Having a fantastic GMAT score alone does not guarantee you access into a high-ranked MBA programme, but it will certainly help you place your foot firmly through the door. But besides just doing GMAT practice questions, it’s also helpful to know the common pitfalls that additional test takers have experienced. Learning from others’ mistakes will help you dodge them and achieve a score that you truly deserve. So read on and check out the following top common mistakes:

1) Being misled by lots of confusing details

GMAT is specially designed to test your ability to handle lots of confusing details in a very small span of time. Most of the questions are inserted with easily missed, but very valuable details. If you are not careful, you will end up spending more time and energy on it than necessary. So remember to pay attention to every single question and detail.

2) Choosing the incorrect method to solve the problem

Test takers are prone to lose unnecessary marks by choosing the incorrect method to solve the problem. For example, in a question that deals with percentages, test takers might end up calculating a percentage underside up instead of the opposite.

This happens because test takers tend to start working on the problem by using the date given instead of figuring out the main butt of the question. To dodge this pitfall, jot down exactly what you need to find, solve to find it and make sure you to confirm your answer before looking at the choices given.

3) Panicking due to lack of time left

When you realise that you do not have enough time left for the rest of the questions, you might panic and increase your work pace, thus increasing the chance of making mistakes. To overcome this problem, you need to learn to skip hard questions. You may also choose the elimination technique, which is basically just making an educated guess on the answer. Before the test day, be set by practising working under time constraints with computerised simulation.

4) Making a mistake in calculation

This pitfall usually happens on the last step of calculation. GMAT writers are fond of using statistics collected from past tests to analyse the mistakes most test takers make and insert the incorrect answer into the answer choices. This mistake is especially common when you lose your concentration for just one small.

5) Misinterpreting the question

Take note that some questions are deliberately written in such a way that it may be hard for you to know them. You will be able to dodge this mistake by being familiar with GMAT common phrases and how GMAT questions are specifically structured. This can be achieved by doing plenty of GMAT practice tests.

6) Not bothering to check

Don’t be over-confident. The stoppage to check your answers may result in you losing unnecessary marks over careless mistakes. Never feel too sure, check your answers before the time is up.

So remember all the given pointers and you should be on your way to achieving a score as high as 760 on your GMAT test. Of course, intensive practices are crucial. But with these pointers, you will know how to dodge losing unnecessary marks.