If you’re preparing for the GMAT exam, you might know by now that most people study for the GMAT in 3-6 months. Some get ready for up to a year or even more.

Why so long?

Overpriced $1500 prep programs revolve around 12-16 week courses that eat up your Saturday afternoons. 12-16 weeks!

Even an rigorous-college course on sub-atomic physics takes only 9 weeks (in a quarter system like at Stanford) or a little longer for semester system colleges.

I’ve never taken a sub-atomic physics course before, but trust me-there’s a TON more rigorous material in a 9 week sub-atomic physics class than there could possibly be on the GMAT.

Most of the concepts on the GMAT were discussed in high school. You’ve seen all this stuff before! So all you really need to do is to review high school math and English and maybe learn a few new concepts. You’d also need to familiarize yourself with the different ways the GMAT guys try to trick you on the exam.

So given that most people prepare 12-16 weeks for this exam that covers high school level material, why then is the average GMAT score in the low 500s? Seems like a perfectly legitimate question!

At first, I thought the only two reasons were 1) the material is very difficult 2) the test is very tricky

It wasn’t until my two friends walked out of the exam room with their heads down that I realized there’s a THIRD reason.

I asked them: How did you study?

They gave me a stack of the prep books they to study. I took a look, and within minutes, I was totally lost in the reading material.

The prep book was full of grammatical terms like participial phrase, dependent clause, and subjunctive. It would take me forever to understand what those terms mean.

No wonder why MBA applicants takes 12-16 weeks to prep for the GMAT! They allocate their time learning these useless fancy grammar terms. The critical reasoning section was also filled with these weird terms I did not understand.

After a few minutes of being confused by this observation, I quickly fell asleep as my eyes wandered across the pages and pages of the book. It was just way too easy for me to lose focus.

The quant section of the prep book put me to sleep and the explanations were very unclear. Part of it was that I’m a visual learner-there’s only so much I can learn by reading a book.

It was a lightbulb moment: my relatively smart friends did poorly on the exam because the inefficient prep resources they used forced them to learn unnecessary grammar terms and confused them further. The prep books taught concepts–which are important–but they were missing something important: an efficient thought process. My friends essentially learned all the concepts, but they did not know how to think through the exam question in a time-pressured environment.

During my two weeks of rigorous, marathon-like studying, I didn’t waste my time on “concepts” and instead created an efficient thought process with frameworks that help me identify what is being tested.

But I can see how I could easily have ended up studying away 3-6 months of my life had I studied the way my friends did for the GMAT. I eventually showed my friends my thought process and they retook the exam with success. You can read more about our story.

So back to the original question: Why do most MBA applicants study GMAT for 3-6 months?

1) the material is very difficult 2) the test is very tricky 3) confusing, inefficient studying techniques

The material is difficult, but it’s not impossible. Yes, the exam is very tricky so understanding the ways the GMAT guys try to trick you is crucial.

And yes, learn from the mistakes of my two friends. Make sure you stay away from confusing prep books that can waste away your precious time. Be smart about how you study because remember–how you study is perhaps the most important aspect to getting a good score.

Zeke Lee is the founder of the GMAT Pill Study Method, a unique GMAT Prep study method that has aided many students do well on the GMAT in as little time as possible. Learn the strategies he used to score in the 98th percentile of the exam in just 2 weeks of intense preparation with GMAT Questions.