GMAT with CJ

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝗶𝗴 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀: 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗸𝘆𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘀. You don't erect a 20-story building by constantly worrying about the final structure. You build it by creating a good plan and by dedicatedly executing that plan. There is a time for planning, for evaluating the architectural drawings from every angle. But once construction begins (once you have chosen your course, or study materials, or tutor), the focus must shift. Your entire attention must be on laying the current brick perfectly. By getting the current brick right, you are contributing to the final structure. 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Constantly asking, "How will this single brick build my skyscraper?" is a paralyzing thought. It distracts from the only thing that matters in that moment: the task at hand. This is where the analogy meets your reality. The "brick" is the question in front of you. Your blueprint is your study plan. Once the plan is made, dedicate all your energy to execution. Focus on laying each brick—mastering each question—with precision. Extract every ounce of learning you can from it. If you focus on getting every single brick right, the 20-story building will take care of itself. So will your score.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟮-𝗠𝗶𝗻𝘂𝘁𝗲 𝗙𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗰𝘆: 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗠𝗔𝗧 𝗟𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗗𝗮𝘆 A student recently told me, "The GMAT gives me 2 minutes a question, so I practice for only 2 minutes a question." It’s one of the most common and destructive myths in test prep. He believed he was simulating the test, but what he was actually doing was cementing his own bad habits. Our conversation went like this: Me: What’s your goal on test day? Learning or scoring? Student: Scoring, obviously. Me: What’s your goal today, in practice? Is anyone scoring you? Student: No. So the goal is to learn. Me: Exactly. You have two different goals. Why are you using the same method for both? Your Practice Is Not the Performance This student’s error was thinking that practice is a dress rehearsal. It isn't. PRACTICE is where you build the skills; the TEST is where you showcase them. Consider a professional: • A basketball player doesn't just play full-speed games to get better. They spend hours in the gym on strength training, running slow-motion drills to perfect their shooting form, and practicing free throws until it's muscle memory. • A concert pianist doesn't learn a new concerto by playing it at full tempo from the start. They isolate the hardest passages, play them painfully slowly to ensure every note is perfect, and then gradually build speed. They understand that SPEED is the result of mastery, NOT the path to it. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 "𝗦𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗨𝗽" 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 If your goal in practice is to learn, your method must maximize learning. Rushing through a question in 2 minutes only tells you whether you can solve it with your *current* knowledge. It teaches you nothing new. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵: 1. Attempt the Question: Give it a reasonable shot, perhaps timing yourself to get a baseline. 2. Go for the Deep Dive: Whether you got it right or wrong, your work has just begun. Spend 15-20 minutes to: - Deconstruct the Logic: Why is the right answer undeniably correct? Why is every wrong answer choice tempting but ultimately flawed? - Find the Optimal Path: Was there a faster, more elegant way to solve it? A shortcut you missed? 3. Log Your Learnings: Document what you learned from this deep dive in an error log. This turns a single question into a permanent upgrade to your reasoning skills. Timed practice has its place—it’s for building stamina and pacing in the final weeks before your exam. But if you make it your primary method from day one, you’re not practicing; you're just rehearsing a lower score. Stop racing the clock. Start building your brain. The speed will follow.

"There is no gain without pain" is so ingrained in people's minds that when I talk about enjoying the process, people feel odd. It's as though if they enjoy the process, they'll fail; they believe they need to suffer to 'deserve success'. I am amazed at how these misconceptions run our internal worlds and dictate our life experience. To succeed, you need to work sincerely and, at times, work a lot. However, there is no requirement of 'pain' or 'suffering'. Why would there be? Rather, if you enjoy the process, you'd be able to give your best. If you are miserable, a large part of your energy will be drained out by your misery and your attempts to address that misery. The 'pain' or 'suffering' is your voluntary emotional reaction to the circumstances. There can be a lot of gain without pain. Rather, pain leads to even more pain. The more you resist life, the more your propensity to resist increases. And the more you resist, the more you suffer.

