How to Use GMAT Official Guide to Get 700 on GMAT

Written by Amrith in GMAT Resources

In this article, you will learn how to use GMAT Official Guide so that you can score 700 or more on the GMAT.

The GMAT Official Guide is the only source of real GMAT questions. The makers of GMAT create the questions and the answer explanations in the official guide.

Thus, each question in this book is valuable. If you want to know how to make the most of each question in the GMAT Official Guide, read on.

How to Use GMAT Official Guide (Top 10 Tips for a 700+ Score)

I’ve created this list of top 10 tips from my experience of improving my GMAT score from 650 to 710. The purpose of this list is to help you avoid using the Official Guide in the usual, unproductive ways people commonly use it.

Usually, people approach the Official Guide like they would any other question bank. They burn through the questions without realizing their value.

However, if you’re aiming for a 700+ score, such a casual approach does not work. Instead, you must use the questions strategically. That’s what this article will help you do.

Before we begin, if you want to know more about how difficult it is to get a +700 score on GMAT. I wrote an article explaining how hard is it to get 700 on GMAT. I recommend you read the article for a clear explanation on what it takes to get 700 on GMAT.

Find a Time and a Place for Solving Problems

The GMAT Official Guide has more than 900 pages and it’s a heavy, cumbersome book. You wouldn’t want to carry it around with you.

Therefore, you should identify a place where you can keep the book as you work through it.

Also, you must make sure you’re at the place for 1-2 hours a day. Therefore, I recommend you block time on your calendar to sit with the book every day.

But what about the eBook version?

I recommend against using the eBook. Here’s why:

When you’re working through the problems in the Official Guide, you must minimize distractions. If you have any digital media around you, that’s a distraction waiting to happen.

If you use the good old book, you can leave your digital devices away and concentrate on learning.

Learn Strategy and Technique Before Application

An example helps illustrate this point best. The best strategy to solve sentence correction is to use splits to eliminate answer choices.

Therefore, before you work on sentence correction questions, you must learn the strategy.

Here’s another example.

The Official Guide recommends using the AD-BCE strategy to solve data sufficiency questions. Thus, it only makes sense to learn the strategy before you solve data sufficiency questions.

In the same way, you must learn strategies specific to other question formats before you start solving the problems.

But I must make an important distinction. I’m not talking about learning the subject matter. I’m talking about strategies and techniques for a question format.

For example, GMAT can test your quantitative reasoning though problem solving questions or data sufficiency questions. However, the subject matter doesn’t change much.

Subject matter includes knowledge areas such as terms, concepts, formulas, and rules.

So, where do you find strategies and techniques specific to question formats?

Well, I recommend buying the Manhattan Prep All the GMAT strategy guide. The covers strategy and subject matter.

You can finish the strategy first and subject matter as you progress.

Set a Daily and Weekly Target

The GMAT Official Guide 2021 has 998 questions in it. Let’s say your aim is to finish attempting all the questions within 4 weeks. At that rate, your weekly target is to attempt 250 questions – give or take a few.

Next, if you break the weekly target into a daily target, you’ll need to attempt around 36 questions a day.

If you spend 2 hours solving problems from the Official Guide, you’ll need to do 18 questions an hour.

In summary, if you commit 2 hours a day for 28 days, you can solve all the questions on the Official Guide if you solve 40 questions a day.

However, some days you’ll hit your target, some days you’ll fall short of your target, and some days you’ll exceed your target.

Therefore, the hourly and daily targets aren’t set in stone. However, the weekly target is. So, if you’re falling short of your weekly target, use the weekend to catch up.

Pace Your Practice Sessions Properly

When you break the number down into weekly, daily, and hourly targets, things seem easy enough. But when you sit down to practice, you may find yourself spending 15 minutes on a single question. Instead of solving 20 questions per hour, you may solve only 4 or 5.

How do you prevent this from happening?

At first, you may think that the answer is in micro-managing your time. You’d think that If you want to succeed in hitting 20 problems in an hour, you should spend 3 minutes per question.

Then, you’d use a timer to make sure you don’t spend more than 3 minutes per question. But micro-managing your time for each question will drive you crazy.

To prevent yourself from losing track of time and going nuts, you should follow a systematic framework for solving problems.

I’ve created a workflow that will ensure you finish attempting a question within 3 minutes. The next topic explains that workflow.

Use the Official Guide for Practice (Not Tests)

To make sure you can cover 20 problems an hour, you shouldn’t be solving the problems. Instead, you should be learning from them. Here’s what I mean:

After you read the question step, don’t solve the problem. Instead, read the answer explanation. After you read the answer explanation, hide the answer explanation, and solve the problem.

When you do this, you save the time you spend in figuring out how to solve the problem. Usually, the time you take to figure out the approach that introduces inconsistency in your rhythm.

Therefore, look at how the answer explanation solves the problem. Then use the approach to solve the problem.

