Most business schools in the US use the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) as a way to measure a student's readiness for business school. While most students initially think that GMAT tips will be all about the math portion of the exam, the test was made to calculate your knowledge on a variety of subjects including verbal and written communication. These skills are equally as important, as MBA requirements include being able to work with numbers. The SAT and GRE also have sections that will test your proficiency in verbal, writing and mathematical subjects. Read on for some simple basics to understanding the GMAT.

Know the Basics

You must register to take the GMAT. As the first page in your business school novel, it will be the step that places you on the path towards a career. Thankfully you can start this process online easily at mba.com. You do need to register an account in order to find a testing center and schedule an exam, but the site does offer some helpful tips and information. You can also take the test simulator and see what to expect from the exam.

Nail Down the Test Basics

On the big GMAT test day, you'll have 3 1/2 hours to complete four sections of the exam. These sections include an analytical writing assessment, an integrated reasoning section, quantitative questions and verbal test. The sections break down as follows:

• Analytical Writing Assessment: Given one topic with 30 minutes of time to write an analysis of argument
  
• Integrated Reasoning: 12 questions and 30 minutes
  
• Quantitative: 37 questions and 75 minutes
  
• Verbal: 41 questions and 75 minutes
  

You should get to know what's in each section and learn which of the four are your best. By knowing your strong points, you'll be able to create a study plan and really test your abilities months in advance to prepare. You should look for multiple ways to study whether you prefer one-on-one, self-study or groups.

Develop a Study Plan and Get To It

Once you register for the exam, you'll have access to the free GMATPrep software on mba.com. This software is crucial to understanding your strengths and weaknesses as well as developing an early sense of the exam. The questions in the software come right from previous GMAT exams. Your first step to developing the quintessential study plan is to take the practice test and see what areas are your strongest. You won't have access to a calculator or any study materials so remember to take these practice tests without these tools. After studying, you should get to a point where you don't even have to re-read the question to understand the prompt. You should start studying at least three months in advance to have a chance at scoring above a 700.

Read Major Test Prep and GMAT Guide Books

To kick off your study fest, you should go through all of the popular guidebooks. You can find free copies at libraries or just rent them online. Some of the best books to read include Cracking the GMAT by Princeton Review, latest Kaplan GMAT book typically dated with the previous year and Delta Course. Along with the practice software, these guides will provide more information and test questions to help you review. You also get a better understanding of what sections will give you the most trouble, and you'll also see these question types repeated in the actual exam.

Acing the Math Section

Math is a different animal on the GMAT, which looks to test your critical thinking and relationship understanding more than memorization of old mathematical equations. What you memorized in college will likely help you some, but it will take practicing new problems daily and learning to recognize concepts that may ultimately provide you with a higher score. Bloomberg recently published an article on "The Right Way to Study" for the GMAT mathematical section. Of course, everyone is different, but the article had some good pointers.

1. Complete new problems all the time
   
2. Don't learn facts
   
3. Don't memorize
   
4. Think conceptually about problems
   

You should complete as many math problems as possible from GMAT practice tests and constantly challenge yourself to figure something out on your own before asking for help. This is why it pays to start studying early.

Attack Each Section

You should start with the section that you feel the most strong about. You can perfect this section and boost your confidence to do well in other sections. To move onto the next section, you should feel completely confident in your proficiency and take a practice exam to ensure that you've mastered it. Then, you can move on to the next section.

Plan Your Time Wisely

It's essential that you study at least three months in advance with 2 to 4 hours of studying per day in order to score in the 96th percentile in order to meet MBA requirements for your chosen school. You should be doing at least 40 problems per day and getting through each section as fast as possible by the end of the three-month study period. In the remaining two weeks, you should be focused on taking practice tests and improving on your time with each round.

By studying early and familiarizing yourself with as many test questions as possible, you'll be able to quickly go through the real test on GMAT exam day and spot the similarities. Studies have shown that those with more than 90 study hours score 600 or higher.