A very common way people preparing for the GMAT waste their time is by solving very hard questions. They can’t get medium questions consistently right, but they are wasting their time trying to solve very hard questions. The point is that they are not at a level where they can learn from these questions. They may read expert explanations and think that they have understood the logic, but if I ask them a couple of questions on their logic, they’ll go psss. The depth and the level of complexity of very hard questions are so high that you need a certain level of capability to understand the question. If you are not hitting 90-95% accuracy on medium questions, then you don’t have that capability. Your focus should be on upping your accuracy on medium questions. In general, if you are at (your current level, not your target level) 65th percentile or below - focus on the easy and medium questions Between 65th and 80th percentile - focus on the medium and hard questions Above 80th percentile - focus on the medium, hard, and very hard questions.

“If I think a lot, I confuse myself,” a student shared when I asked her why she didn’t think of certain aspects of a quant question. I said: You don’t confuse yourself; you uncover the confusions that lie latent in you. So, you don’t want to think deeply since thinking deeply brings you face-to-face with your confusions, and you’re scared to face those confusions. You’re trying to improve, but at the same time, running away from your confusions. Since you don’t tackle them, they stay within, and you never feel confident of your abilities. The way out is to tackle those confusions. Just write them whenever you uncover them. You may not be able to resolve 90% of them. But let’s start with resolving 10% of them. Over a period, if you persist, this proportion will increase. A new level of clarity will emerge. And then, you’ll be confident of your abilities and not scared of thinking deeply. **** The same also applies to our confusions and fears about life. We never sit with ourselves and introspect because we’re scared to face what lies inside. However, unless we face it and resolve it, we’ll never become comfortable with ourselves.

One of my students is a tennis coach. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and coaches many students from nearby universities, including Harvard and MIT. He shared an interesting observation: “Many times, students who come to me for coaching have been playing tennis for many years. They play for fun, not to become professional tennis players. They can hit the ball well, but they want to improve their game. At times, the problem lies in the way they hold the racquet. When I tell them the right way to hold the racquet, a majority of them resist. Why? Because when they change the way they hold their racquets, they cannot hit the ball at the same pace as before. They end up losing games. It takes a lot of convincing, at times, to make them see the long run. The dip is only in the short term. In the long run, their game would improve significantly beyond how they played with their previous technique of holding the racquet. So, when you asked me to understand the arguments and passages well even though I might have to slow down significantly, I could understand you were asking me to hold the racquet the right way.”

Life is like taking the GMAT. One worries about whether he got his previous question right. Another tries to judge how well she will score by assessing the difficulty level of the current question. Both are wasting their time. The only beneficial use of time is to use it to focus on solving the question on the screen. That's it. You ace the test not by worrying about your past or future but by giving your best to the present question. If you keep giving your best to whatever question appears on the screen, you'll give your best performance. The same is with life. You ace the game of life not by bemoaning what happened to you in the past or worrying about what may happen in the future but by giving your best in the present. That's the question on the screen!

Two friends look at a top-end car, and desire to have it. Not just to have it but to have it in 1 year. While Vijay starts giving his best to his business, Ajay, also a businessman, keeps worrying that he may never able to afford a top-end car. Vijay gives his best throughout the year and has a fulfilling time. Ajay becomes more and more distressed as the year progresses. After one year, Vijay can afford a mid-segment car while Ajay cannot afford even a small-segment one. At the beginning of the year, both were at the same level and had the same desire. However, the way they dealt with their desires changed the trajectory of their lives. While Vijay focused on what he could do, Ajay focused on what he cannot have. The same is the case for many GMAT aspirants. Many behave like Ajay. They keep worrying about not meeting their goals. However, a few are like Vijay, and even though they may not hit their targets within their timelines, they get closer and closer to their target score with time. Be like Vijay! :)

I got a call from a girl from IITB who works at an Investment bank. She has a score of 465 on the GMAT. Surprising? For me, a much bigger and pleasant surprise was that she was relaxed about it and was laughing for most of the call. I asked her, "I have seen similar scores from IITians in the past, but they were all frustrated/worried, given that they didn't expect themselves to get such scores. How can you be so relaxed about it?" "I feel it's just a matter of time, and I'm not in a hurry, as you so often highlight in your posts." Isn't that all it takes to be relaxed and happy? Some patience. And an understanding that if you are working towards your goal, reaching your goal is just a matter of time.