Also, make a note of any new information you learn from the answer explanation. Later, you can use your study guide to internalize the information or learn related concepts.

Prioritize Difficulty Over Topics

The Official Guide categorizes questions according to difficulty, topic, and sub-topic. So, you can approach the problems in the order of difficulty or topic.

I recommend approaching the problems by difficulty. This means that you must solve the easy questions from all the topics first. After you solve all the easy questions, you can move on to the medium level questions for all topics. Finally, you can attempt all the hard questions.

The reason I recommend this approach is that your GMAT score is only as good as your performance in your weakest area. So, imagine this situation:

You can answer hard questions from number properties, but you can answer only medium questions from algebra. In such a situation, your quant score will be held back by your performance in algebra.

Therefore, you must develop your proficiency across all areas evenly to ensure that no topic is holding your performance back.

Examine Answer Explanations Thoroughly

The answer explanations help you align your thinking to GMAT’s way of thinking. Through the answer explanations, people who create questions for the real GMAT are showing you how they would solve the problem.

I find questions where they use alternate approaches or the process of elimination especially helpful.

For example:

While reading the answer explanations for reading comprehension questions, I would examine how the question creator explains why an option is incorrect. I would also look at the reasons why they feel the correct answer is correct.

Here’s another example:

When I read the answer explanation for data sufficiency questions, I look at how they test the sufficiency criteria.

Also, I look for new terms, concepts, and formulas in the answer explanations so that I can study the information in greater depth later.

Pair the Official Guide with a Study Guide

The Official Guide is the best question bank for the GMAT. However, as a study guide, the Official Guide is not enough.

Although you may find a few pages highlighting some information for each topic and sub-topic, the coverage is inadequate in depth, breadth, and scope.

Therefore, you’ll need a study guide to provide the information that’s missing in the Official Guide.

The answer explanations and theory coverage in the Official Guide can point you to knowledge areas. But the study guide addresses the knowledge area in its entirety.

The best study guide I recommend for GMAT preparation is the Manhattan Prep All the GMAT strategy guide. I have personal experience in using these guides and I am extremely happy with the content. I recommend the book with no reservations (and I’m not even an affiliate).

Re-Solve Questions with Added Restrictions

In a previous point, I asked you to attempt the problem after reading the answer explanations. Another advantage of that method is that you can re-solve those questions with added restrictions.

Here’s what I mean by that.

You can re-solve the questions as a timed set. For example, you can pick 20 questions you have already attempted, set a timer for 40 minutes, and solve all the questions before the timer runs out.

If you want to add another level of restriction, you can limit the space you give yourself to solve the problem. I usually divide my scratch paper into two columns and four rows, giving me eight boxes. Then, I limit myself to just one box per question.

Another way of adding restriction is to answer the question without the answer choices. Although this does not work for all question formats.

By introducing added restrictions, you can work through the problems again. You can think of this as beating a game at a higher difficulty after you beat it at a lower one.

Save the RC and CR Questions for the End

The reading comprehension questions, and the critical reasoning questions are the most valuable questions in the Official Guide.

Here’s why:

Although no one can emulate the standards of a GMAT question precisely. However, for some question types, people can reverse-engineer question in the Official Guide to creak GMAT-like questions.

For example:

You’ll find many sources of such reverse-engineered, GMAT-like questions for problem solving and sentence correction.

However, reverse-engineering critical reasoning questions or reading comprehension questions is extremely difficult. As a result, you’ll not find many high-quality, GMAT-like questions from these question formats.

Therefore, you must save the reading comprehension and critical reasoning questions in the Official Guide for the end.

Instead, you must practice your craft with the next best substitutes.

For instance, instead of practicing reading comprehension using the question in the Official Guide, you can use the questions on ReadTheory.

You can also find high-quality questions for critical reasoning on the GMAT Club. However, you can also buy the supplemental GMAT Official Guide if you need more authentic GMAT questions. The supplement guides are:

  • GMAT Official Guide Quantitative Review 2021
  • GMAT Official Guide Verbal Review 2021
  • GMAT Official Advanced Questions

What’s Next

Solving the questions in the Official Guide is a part of a larger preparation strategy. Therefore, these articles will help you see where the Official Guide fits in. If you’re looking for a 700+ score on the GMAT, these articles will help you a great deal.

Have More Questions? Get in Touch!

I love helping people score 700 or more on the GMAT. If I can help you with anything related to scoring 700 on the GMAT, I’ll be happy to do so to the best of my ability. So, get in touch. Send me an email.

Here’s my email ID: ask@graduateexams.com

Take care. And all the best!

Amrith

Amrith Sudhakaran creates content to help people score 700 or more on the GMAT so that they can apply to top MBA programs in the world. He draws from his experience of improving his GMAT score from 650 to 710... and then from 710 to 750... to craft in-depth how-to guides and informational posts. You can get in touch with him via email. His address is: ask@graduateexams.com.

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