The Last 7 Days Before Test Day: TAPER, Don't Cram

By EMPOWERgmat on August 27, 2019

It's Tuesday night. Your GMAT is Saturday morning. You have a spreadsheet open, and on it are FIVE practice tests: one tonight, one Wednesday, one Thursday and two on Friday "to really lock it in." Just looking at it makes you feel productive.

Close the spreadsheet. That plan is a TERRIBLE IDEA. The good news is that it's an easy one to fix, and fixing it might be the smartest move you make all month.

Do the math on "five tests in a week"

A practice CAT is a computer adaptive test. That means a practice exam that gets harder or easier based on how you answer, the same way the real GMAT does. A CAT is only worth taking if you take it the way the real thing works. That means all four sections: the essay, Integrated Reasoning, Quant and Verbal. On the current GMAT, that adds up to about 3 hours and 7 minutes of testing, plus two optional 8 minute breaks.

Five of those is more than 15 and a half hours of testing. In one week. Before you've spent a single minute reviewing what you did. Stop reading and picture yourself on Saturday morning after that week. I'll bet "sharp" is NOT the word that comes to mind.

Here's the part people skip. A CAT is a measuring device. It gives you an approximate score and points at your 'weak' spots. It does NOT make you a better test taker. Taking five in a week is like stepping on the scale five times a day and wondering why you aren't getting any stronger.

Train like a marathoner

Nobody who runs marathons runs the full distance every day the week before the race. They taper. To taper means you cut your training way down in the final stretch, keep a little sharp work so your body remembers the pace, and let yourself recover so you show up fresh. The hard training already happened. The last week is about arriving with all of it intact.

The GMAT is the same kind of event. Whatever you're going to learn about Data Sufficiency (the Quant question type that asks whether you have ENOUGH information to answer, not what the answer is), you mostly learned it weeks ago. If you've been doing effective GMAT preparation that builds skills over time, the final 7 days can't add much. They CAN take a lot away.

A runner's path drawn as a mountain of steep, crowded footprints that slopes gently down into a few light, spaced out steps right before a finish line ribbon. — The hard miles come early. The last stretch is for recovery.

5 mistakes people make in the final week

Cramming practice tests. More tests feel like more work, so they feel like more progress. They aren't. You just burn energy and collect scores you don't have time to study. INSTEAD: Take ONE full practice test about a week out, then spend the next day reviewing it properly.
Starting a brand new topic. Say you spot a probability idea you never studied. Panic says learn it NOW. That topic might show up once on Test Day. It might not show up at all. INSTEAD: Let it go. Spend that energy sharpening the things you already know, because that's where your 'gettable' points live.
Skipping the essay and Integrated Reasoning on your last practice test. Those 60 minutes come BEFORE or AFTER Quant and Verbal depending on the order you pick, and they drain you either way. INSTEAD: Do the whole test, including the essay. If you need a refresher on what a solid one looks like, read up on the components of a successful GMAT essay.
Doing work in your head because it's 'just light review'. Habits don't take a week off. If you stop taking notes now, you'll stop on Saturday too. INSTEAD: Take notes on EVERY question you touch this week, even the easy ones.
Studying late the night before. Nothing you read at 11 p.m. on Friday will show up as points on Saturday. Tired will. INSTEAD: Do nothing GMAT related the day before. Eat well, go to bed on time, and lay out your ID and directions to the test center.

The 7 day taper

When	What you do	Why
7 days out	Your last full practice test. Same start time as your real appointment, same section order you plan to choose, breaks timed.	A final, realistic measurement. One, not five.
6 days out	Review that test. Every wrong answer AND every slow one.	Ask what you DID on each question, not just what the answer was.
5 days out	Redo 15 to 20 questions you've already seen, mixed Quant and Verbal, with full notes.	Command the questions you know instead of meeting new strangers.
4 days out	A short timed set, say 10 Quant questions in 20 minutes.	Quant gives you 31 questions in 62 minutes, a 2 minute average. Keep that pace in your bones.
3 days out	Shorter still. Read through your error notes and your Tactics.	Reminders, not lessons.
2 days out	30 to 45 minutes of easy, confident work. Plan your route.	Stay warm. Remove surprises.
1 day out	NOTHING.	Rest is part of the training.
Test Day	A few easy warm-up questions at breakfast. Leave early.	Wake up the strategic part of your brain without stressing it.

Notice how the volume drops every single day. That's the whole point. Speaking of which, here's a question about the plan itself.

Try it

In the 7 days before her exam, a test taker studies a total of 10.5 hours. Each day, she studies exactly 30 minutes less than she did the day before. How many hours does she study on the 7th day?

Show the answer

Notes first. On your pad: 7 days, total 10.5 hours, drop 0.5 each day, want day 7.

TEST THE ANSWERS. Start with (C). If day 7 is 1 hour, then counting backward the days are 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5 and 4. That adds up to 17.5 hours. Way too much, so day 7 has to be SMALLER. Only (A) and (B) are left.

Try (B). Days of 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 and 3.5 add up to 14 hours. Still too much. That leaves (A). Check it: 0 + 0.5 + 1 + 1.5 + 2 + 2.5 + 3 = 10.5. It works.

The faster way. The hours go down by the same amount every day, so the list is evenly spaced. In an evenly spaced list, the average is the MIDDLE number. The average is 10.5 ÷ 7 = 1.5, so day 4 (the middle of 7 days) is 1.5 hours. Day 7 is three drops later: 1.5 minus 3 × 0.5 = 0.

The trap. Lots of people divide 10.5 by 7, see 1.5 and pick (D). That's the AVERAGE day, not the last day. Others grab (E) because 3 is the first day. Read what the question actually asks, and write it down.

And yes, the answer is 0. The day before Test Day, you rest.

Rested beats fried

The GMAT is adaptive question by question, and you can't go back to change an answer. Every question is a decision you make once and live with. A rested brain makes clean decisions. A fried brain re-reads the prompt three times, second guesses a correct answer and burns two minutes doing it. Then it rushes the end of the section and drops easy points.

This score matters. There are real reasons schools emphasize GMAT scores so heavily, which is exactly why you shouldn't sabotage yours in the final week. The GMAT will give you the score you EARN, and you've already done the earning. Your job now is to show up able to cash it in.

If you feel jittery, good. Call it 'excited', not 'nervous'. Nervous means you aren't prepared. You are. Excited means you're ready to go.

Two people at matching test desks: one slumped and blurry eyed behind a tall messy stack of papers, the other sitting upright and calm with a single neat sheet and a pencil. — Same knowledge, very different Test Day.

Here's your challenge for today. Open your calendar and count the full practice tests you have planned for your final week. If the number is bigger than ONE, cross out the extras right now. Then copy the taper above onto paper, put your real dates next to each line, and write NOTHING in capital letters next to the day before your test. Tape it where you'll see it every morning. Then stick to it.

Sources

GMAC: GMAT exam sections, timing and format