The GMAT™ Exam Can Help You Think Like an Innovator

In recent months, many MBA programs, including several in the top 15, have decided to make the GMAT™ an optional part of their application process, at least for the short term.

If the schools you want to attend are on that list, you might be wondering whether it’s worth taking the test. After all, the GMAT exam is challenging, it takes time and, often, money to prepare, and I can’t say it competes with the array of entertainment options we have easy access to these days (teachers like me do kind of enjoy the GMAT, but that’s why we teach the stuff). 

Why take the GMAT exam?

There are a few good reasons to consider taking the test, however—even if your goal school does not currently require it. 

Test-optional policies may not last

For one, note that modifier “currently.” Many of these schools are going test-optional on a short-term trial basis, largely in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. If you don’t plan on applying this year, there is no small chance that the GMAT will make a comeback tour in the near future. And GMAT scores are good for five years, so if now is a good time to take the test for an application down the road, you might not want to rely on schools remaining test optional. 

What’s more, numerous studies show that one’s ability to excel at standardized tests decreases with age. This is probably more a function of ‘practice’ and ‘time to study’ than a drain of intelligence. Taking a test is a skill like any other, and we’re going to be better at it immediately after 22 years of schooling than we will be after a 10 year hiatus from the joys of answering exam questions. 

So even if your school is test-optional for this next admissions cycle, it might be worth taking the test now, if you’re recently out of school, so that your study and test-taking skills are still fresh. 

Your GMAT score could help you get a job

Another reason to consider taking the test is that a strong GMAT score can look good on a resume. Some businesses will still ask for one (take that into consideration too), but even if they don’t, a good score on a (relatively) objective metric like the GMAT can really help you stand out in a competitive field of applicants.

Many people working at these companies have taken the GMAT themselves, and therefore know and respect the effort that has to be put in in order to get a solid score. 

The GMAT exam can improve your analytical and problem-solving skills

Then, there is then the noblest reason to take the test—it can help you in life outside of the GMAT itself.

The three scenarios below are—at first glance—unrelated to the GMAT. I want you to consider what you might do in each scenario.

1. You’re up for a promotion at work. Your boss brings you in and tells you that the promotion will go to your co-worker. They give you the reasons that have led them to believe that he will be more effective in the role.

2. You’re in the final rounds of a competitive job interview at a consulting firm. You are given hundreds of pages of data and information and tasked to make an informative slide-show presentation on the material. You have one hour.

3. It’s World War II. Too many U.S. and British planes are getting shot down over Europe, and the army needs to determine where extra armor should be put on the planes. A study is commissioned, and the location of bullet holes on planes returning from battle are documented and compiled. Clear patterns have emerged—certain spots on these planes have far more bullet holes than other spots. The military has decided to add extra armor to those locations. You’re asked for your thoughts on the matter.

Each one of these is a true story. The first situation happened to a student in one of my recent classes, the second to a student of my colleague, Stacey Koprince, and the third, to a statistical research group helmed by Abraham Ward.  In each scenario, skills tested on the GMAT were key to handling the scenario right.

The GMAT can help hone your critical reasoning powers

In class 5 of our GMAT classes, we discuss ‘Assumptions’ in critical reasoning. It’s one of the most important lessons on the test, and one of my favorite to teach, because it has such broad-reaching application. I never expected how directly it would help one of my students get a promotion, though—until a class a few months ago. One of the examples we use to introduce the concept is, it turns out, an argument that “Someone is better at our job than I am” because of a few reasons (we call the reasons ‘premises’). We then show how the argument falls apart under scrutiny—each ‘reason’ comes with several assumptions, and if the assumptions are wrong, the conclusion that this person is better at our job completely falls apart.

Not two weeks after we had this lesson, one of my students was told she would not be chosen for a promotion she was up for. Her bosses gave her their reasons. She knew what to do.

She told me she went right into critical reasoning mode, questioning their logic, pointing out the gaps in their assumptions, showing that their reasons for why they thought her coworker would be more effective in the new role (and why she would be less) did not hold up to scrutiny. She dismantled their reasons point by point, demonstrating the assumptions they were making with each one, and in the end, they were so impressed they gave her the promotion.

The GMAT can help you see through the noise to find what matters

Stacey’s student—the one up for the consulting interview in scenario 2—at first felt overwhelmed with the sheer volume of information she’d been given. But she said she took a breath and went into ‘GMAT Reading Comprehension mode.’ She asked herself, “What’s the big story? What information do I need to tell that story?” She sifted through the data with that in mind. She didn’t read every piece of information—she didn’t have time to. She wanted the main takeaways that the information pointed to, without drowning in the specifics.

In the end, she got the job. The interviewers said she was the only one who had a presentation ready at all. 

The GMAT can train you to become a counterintuitive thinker

Then there’s Abraham Wald, who was told the army was going to put extra armor on the locations the bullet holes seemed to cluster on these planes that came back from battle. But Wald and his group advised the exact opposite. They said to put the armor where the bullet holes were not. Can you see why? Take a moment, think through the situation, consider each detail carefully.

The group explained that, in figuring out the distribution of bullet holes, the planes used (the ones that returned from battle) were not representative of all planes. In fact, these were a very special subset of planes: the ones that returned from battle! The reason they made it back safely is because they were shot in areas that did not cause the plane to fall. Wald and his team realized the planes that did not make it back were most likely shot in places that the planes that did make it back were not. So, counter-intuitively, the armor should be put in the places that bullet holes weren’t—because that was where the planes that were shot down had been hit. (Basically—this was an example of ‘survivor bias’).

Theirs proved to be the correct strategy. 

That is a high-stakes example of precisely the kind of reasoning the GMAT rewards. It is my supposition—and I am admittedly very biased—that people should want to improve their ability to reason this way. Innovators are usually people who notice subtle trends, who see the same data but pick up on the counterintuitive underpinnings, who think differently. I tell my students often, “You cannot get an unusually good score on this test without thinking in ways that are unusual.” And that kind of unusual thinking takes practice. Almost everyone has to train for it. I know I did.

Many of my students who take the test remark, once it is over, that studying fundamentally changed the way they think and process information. Their thoughts are more organized and logical, their interpretation of information and data more precise. These are skills you can use in any business, and in life.

Think like an innovator through the GMAT exam

Being a “GMAT Thinker” has great applicability outside of the test. And while you don’t have to take the GMAT to become that kind of thinker, it’s one good way to train yourself. 

If you’re quite sure the schools you’re looking at have cut the GMAT for good, it might not be worth the time and effort. But, if you think there’s a chance they’ll bring it back, or if you want to add a little something to your resume (and perhaps “wow” people at some point with your stunning critical reasoning ability), or if you want rigorous practice in thinking deeply and differently, it might still be a good idea to take the test now, if this is the best time you have to study for the next few years! 

Reed Arnold is a 99th percentile scorer on the GMAT and an instructor at Manhattan Prep in New York City. He’s also a writer and actor, and an avid eater of Chipotle.