My GMAT Experience – A Guest Post

It was about a year ago that I came to Barcelona. I was on my “campaign” looking
for an appropriate job in Spain, and it was then that I decided to start preparing for the studies which I planned to undertake in a couple of years’ time. My brother had just entered the INSEAD MBA, so I received a lot of practical information from him. One of the things he had always emphasized was to “start early and find the right counselor”. He told me how he had struggled with the GMAT and later on with the essays in his application, and always stressed the importance of having a much-experienced person beside you to help you toward being accepted for the MBA you might want.

First of all, I really thought that it was just another mathematics and English test, even though I had heard that it actually had little to do with the knowledge of those subjects. Now, after having prepared for and taken the GMAT, I know that this is actually the case. And even though, at first, I was skeptical about going to an expert coaching methods of teaching “strategies” to “crack” the GMAT, I am now convinced that this is the simplest and most efficient way to get the score you need on this self-adaptive test.

The GMAT is like playing golf. In the end you do not compete with other players, you compete with yourself and with the handicap you have achieved the last time. When you are in front of the screen with just another question about “a train leaves from point A to point B”, you should not think about formulae, about geometrics or any other complicated mathematical issues.

You should know that the GMAT is like fighting against yourself: the better you are, the harder it gets. But the harder it gets the more satisfied you are in the end for having “cracked” it! It all comes down to your creativity in seeing the same problem from a different angle, to your determination to strive not for 650 but for 800, to working under pressure, and to quick decision making.