The Standardized Approach to Standardized Tests

SAT GMAT test prep strategy

The most common mistake I see students make is spending hours doing practice tests without actually understanding what they're being tested on, treating each question like it's stand-alone, and not having a concrete approach. More practice, same score. It's one of the most frustrating places to be, and it's almost always fixable.

Every standardized test, the SAT, ACT, GMAT, GRE, is built around a fixed set of question types. That's what makes it standardized. The same structures appear on every exam, every year. Once you internalize that, the whole thing starts to feel very different.

Here's a concrete example. Both the SAT and GMAT have strengthen questions: questions that ask you to find the answer choice that best supports a conclusion. Most students read the entire passage first, try to absorb everything, and then look at the question and start matching answers to the entire passage. By that point they're overwhelmed and running out of time.

What I teach instead is to have an approach based on each question type, in this instance: read the question first. The moment you recognize it as a strengthen question, you know your job. Find the conclusion. Find something that supports it. This way you're not scanning the whole passage with equal intensity, you're focused on the conclusion and the evidence around it. Your answer choices narrow almost immediately because you know exactly what you're looking for.

Same question. Same passage. Completely different experience, because you had a framework going in.

This is why fundamentals and question-type recognition always come before practice tests in my approach. Practice tests are for refining a strategy you already have, not building one from scratch. Most students have it backwards.

When students learn to approach tests this way, two things happen. Their scores improve - my students average 200+ point increases on the SAT and 100+ on the GMAT. And they stop dreading the test, because nothing feels unfamiliar anymore.

If you're putting in the time and not seeing the results, the issue is probably strategy, not effort. Book a free consultation and let's figure out what's getting in the way.