When Does GMAT or EA “Crash Course” Tutoring Actually Work?
UPDATED FOR THE NEW GMAT IN 2024
If you're struggling with the GMAT Focus Edition 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: the scores referenced below are based on the 200-800 scale of the pre-2024 “Classic” GMAT, as opposed to the 205-805 scale of the GMAT Focus Edition).
Lucky GMAT Student #1 scored a 640 on an MBA.com practice exam, attended five GMAT tutoring sessions in two weeks, and scored 720 on his 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 a 720 on her first attempt at the actual exam.
Lucky GMAT Student #3 was scoring in the low 600s 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 a 710.
These GMAT “crash course” success stories sound awfully tantalizing, right? Trouble is, 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 Focus Edition 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 percents questions, then a GMAT tutor can probably help you with those things quickly. But if you have a shaky grasp on 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 worry about developing test-specific skills such as your ability to decipher some of the twisted word problems that appear on the GMAT Focus and EA. And if you’re lucky and diligent, you might be able to develop those particular EA and GMAT 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 Focus 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 Focus or EA quant score. For example, this test-taker had mediocre math skills but still earned a 720 on the “old” version of the GMAT, largely because her time management on quant was outstanding.
But what does good time management mean on the GMAT Focus Edition? 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 just 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 Focus, 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 this video:
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 to 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 to strengthen your logical skills, or 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 this HBS graduate who answered 4,000 CR and RC questions during her GMAT studies.
For more, check out this video 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 for 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 EA or GMAT quantitative 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: yourMBA or EMBA applications.