4 Summer Habits for GMAT Preparation

As you read this article, the entire summer is ahead of you.  But if you are planning to apply to business school this fall, you should heed the warning that you learned in your earlier scholastic days – time flies when you’re having fun, and the fall, like those objects in your rearview mirror, is probably closer than it appears.

Rest assured that you can still enjoy most of your summer even if you don’t plan on taking the GMAT until later in the fall.  But even without dedicating much of the summer to studying, there are at least four habits you can add to your day-to-day lifestyle that will get you ready to hit the ground running when you do begin your GMAT preparation in earnest sometime soon:


1) Read

The GMAT verbal section is a test of focus and concentration, assessing your ability to process written information on a variety of topics and to do so while tired and distracted.  There are certainly techniques to help you navigate the GMAT-specific passage formats and question types, and you’ll learn those when you’re ready to buckle down on GMAT study.  But in the meantime, you can improve your ability to process that information simply by reading more, and by reading articles and books on topics that aren’t as natural of choices for you.  Traveling this summer?  Bring The Economist on the airplane with you and practice some GMAT-style reading while you make other passengers think you’re smart and worldly.  Ordering some beach reading from Amazon?  Pick up an extra nonfiction book to qualify for Super Saver Shipping and give yourself a denser read.  Read some academic topics that do not necessarily come easy to you and you’ll be much more ready to do the same on the GMAT.

2) Do Math

With computers and calculators all around us, we tend not to do very much math once we have completed our college requirements, but the GMAT will require you to be able to do math without a calculator so you will need to retrain your mind.  Fortunately, day-to-day life provides countless opportunities to perform simple math by hand or in your head, and the more you can do so the easier a time you will have when you do sit down to do GMAT math.  Practice calculating tips when you eat out; estimate how long it will take you to reach your driving destination at two different average speeds; do quick calculations on paper before you plug the numbers into Microsoft Excel.  Simply thinking mathematically can help you to retrain those atrophied portions of your brain, and that will allow you to eventually focus more of your study time and energy on GMAT-specific question types and strategies.

3) Question Conclusions (Especially in Advertising)

One important GMAT skill, particularly on Critical Reasoning and Data Sufficiency questions, is that of exercising skepticism.  So as you’re bombarded with advertisements and news stories that ask you to buy into conclusions, look at them skeptically to train yourself to analyze the logic between fact and conclusion the way you’ll have to on the GMAT.  “Save up to 75% at our summer sale”?  Doesn’t “up to” include everything down to “save nothing”?  As you consume media this summer you’ll be faced with plenty of less-than-airtight arguments; start questioning those and you’ll be able to carry that mindset into your fall GMAT preparation.

4) Notice Grammar

As tihs snetnce suggsets, we are pertty good at readnig poolry wirtten writing.  You knew exactly what that said, right?  But on Sentence Correction problems you’ll need to recognize problems like Subject-Verb Agreement and Misplaced Modifiers.  So as you pore through emails and text messages this summer, make quick notes of grammatical flaws that you see.  Simply being aware of such mistakes will train your mental ear to reject poorly-written material so that you have a heightened awareness of it when you’re ready to dig into the GMAT this fall.