Ever thought your GMAT prep could help you navigate the complexities of a friend's breakup? Well, it can, and here's a story to prove it! One of my students recently told me about a conversation he had with a friend who had just ended a relationship. Instead of offering a shoulder to cry on, he decided to dig deeper. Student: "Why did you break up?" Friend: "She was immature." Student: "What does 'immature' mean?" Friend: "Well, she did this..." (Friend explains) Student: "So, anyone who does that is immature?" Friend: "Yes." Student: "Is this a universal definition of immaturity, or just yours?" They even Googled the term "immaturity" to explore its nuances. Student: "Could what you're describing be a changeable attitude rather than fixed immaturity?" My student later told me, "Before your sessions, I never delved into conversations like this. It was fun!" While I'm happy when my students ace the GMAT, it's even more rewarding to hear how they apply these skills in real life. This story was a testament to that, and it left me both amused and deeply satisfied.

Will reading books improve a GMAT aspirant's reading comprehension skills? A common advice on forums for people who are struggling with the RC (Reading Comprehension) section is to read a lot. The rationale behind this advice is that those who have been avid readers perform much better on the RC section. My point is that the fact in the rationale doesn't support the advice. What I am saying, in other words, is 𝗔 𝗚𝗠𝗔𝗧 𝗮𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘂𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗵𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗯𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀. How can I say this? I completely agree that avid readers perform much better than other on the RC section. That's because their comprehension skills are better. That's because they have been reading in a very engaged way. That's because they have been interested in what they have been reading. If they were not interested, they wouldn't be reading. However, if a GMAT aspirant reads, they are not reading because they are interested in reading; they are reading because they want to improve their skills. They are interested in the outcome, not the means. As a result, they will not be engaged while reading. As a result, their comprehension skills won't improve. --- For a GMAT aspirant, solving RC passages will help much more than reading articles and books. One big reason for this is that while you get feedback after reading an RC passage (in terms of your accuracy on the questions), there's no feedback after reading articles and books.

I had a 50-minute conversation with a student who has been struggling with a range of psychological issues during her GMAT preparation. We spent the time diving deep—into the emotions she’s been feeling, the thoughts driving those emotions, and the deeper beliefs fueling those thoughts. It was an intense and honest exploration. At the end, she told me the conversation had been very helpful. I asked her what had helped. I was expecting her to say it was the analysis—that maybe she’d now be more mindful of the thought chains behind her emotional patterns. But instead, she said, “It was comforting to know that someone with more experience believes I can achieve my goals.” Initially, I felt a bit disappointed—had all that deep exploration not landed with her? But then I saw something else. She may not have been in a state to fully engage with the analysis, but she still drew something significant from the session: the comfort of being believed in. This made me reflect on how we all carry a deep longing for someone—especially someone experienced or credible—to believe in our potential.

My nephew, an IIT-JEE aspirant, was called 'pagal' by his Math teacher for asking a doubt. The teacher later said it was a joke—meant to highlight a ridiculous mistake. He gave an example to illustrate his point: In expressions like sin(θ)/cos(θ), some students try to cancel the thetas. To emphasize that this should never be done, he calls it “maha paap.” And to drive the point home, he adds, “Gala kaat diya tumne!” I could see that the exaggeration was intended to make the point stick. But I kept thinking— The student isn’t canceling the “s” from “sin” and the “s” from “cos.” So, it’s not just a case of blindly canceling terms. If the student is canceling “theta,” it means they’re interpreting “sin(θ)” as a product of “sin” and “θ.” Shouldn’t this be a concern? You’re teaching them to manipulate trigonometric expressions, but they don’t even understand what these functions represent. They’re not seeing sin(θ) as a function. They’re seeing it as multiplication. Think about it— If the student truly understood what sin(θ) and cos(θ) stand for, the idea of canceling θ would never even arise. By saying “gala kaat diya,” maybe the student will remember not to do it again. But will they understand why? Isn’t this the difference between stopping someone from making a mistake and helping them reach a place where the mistake no longer even occurs to them? As a teacher, what is my job? The former—or the latter? The latter, I say.

