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June 30, 2026
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I doubt studying GMAT makes people smarter, it's more practicing quick arithmetic/reading skills are, and like all tests, learning how to game the system
GMAT made me a better critical reasoner, and I think I've seen benefits in how I approach work and tasks I'm unfamiliar with. To get a top percentile score you won't definitively know the answer to a question, but you can reason it w/ the assumptions provided and the answer choices.
I think the real-life benefit comes from being able to link two concepts you modestly understand to get a better full picture and consequently better understanding of the two. If we make one more leap from here, this translates to thinking better on your feet and learning things faster. So the answer to your question lies to the extent you define "critical reasoning" and the associated benefits as smart.
No.
Studying for the GMAT, you run into a lot of junk you haven't learned since high school. You learned it in high school to get into college, and forgot about it because it's useless in the real world. Now you're studying it again, to get an MBA. You can probably guess how useful the Pythagorean Theorem will be in your Corp Dev job.
The content itself doesn't make you much smarter (there are far better ways to spend that time if your goal is to learn useful / interesting things), but you could argue that brushing up on mental math, reading comprehension, critical reasoning, and proper grammar isn't a bad thing, Just gotta do it man, its part of the game.
agreed with VodkaRedBull - not necessarily smarter but quicker with your mental math and sharper with your grammar. there are much better ways to spend your time but it's all in the game, yo.
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