GMAT

Our Approach to the GMAT

To perform well on the GMAT, you’ve got to master test-related content, strategies, pacing, and anxiety. We’ll figure out your starting point in these areas through a pre-test and in-depth consultation. With a solid understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, and goals, we’ll be able to craft a tutoring plan tailored to you.

You’ll take the GMAT online, which is very different from a pencil and paper test-taking experience. Your tutor will walk you through the differences and give you strategies to help you avoid pitfalls. For example, the verbal and quantitative sections are adaptive, which means you’ll be given harder or easier questions based on how you perform on each question - starting with the first medium-level question in each section. Since harder questions correlate to a higher score, you need to nail those first questions!

The GMAT Test Sections

The GMAT includes four sections, and you’ll have some choice in the order you complete them.

The verbal section contains three question types that assess several skills.

• Sentence Correction: Determine if the underlined portion of a sentence contains an error; if so, choose the best edit. Errors focus on advanced grammar, conciseness, and idioms among other language conventions.
• Critical Reasoning: Read a short “argument” prompt and answer a question about it using logic and reasoning skills.
• Reading Comprehension: Answer questions after reading a difficult passage. You’ll need to find main ideas, make inferences, and identify the author’s tone.

The quantitative section contains two question types. No calculators are allowed for this section!

• Problem Solving: These questions involve traditional math problems (mainly algebra and geometry) phrased in a sophisticated way.
• Data Sufficiency: Read a question followed by two statements. While you don’t need to answer the question, you do need to indicate whether or not sufficient data has been provided in the statements to answer the question.

The integrated reasoning section is made up of twelve questions, most of which have multiple parts. There are four types of questions:

• Multi-Source Reasoning: Answer questions based on information from graphs, charts, or text.
• Table Analysis: Sort and interpret data in a spreadsheet.
• Graphics Interpretation: Interpret and draw conclusions about different types of graphs.
• Two-Part Analysis: Solve complex problems which often include math calculations.

The analytical writing assessment asks you to compose an essay that analyzes and critiques an argument.

Getting Started

We want tutoring to be effective, efficient, and enjoyable, so it all starts with a consultation and diagnostic pre-test. Contact us to set up both of these steps!

After you take the pre-test, your tutoring director will share a tutoring timeline and match you with a tutor. Your director will keep in touch throughout, and you can always reach out with questions!

Why Nurturing Wisdom?

It’s not enough for us to know the test. Just as vital to successful tutoring is knowing the student and understanding how they learn. Your tutor will adjust and fine-tune from lesson to lesson based on your progress and goals. You’ll see why #alwayslearning is our motto!

We’ll do our best to make sessions convenient to your schedule and location, whether that means meeting on campus mid-day, in the office after work, or at home in the evening. If you need guidance writing application essays, we can help with that, too!

Online Tutoring

If you live outside of the Chicagoland area, we can still help! We love working one-on-one with students online to help them achieve their goals. Contact us to learn more!