Your first session typically focuses on assessment and planning. A tutor will review your target business school requirements, discuss your current GMAT familiarity, and likely administer a diagnostic practice test to identify your strengths and weaknesses across all sections. From there, you'll develop a personalized study strategy that addresses your specific challenges—whether that's time management on the Quantitative section, critical reasoning on the Verbal section, or essay structure for Analytical Writing.

Pacing is one of the most common GMAT challenges, and tutors excel at teaching strategic approaches to each section. They can show you which question types to prioritize, how to recognize when to guess strategically, and techniques to avoid getting stuck on difficult problems. With practice and feedback during tutoring sessions, you'll develop the rhythm needed to complete all sections within the time limits while maintaining accuracy on questions you can solve.

Absolutely. Many students come to tutoring with one section significantly stronger than the other, and you can absolutely focus your sessions on your weaker areas. Whether you need help with algebra and geometry concepts, data sufficiency logic, reading comprehension strategies, or sentence correction grammar rules, a tutor can customize your study plan to target exactly what will move your score. This focused approach is often more efficient than trying to improve everything at once.

Practice tests are essential for GMAT success—they help you understand the test format, build stamina for the full 3.5-hour exam, and identify patterns in your mistakes. Most students benefit from taking full-length practice tests every 1-2 weeks during their preparation, then reviewing results with a tutor to understand why you got questions wrong. This combination of practice testing and guided review is far more effective than studying content in isolation, as it trains both your knowledge and your test-taking strategy.

Test anxiety often stems from unfamiliarity with the format or uncertainty about your abilities—both things tutoring directly addresses. By working through real GMAT questions, taking practice tests, and receiving personalized feedback, you build genuine confidence in your skills. Tutors can also teach you specific strategies for managing stress during the exam, like pacing techniques and mental approaches to difficult questions, so you feel prepared and in control on test day.

Most students benefit from 8-12 weeks of GMAT preparation, though your ideal timeline depends on your starting score, target score, and how frequently you can meet with a tutor. Students typically see the best results with consistent weekly sessions combined with independent practice between meetings. A tutor can help you create a realistic study schedule that fits your life while giving you enough time to learn concepts, practice problems, and build test-taking confidence before your test date.

Look for tutors with strong GMAT scores themselves (typically 700+), proven teaching experience with business school applicants, and familiarity with the current test format. Ideally, your tutor should be able to explain not just the right answer, but why other options are wrong—this strategic thinking is what separates high scorers from average performers. Varsity Tutors connects you with expert tutors who have the subject mastery and teaching skills to help you reach your business school goals.