![\"Manhattan](\"\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2017\/07\/good-gmat-student-vs-bad-gmat-student-elaine-loh.png\")
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Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We\u2019re not kidding! <\/i><\/b>Check out our upcoming courses here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n <\/i><\/b>Okay, that was a clickbait title. There\u2019s no such thing as a bad GMAT student, just an unmotivated one. If you\u2019re reading this blog, you\u2019re probably a good GMAT student in that you are willing to put in time to learn about things you don\u2019t know. But putting in that time doesn\u2019t mean you actually have good study habits. Let\u2019s take a look at some of the behaviors of students that I\u2019ve seen along the way. Do you fall into any of these buckets? If so, you may want to rethink your approach.<\/span><\/p>\n This is the most common type of student I get for private tutoring. He is usually at his wit\u2019s end because he can\u2019t understand why his score isn\u2019t improving after having done SO MANY problems. After all, they say practice makes perfect\u2014but I would argue with that sentiment. <\/span>Perfect practice makes perfect.<\/b> Meaning, you might be doing a ton of problems, but if you\u2019re not doing them the right way, you\u2019re only reinforcing bad habits. For example, when you see a Quant problem, do you dive right in? Or do you think about what strategy you should use? Do you look to see if it\u2019s a good candidate for picking numbers? Or <\/span>testing cases<\/span><\/a>? Or back-solving? If you do 100 problems without ever having these thoughts, you\u2019re only reinforcing a static way of thinking. You want a pliable, flexible mind that can approach problems in a multitude of ways. So, <\/span>stop going for quantity and start going for quality<\/b>. If you\u2019re out of material, I bet you can still benefit from going back and redoing problems. Chances are that you didn\u2019t learn what you needed to the first time. If you remember the answer, that\u2019s okay. We don\u2019t care about the answer, we care about the process. That\u2019s what will help on future problems.<\/span><\/p>\n What?! Why would you do that?! This student is basically making the same mistake as Student #1. But instead of overdoing the number of problems, she\u2019s overdoing the number of hours that she needs to study. She might be busy, or a procrastinator, or honestly just believes that putting in all those hours at once is the best way to learn. Not so!! All sorts of learning science studies show us that we can\u2019t concentrate for more than an hour and a half to two hours. We need to take breaks! And sizable ones at that. It\u2019s better to do <\/span>short and frequent<\/b> studying<\/b> than to lump it all together over the weekend. If you\u2019re really busy during the week or have difficulty managing your time, try the <\/span>Pomodoro technique<\/span><\/a>. It\u2019s a way to (hopefully) boost your productivity. Heck, I used it to manage my time writing this blog!<\/span><\/p>\n Okay\u2026 You could veer off the course syllabus that Manhattan Prep has tested over the YEARS we\u2019ve been in business\u2026but why? Panic can make a good GMAT student do weird things. If you were training for a marathon, you wouldn\u2019t just suddenly start running 26 miles at once. You\u2019d probably run one or two miles, build to five miles, then to ten, etc. (Or if you\u2019re like me, you\u2019d just think about running and eat a bag of chips. But I digress.) The point is, you can\u2019t do it all at once. And you\u2019ll end up frustrated because this plan is bound to fail. Trust in the syllabus. And if you\u2019re not enrolled in a course, this advice still holds for your own studies. <\/span>Pick specific things to study on certain days.<\/b> That way you can feel accomplished when you finish and not overwhelmed at trying to learn ALL of math in one go.<\/span><\/p>\n While you might think this is a time-saving maneuver, it will also make you feel sad about all the things you aren\u2019t doing correctly yet. That\u2019s like going on a diet and thinking about the weight you have left to lose instead of congratulating yourself for dropping those 5 pounds. (But again, I\u2019m on the couch eating a bag of chips.) If you only focus on what you\u2019re doing wrong, how can you reinforce your good habits? <\/span>It\u2019s helpful to look at a problem that you did correctly<\/b> and say, \u201cAlright, I\u2019m pretty awesome! I noticed the subject-verb agreement problem on this SC question. I also did the pronouns correctly by spotting one of the five deadly pronouns.\u201d (Refresher: It, Its, They, Them, Their). Plus, what if you guessed and got it right? That doesn\u2019t ensure that you\u2019ll get it right the next time. So yes, your error log might contain only the ones you got wrong and want to redo, but that doesn\u2019t mean you should never look at what you got right.<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019d like more information on study habits, check out <\/span>this article<\/span><\/a> by fellow instructor Ceilidh Erickson. It\u2019s aimed at GRE students, but the learning science remains the same. ?<\/span><\/p>\n Want more GMAT tips? Don\u2019t forget to follow us on <\/i><\/b>Facebook<\/i><\/b><\/a>, <\/i><\/b>Twitter<\/i><\/b><\/a>, and <\/i><\/b>LinkedIn<\/i><\/b><\/a>!<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We\u2019re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here. Okay, that was a clickbait title. There\u2019s no such thing as a bad GMAT student, just an unmotivated one. If you\u2019re reading this blog, you\u2019re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,929,52871,930,2],"tags":[53137,53136,53138],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-14454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-current-studiers","category-gmat-prep","category-gmat-strategies","category-gmat-study-guide","category-how-to-study","tag-bad-gmat-student","tag-good-gmat-student","tag-good-study-habits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14454"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14511,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14454\/revisions\/14511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14454"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nStudent #1: \u201cI\u2019ve done every single <\/b>Official Guide<\/b><\/a> problem, and all the <\/b>practice CATs<\/b><\/a> (twice), and my score still hasn\u2019t gone up. I think I\u2019ll have to find more problems to work on.\u201d<\/b><\/h4>\n
Student #2: \u201cI think I\u2019ll put in 8 hours of studying on Saturday and another 8 hours on Sunday.\u201d<\/b><\/h4>\n
Student #3: \u201cI\u2019m really worried about Quant, so I\u2019m going to do all of <\/b>Foundations of Math<\/b><\/a> instead of following the course syllabus.\u201d<\/b><\/h4>\n
Student #4: \u201cI don\u2019t have time to review the things I got right. I only review what I got wrong.\u201d<\/b><\/h4>\n
If you prefer a listicle, here\u2019s a quick summary of the study habits of a good GMAT student vs. the bad study habits of another GMAT student:<\/b><\/h4>\n
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\n![\"Manhattan](\"https:\/\/d27gmszdzgfpo3.cloudfront.net\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2017\/01\/elaine-loh-150x150.png\")
Elaine Loh<\/a>\u00a0is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Los Angeles, California.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/i><\/b>She graduated from Brown University with a degree in psychology and a desire to teach others. She can\u2019t get enough of standardized tests and has been a test prep tutor and teacher for over half her life.\u00a0<\/em><\/i>Check out Elaine\u2019s upcoming GMAT courses here<\/a>.<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"