It's The Approach That Counts

I like watching Nat Geo and Discovery channels on Astro. On one of the series about the US aircraft carrier, one of the fighter pilots talked about how he and his fellow pilots are trained to focus on the guide on the cockpit when they land on the carrier. They only have a small "window" of opportunity to land and if they missed that, they had to throttle to the max to fly away. They are not even supposed to worry about the guide cable which will hook at back of the plane and halt the plane when it lands correctly.

My study group members asked me how should they tackle GMAT questions. Well, the answer is and as I always reminded them (again and again) - it's the approach that counts.

Very often, the moment we see a question, we like to jump straight into working and only to find out that it took us more than 2 minutes and yet not getting the answer. When I practised, I took the above approach as show in the diagram.

Spend first 30 or so seconds to read, understand, rephrase the question, if necessary and formulate the approach. Remember, you only have this 30 seconds to think through and determine your best approach to solve in 4 or 6 steps.

The next 60 seconds is used for working. Start by eliminate not-possible answers. This improves your chances of striking the right one. By eliminating 2 not possible answers, you improve your odds from 1/5th to 1/3rd. If you can eliminate 3, then you increase it to 1/2th.

Don't forget that you need to click the answer in the computer. It takes time to move the mouse and click Next and Confirmed.

All this is done within 2 minutes window.

So, GMAT "pilots", start practising your approach.

Jimmy Low