test. Otherwise, the decision to join an institute is up to you. A classroom setting provides a lot more discipline, and you’ll probably be more motivated in a setting where there are other people trying to crack the exam as you. Caveat emptor – most Indian institutes assign their best faculty to CAT coaching and give over the task of coaching GMAT students to less experienced faculty. Make sure that you ask for a demo class to find out how good your faculty will be.
That’s about it on preparing for GMAT English. There will be more calls on GMAT preparation tips on VoiceTAP, so do check out the details for those. Podcasts of those calls will be uploaded on this blog too.
Further Reading
- SparkNotes on works of fiction: You are the best judge of how good you are at English. In case you are not that comfortable when you start going through the reading material you have collated, consider reading SparkNotes on those books while reading a work. These have overall analyses and chapter guides which will help you understand if you get stuck at a point. I must caution here that DO NOT read each and every analysis / chapter guide, DO NOT keep this open at all times. Use it ONLY if you get stuck. It’s very easy to get drawn into relying on this kind of support material; don’t fall into this trap.
- SAT prep material: There’s a wealth of study material available for the SAT test which you can utilize to prepare for GMAT too. A lot of sections and the style of questions asked is similar. So you can try out the SparkNotes online books on SAT prep, Kaplan’s free SAT Quiz Bank (has hundreds of questions)…there are many other resources which you can find with a simple search query. Must read are these Power Tactics articles explaining common tricks these tests use to throw you off-track.
- Free GMAT Tests online: Nothing beats a paid online test, especially one from GMAC itself. However, you can never have ‘enough’ practice. You’ll find lots of GMAT tests online, most of which are demos for full paid courses. Be sure to check out demos before paying up for any testing service.
- Official GMAT test software demo: GMAC provides a free download of the software which is used in the actual test. It doesn’t have many questions, but it should give you a feel of what the interface is like. You can read up instructions beforehand. The last thing you want to do is spend precious time on testing day reading instructions and acquainting yourself with where necessary functions are present in the testing software.