I’m feeling something today that I believe many GMAT aspirants feel at different stages of their preparation—a sense of being unsettled, lost, almost as if I might never get it. For me, this feeling has been triggered by something unrelated to GMAT preparation. I recently shared a post on a public forum—something I personally found valuable and meaningful. But the response was... somewhere between silence and slight negativity. And yet, in my heart, I know that what I shared had depth. I believed it would resonate. It didn’t. And that disconnect—between doing your best and not getting the result you expected—was hard to take. It makes you feel helpless, like maybe it’ll never work, like maybe you don’t get it and never will. There’s a certain powerlessness in that. And as I sat with this, I found myself connecting it to the GMAT preparation journey. There are times when you give your best to a question or a concept. You try sincerely. You think deeply. You believe you’ve understood it. And then you get it wrong. Or your accuracy is far lower than expected. That moment is deeply discouraging. Because you feel you couldn’t have done anything more. But connecting my own feeling with the emotional experience of GMAT aspirants gave me a sense of perspective. The feeling of helplessness subsided. I’ve seen people come out of that phase. And so I was reminded—I too can come out of it. It’s just a matter of time. A matter of perseverance.

It's a common thing in GMAT preparation space. A lot of people dedicate a fixed amount of time to their prep. Three months. Four months. And then they’re puzzled. Why haven’t they hit their target score? They feel helpless. Clueless. As if something unexpected has happened. Because clearly, their expectation was: if I spend 3–4 months, I should get my target score. That’s what they’ve seen on forums. That’s what they’ve seen in their own lives. In school, everyone moved at the same pace. In college too, more or less. It was rare for people to drop a year. But now they find themselves far from the target even after spending the required amount of time. And they’re confused. Why? And I have to tell them— In school, everyone moved at the same pace because they moved on with whatever score they got. Someone got 70%, someone else got 95%—but both moved on. No one said, “I’ll stay back until I get a 95%.” But that’s exactly what happens in GMAT prep. You don’t move on with a 70%. You don’t move on with an okay score. Everyone wants to hit that 90th percentile. So naturally, since the score is fixed, the time will vary. In school, time was fixed and the scores varied. Now, the score is fixed—and the time will vary. And sometimes, it will vary a lot. The time it takes to reach a certain score depends on so many variables—it’s extremely hard to predict. So what makes sense is this: Focus on what’s in your hands—your learning. Observe how much time you are taking. And then extrapolate from there.

In my recent one-to-one private tutoring session, I was working with a student who had already taken private tutoring before—with someone else. He had done 10 sessions earlier, but his core problem hadn’t been resolved. In fact, he hadn’t improved at all. So at the end of our session, I asked him, “Did you notice any difference today?” I wasn’t asking to compare or compete. I just wanted to understand if something felt different this time—if there was a genuine scope for improvement now. If nothing felt different, we might just be heading down the same path again. But if something did feel different, then maybe we were onto something. He shared a couple of things. One of them really stood out. He said, “Today, I wasn’t afraid of making mistakes.” That really surprised me. Why would someone be afraid of making mistakes in a private tutoring session—a space that’s supposed to be safe, where the only other person than you is the tutor? So I asked him, “Were you afraid of making mistakes in your earlier sessions?” And he said, “Yes. Because whenever I made a mistake, the tutor would say something like, ‘You’re still making these kinds of mistakes.’ So I always felt this pressure—that if I made a mistake, I’d disappoint her, or be subtly reprimanded.” It was a striking moment for me. Because if a student is making mistakes, isn’t that precisely why they’re here? Isn’t our job to understand why those mistakes are happening—not to be disappointed by them? Disappointment doesn't help the student. If anything, the student is probably already disappointed with themselves. They don’t need the tutor to pile onto that. What they need is someone who’s curious enough to dig deeper and patient enough to keep exploring. I imagine the tutor must’ve thought—I’ve already explained this concept, I’ve told him to slow down, but he’s still rushing—so maybe he’s not serious enough. That’s probably how she interpreted it. But if a student knows they should slow down, and they still don’t… shouldn’t we be asking why? That’s the point of the session, isn’t it? But often we slip into rhetorical questions—“Why are you still doing this?”—which are less about inquiry and more about blame. They carry an undertone of, you shouldn’t be doing this—and yet you are—so what’s wrong with you? But the real essence of tutoring lies in genuine questions, not rhetorical ones. It lies in asking: Why is this happening? Let’s explore it. Let’s find the root. That’s what I tried to do in our session. He made mistakes. Quite a few. But the objective never shifted—it was always to understand the source. Not just what the mistake was, but why it was still happening despite previous awareness or instruction. Because blame doesn’t help. Disappointment doesn’t teach. Getting to the root of a problem does.

