Tackling the GMAT can be a tough proposition for most test takers. The adaptive format, time intensive and unique way of presenting questions require a lot of focused preparation from GMAT takers. The going gets even more difficult for ESL students. However, even ESL students can get good GMAT scores if they work hard towards it.
Here are some GMAT tips for ESL students:
- Familiarize yourself with English – Make sure that you read a lot of English books and magazines when you start preparing for the GMAT. You can even use social media sites or use learning groups on our website to practice your English usage. Fun ways of getting comfortable with English include watching movies and TV series. Make sure that you always have a dictionary handy to understand the meaning of the words.
- Give yourself enough time – You need to make sure that you give yourself enough preparation time. While native English speakers may need about six months of preparation time, ESL students may need slightly more time to strengthen their English language skills. Never rush into the GMAT without solid preparation hours behind you.
- Spend more time on the verbal section – Obviously, you need to spend more time on the verbal section. You need to improve your reading speed to tackle the reading comprehension and other grammar questions quickly. Learn your idioms and grammar rules so that you can solve the problems quickly.
- Don’t ignore quant – Many ESL students are naturally good at math. While it maybe good news, the problem is that the questions might be worded in weird ways. You need to familiarize yourself with the terms used to describe mathematical concepts and problems. Practice problems and tests are the best way to learn these words.
- Practice writing essays – For ESL students, the GMAT Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) is a tough beast to tackle. Go through a lot of sample essays to see the structure and format. Learn to answer the following questions suggested by GMAC when developing an essay:
What questionable assumptions underlie the thinking behind the argument?
What else you can do inside qs leap ?
What alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion?
What sort of evidence could help strengthen or refute the argument?”
Come up with a general template while writing practice essays and stick to it during the exam.
- Don’t worry too much about Integrated Reasoning – In this section, you need to make sure that you do not waste too much time on questions and select the questions that can be answered easily. Look for questions which can be solved easily with the given information. Do not worry too much about this section. You just need to bag a decent enough score in this section.
- Stay motivated – Never consider yourself at a disadvantage while taking the GMAT. Remember that many ESL students have aced the GMAT with high scores. In fact, ESL students tend to do much better on grammatical questions than even native English speakers. The great thing about being a non-native English speaker is that you can pay attention to details from scratch. With the right effort, you can easily enter your dream business school.
