When Do GMAT or EA “Crash Courses” Actually Work?

A crash course, or a couple of weeks of intense tutoring right before the test, works for some students and is a waste of time and money for others. The short version: if your math and reading fundamentals are solid and timing is the real issue, an intensive course with a tutor can pay off fast. If your fundamentals are shaky, no two-week sprint will fix that. Here’s how to tell which camp you’re in. For more on study plans in general, see: How to Study for the GMAT.

If you’re struggling with the current GMAT or the Executive Assessment, you’ve probably had this fantasy: wouldn’t it be great if you could contact a GMAT or EA tutor, study like crazy for two weeks, and then be finished with the whole mess?

Well, a few lucky souls have managed to do exactly that. Consider the following stories.

(Please note: these stories come from the old, pre-2024 version of the GMAT, which used the 200-800 score scale. We’ve converted the scores below to the current GMAT’s 205-805 scale using GMAC’s official concordance table. Because the concordance links scores in ranges, treat the converted numbers as rough estimates, not exact equivalents.)

• Lucky GMAT Student #1 scored around a 585 on an mba.com practice exam, attended five GMAT tutoring sessions in two weeks, and scored about a 675 on the actual test. 
• Lucky GMAT Student #2 had never taken the GMAT before, and she met with her tutor with dizzying frequency over a three-week period. Soon thereafter, she scored roughly a 675 on her first attempt at the actual exam. 
• Lucky GMAT Student #3 was scoring in the mid-to-high 500s on his practice tests. He then attended tutoring sessions on six consecutive days and took the GMAT on the seventh day. His final score was about a 655. 

These GMAT “crash course” success stories sound awfully tantalizing, right? The trouble is that GMAT or EA crash courses can only work under specific conditions. If you’re fortunate enough to be a fast learner, some of your GMAT and EA weaknesses can be fixed really quickly. Other weaknesses? Not so much.

There are never any guarantees when it comes to short-term GMAT or EA prep, but you might be able to succeed in a crash course if all of the following apply to you.

Your Underlying GMAT Algebra and Arithmetic Skills Are Strong

There are plenty of quant-related skills that a good GMAT or EA tutor can teach you quickly. If, for example, you need help tackling basic overlapping sets problems, turning ratio questions into clean equations, or applying a systematic approach to percent questions, then a GMAT tutor can probably help you with those things quickly. But if you have a shaky grasp of algebra and arithmetic, you’ll need a lot more than two weeks to achieve your GMAT or EA score goals.

The bad news is that it simply takes time to develop your algebra and arithmetic fundamentals. Think of it this way: you spent the first 10 or 12 years of your math education focused primarily on basic arithmetic and algebra skills. If you failed to develop those skills over the course of a decade, it’s unlikely that you’ll suddenly become an algebra master after two weeks of GMAT or EA tutoring.

But if you’re generally sharp with basic equations and arithmetic, then you can focus on developing test-specific skills, such as your ability to decipher some of the twisted word problems that appear on the GMAT and EA. And if you’re lucky and diligent, you might be able to develop those particular GMAT and EA skills in just a couple of weeks.

Your Time Management Isn’t Perfect on the GMAT or EA

While it’s unrealistic to suggest that you can make a huge leap in your algebra fundamentals in a two-week crash course, it might be possible to quickly improve your time management on the GMAT or EA exam, particularly on the Quant and Data Insights sections (also known as Integrated Reasoning on the EA).

If you’ve read some of our other articles, you probably already know that time management is one of the single biggest determinants of your GMAT or EA Quant score. For example, GMAT Timing Strategy: How Much Math Do You Really Need for an Elite Score? tells the story of a test-taker who had mediocre math skills but still earned a 720 on the “old” version of the GMAT (roughly a 675 on today’s scale), largely because her time management on Quant was outstanding.

But what does good time management mean on the current GMAT? Basically, if you don’t see a good solution path on a Quant question (or a Quant-heavy Data Insights question), you’ll want to guess and move on. Why? For starters, missing harder questions will hurt your score much less than missing easier ones. Also, you can use any remaining time at the end of the section to go back and change up to three answers. So why not save the very hardest questions for last?

Having the confidence to guess and move is also key on the Executive Assessment. Since the EA is constructed as a series of 6- or 7-question “testlets,” you can return to any question in the testlet you’re working on. Just as with the GMAT, there’s never a good reason to get bogged down on an individual EA Quant or Integrated Reasoning question. You can always skip questions and come back to them later.

In a short-term “crash course,” a GMAT or EA tutor can help you understand how to pick your battles wisely so that you use your time efficiently. So while you might not be able to overhaul your fundamental math skills over the course of a few tutoring sessions, you might be able to improve your timing quickly. And depending on your exact situation, that could make an enormous difference in your final score.

For more on how to manage your time on the GMAT and other adaptive tests, check out How to Manage Time on an Adaptive Test Like the GMAT.

Your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension Skills Are Strong

Here’s the unglamorous truth about Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning: if your underlying reading skills are weak, it can take a long time to make a substantial score improvement.

Can a great GMAT or EA tutor help you improve at Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning? Of course. Can a tutor make you overwhelmingly better at CR and RC in just a few days or weeks? Probably not, unless there are some easy-to-fix flaws in your approach.

At the heart of most Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension errors is a very simple issue: you probably misread or misinterpreted something in the passage, the question, or the answer choices. If you read with mind-numbing precision, you’ll probably do well on CR and RC. If you tend to miss details and nuances when you read, you’ll probably do poorly. You can memorize as many test-prep books as you want, but if you lack precision in your reading, your EA or GMAT Verbal score will remain lamentably low.

Are there ways that a tutor can help you improve your reading skills? Absolutely. Could an EA or GMAT tutor help you strengthen your logical skills, your understanding of specific Critical Reasoning question types, or your overall approach to RC and CR questions? Yes, definitely.

But these things usually take time to improve. If your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension mistakes are primarily the result of imprecise reading, then you’ll need more than a few days to make a substantial improvement. Just ask the HBS graduate who answered 4,000 CR and RC questions during her GMAT studies. See: 4,000 Verbal Questions: A (Painful) GMAT Success Story.

For more, check out What GMAT Verbal Tutoring Is & Isn’t Good For on what tutoring can (and can’t) do to help you improve your GMAT or EA Verbal score. 

So, Can You Improve with Just a Few Weeks of GMAT or EA Tutoring?

Let’s face it: no GMAT or EA tutor can honestly guarantee results in two weeks, no matter how intelligent a prospective student may appear in their first session. A short crash course doesn’t really offer you an opportunity to improve your fundamental reading skills or your basic math skills, and for some students, those fundamentals are the primary culprit behind disappointing GMAT or EA scores. If this applies to you, then be patient and prepare yourself for a long, steady assault on the GMAT or Executive Assessment.

But if you need help with some of the finer points of GMAT or EA Quant questions, or if your time management skills are the main thing holding your score down, then you might have a shot at making a substantial score jump in a short period of time. There are never any guarantees, but you’ll at least have a puncher’s chance to break through your ceiling in a few days or weeks. Your odds of success might not be fantastic, but if you manage to achieve your score goal quickly, you’ll have far more time to battle the next beast: your MBA or EMBA applications.