Each year, a new GMAT Official Guide is published that is indisputably the essential aide to preparing for the exam. It contains thousands of questions taken from past GMAT tests and is the best guide to what to expect from GMAT problems. On my first GMAT attempt it was just about the only resource that I used. However, it has a number of significant flaws that can undermine the efficiency of your study-time. Here are some things to consider:
The problems in the OG are great, but the explanations are often terrible. While the problems are a valuable window into what the GMAT contains, the explanations (you might have already noticed) are often impractically long, complicated, and theoretical. For example, the strategy of eliminating answer choices is almost never considered. Manhattan Prep actually wrote its own guide of explanations for these problems, and GMATClub.com contains many more suggestions. Although these resources can be useful, I think there’s great value in first trying to work out explanations out for yourself. In conclusion, don’t trust the official explanation as there’s often an easier way to solve.
A guide to style and content. There’s no real syllabus published for the GMAT, so these problems (along with the official practice tests) are the best guide to what the GMAT actually contains. It’s a good principle when studying to think “well, I’ve seen this once here, so I’d better learn it as I may see it again”. I should add a caveat: there are some ‘weird’ problems in the OG that test things that seem only to show up once. This is definitely a place that an experienced teacher can help to guide a student. The other caveat is that, oddly, the proportion of questions allocated to each topic in the OG doesn’t exactly reflect those found in a real GMAT exam.
Issues with the difficulty-level of problems. Since the GMAT is an adaptive test, it’s worth thinking about the level of problem that you study. In the OG, the problems are organised roughly in order of difficulty in each section (so that the higher the problem number, the harder the problem). If a student diligently starts doing the problems at the beginning of a section and gets them all correct, then that can be a waste of time and give a false sense of confidence. Conversely, I’ve seen students who struggle away with harder problems before they’ve mastered the easier ones. Consequently, I recommend two general study approaches when using the OG:
- Make timed sets using the online bank: Give yourself mini-test experiences by doing sets of problems under timed conditions. This will help you get used to the pressure of the test, the unavoidability of guessing, and the unpredictable nature of the test (i.e. you don’t know the topic or difficulty of the next problem). I’ve found that groups of 8 or 12 quant problems work well for quant because I like answering 4 quant problems per page of notepaper (if using a whiteboard, I wipe it clean every 4 problems). Of course, there’s lots of room for adjusting the type of timed sets that you do, such as focusing on one question type or topic, or a single difficulty level. See ‘GMAT study, Fast and Slow’ for more thoughts on this.
- Become a GMAT expert by scanning the physical book: Many test-prep companies provide a breakdown of the OG, sorting problems by difficulty, topic, and strategy. Although this can be useful, I’ve noticed that students often learn more by doing this themselves. Of course, you don’t need to analyse every problem, but the task of scanning through the OG to look for a certain problem type is a useful one. For example, if Critical Reasoning Bold-face problems are causing you difficulties, then search them out in the OG. This kind of get-to-know-the-test approach can make you a more confident student than simply following someone else’s pre-prepared tasks.
