Online Classes Can Be The Start Of An Exciting Career For You!
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011You’ve been preparing for months and tomorrow’s the day. You’ve been spending many a night, drilling until you can do any simulation backwards and forwards. You’ve even remembered to take the day off from work. Next, you’ll be taking the GMAT. All going well, you’ll be starting your MBA program shortly.
What one must remember in taking this test is you will be commuting to a neutral site, one not of your choosing or preference. It could be a town hall, college classroom or the annex of a library. You just can’t just stand up and grab a coke or a textbook. The goal is to make the environment as conducive to your comfort as possible. As such, you should do the following:
Get A Good Night’s Sleep – Cramming and drilling is fine, but only to a point. Walking to the test facility with only 2-3 hours of sleep is a guaranteed way to make a number of mistakes you wouldn’t make if you were fresh and alert. Some breakfast doesn’t hurt either.
Get Plenty of Scrap Paper and Pens – Just because the Verbal and Quantitative parts of the GMAT are multiple choice doesn’t mean you won’t be doing some sort of calculations. Make sure you have enough supplies to be able to do all that you have to.
Scope Out the Facility and Dress In Layers – The facility may not be the ideal situation to test in. Examine your surroundings before you sign in so you know where you can eat, use the restroom or just stretch your legs. Also, keep a sweater or the ability to strip down a bit if the air conditioning isn’t working properly (this does happen). The exam is a full day, and those little things add up.
Familiarize Yourself With Your Terminal – As said many times before, the GMAT is now online. Therefore, make sure your terminal is fully functional before you start the test. Once the test begins, they aren’t going to care if the mouse doesn’t work. While you’re at it, make sure your desk and chair are to your liking.
Pace Yourself – Don’t get overconfident or freeze up. This is what all that drilling and simulation runs are going to pay off. In fact, you shouldn’t have even signed up for the GMAT until you could do a test run smoothly at home. Go too fast and you might miss an important piece of info. Go too slow, and you will be severely penalized due to unanswered questions. A steady pace, like finishing a segment with one to two minutes to spare, is the way to go.
Yes, these suggestions may sound off base and perhaps even irrelevant, but they’re not. You’ve pursued an online education towards your degree and now you at the all important test stage. Like taking the online prep course, what you are truly doing is making the testing environment as comfortable to you as possible. There are innumerable studies out there that when one does this, their results are far better than if not. Everything you’ve done for your own online school comes into play now as you continue towards the goal of your own online business degree. Students who’ve taken the time to participate in online MBA programs should take just a few minutes more to ensure their success.