One of my students was telling me about his experience learning to ski. He said his instructor had taught him this basic technique to stop — the snowplow. You angle your skis into a wedge, and on a gentle 5% slope, it gives you a sense of control. He remembered feeling confident back then. But as he moved to steeper slopes — 10% or more — that same snowplow started feeling wobbly. Ineffective. He was no longer in control, even though he was doing exactly what he’d learned. That’s when his instructor introduced a new way to stop. Something that involved shifting weight, digging the ski edges in, using the body differently. It wasn’t a tweak to the old method — it was something else altogether. And that made me think about what I often see in learning — especially in the way people approach questions on tests like the GMAT. When we start out, we pick up some simple techniques. They help. They work. On the easy questions — the "gentle slopes" — they make us feel like we’re doing well. Sometimes, very well. And when we get to tougher questions, we keep trying to apply those same techniques. But now they’re shaky. They don’t work — or they work only in patches. And it’s not because we don’t apply them well enough. It’s because they were never meant for this slope. At that point, what’s needed is not a better version of the trick — but a different kind of engagement with the problem. Something that builds real control. Something that feels like learning to use your weight, your balance, your edges. A shift in how you operate, not just what you do. That early technique or trick wasn’t wrong. It just was limited.

When I took my first GMAT in 2013, I had made peace with scoring a 710 (which is roughly 655 on the current scale). What did I end up with? A 770. How? Simple. My score wasn’t determined by what I was okay with—it was determined by what I deserved. My skills were strong enough to earn a 770. The algorithm didn’t think, “He’s fine with 710, let’s not give him more.” That’s not how it works. Ironically, the fact that I was okay with scoring a 710 played a big role in my scoring 770. Why? Because earlier, when I wasn’t okay with anything less than 760, I was constantly anxious during mocks. And my scores were dropping. Once I realized that, I worked on myself. I reached a point where I was truly at peace with scoring below my potential—even 710. That changed things. When I walked into the actual test, I wasn’t nervous. I simply gave my best. And I scored 770. The biggest lesson I took from that experience: Give your absolute best while preparing. And be mentally prepared to score way below yo

Stop trying to feel better. Start preparing better. 100 questions a day. Feels satisfying. Covered multiple concepts. At least I’m doing my best. But what’s really happening? You’re focusing on quantity. It’s like reporting to a boss: “Look at how much I’ve done.” It feels justified. But ask yourself — are you trying to achieve your goal, or are you just trying to feel better? You can’t reach your GMAT goal by activity alone. You have to learn. Even if you do just five questions a day, or take five hours to understand one concept — if you truly understand it, that’s progress. If you don’t understand something, you need time. The only choice is: – Give yourself that time and master it, – Or move ahead with a shaky, half-baked understanding. The first path may feel stressful — you might fear falling behind. The second path might feel like you’re in control. But is that second path actually helping? No. So should you ignore your feelings? Yes, especially if they’re not useful. Or you can questi

I often tell my students that clarity is not about having the correct thought. It’s about having "only" the correct thought. The problem with unclear thinking isn’t always a lack of knowing the right way. It’s that they also know several incorrect ways—and they’re not sure which one is which. So sometimes they get it right, and sometimes they don’t. That inconsistency is the result of a lack of clarity. Something very interesting happened recently in a session. I was reviewing a student’s responses to some CR questions. On one of the questions, I noticed something curious. Her reasoning for eliminating option A was based on a certain thought. And her reasoning for eliminating option E was based on a different thought. But here’s the thing—the thought she used for A could have applied to E as well. And the one she used for E could have applied to A. I asked her why she didn’t look at both A and E from both angles. Her answer surprised me. She said, “CJ, you told me that clarity is about having only one c