Friday, August 21, 2020
Blog Archive GMAT Impact Too Many Decisions Can Drive You Crazy
Blog Archive GMAT Impact Too Many Decisions Can Drive You Crazy When it comes to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. In this weekly blog series, Manhattan GMATâs Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense. Have you ever experienced the âpanic stare? Thatâs when you stare at a problem for way too long without really doing anything besides thinking that you donât know what to do. Or you sit down to study, but youâre not sure where to begin, and so you take way too long to get started, while you shuffle your papers aimlessly. The more decisions we need to make, or the more options we have, the harder it is to act, or the more likely we are to act rashly or make snap decisions. Last year, the New York Times published an article on this topic entitled Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? During a test like the GMAT, decision fatigue can manifest as the âpanic stare,â or as a feeling of ânot caringâ any longer, so you begin to answer too quickly without checking your work or being careful. This can also happen while youâre studying. Thereâs a lot to study. Youâre having to make constant decisions: What am I going to study next? How am I going to study it? Should I write this down on a flash card? And this doesnât even include the decisions we have to make while answering the questions themselves! One of your tasks while studying is to figure out how to minimize the number of decisions that you have to make while taking the test. Hmm, I could do the problem this way or that way. Which way should I do itâ"how do I decide? Thatâs a great question to ask while youâre studying because then youâll be prepared to make a quick decision during the test. So, when youâre studying, think about ways that you can reduce the number of decisions that you need to make, and ways to make those decisions simpler. In general, yes/no or binary decisions are easier than decisions that require us to formulate actual sentences and complete thoughts. (For example, donât ask: Hmm, which difference should I examine first in this Sentence Correction problem? Instead, ask: Do I know how to deal with the specific difference Iâm looking at right now? Yes or no?) One more thing that might seem obvious now that youve read this: dont make a bunch of decisions about a lot of other random things on the same day before you take your real exam. Know what youre going to eat for breakfast, know how youre going to get to the exam centerâ"basically, decide everything ahead of time so that your brain is as fresh as possible for the start! Share ThisTweet GMAT Impact
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