Archive : GMAT Tips

March Madness, the annual tournament of some elite and some not-so-elite college basketball teams, is soon upon us.  Teams have played through an entire season, including conference and early-season tournaments, and 68 of the chosen are now ready to face off in the biggest sports showcase in America.  How they will do depends in no small part on their seeding—the ranking they receive based on how well they can perform against the competition.  The better the seed, the easier their road to victory.

In Geometry, we often come across unusual figures. This can throw off our mind a bit, but it is important to remember: just use what you already know. Don’t let the unusual shapes take up too much time on the GMAT. Let’s take the following example, very similar to a problem a student emailed me this week.

On the surface, rate problems always seem like straight-forward problems. But when you actually sit down to work on them, especially the higher level problems under the time constraints of the GMAT, it’s often hard to keep all the pieces in order.  My own personal strategy for dealing with these problems is to try to develop the intuition behind these problems as well as remember the formulas.

When reading through diverse texts, it is not uncommon to see various portions highlighted in different forms. The use of italics has become ubiquitous with citing references or proper names, and the GMAT has no reserved denotation for Italics. Generally, text that is underlined needs to examined carefully, and the GMAT uses this method exclusively for sentence correction. However, nothing draws the eye like the use of boldface. The additional thickness of the characters makes every letter seem more important than the paler doppelgangers that share the page with them. (Beware: a letter with tiny goatee may be an evil twin of that letter. G is the most likely evil doppelganger)

A student recently asked me how she could have gotten such a low score on the verbal section when the questions seemed so easy. Here is my response:

I have had students in your situation before and let me say that sometimes when things feel too easy on the VERBAL section, it is when a person allows herself or himself to get caught by assumptions and easy answers and does not dig as deeply as they should. This often happens when students finish the VERBAL section too quickly or feel like it was easy. 

But You and I, We’re Just a Couple of Squares… What Difference Could We Possibly Make…?

The savvy GMAT-goer knows that the work on a Problem Solving question is best undertaken only after a survey of the answer choices makes clear just how much work — and what type of work — is really necessary.  For instance, a 160/1600/16000/… set of choices tells you you can focus all your care on the magnitude of your answer; a 16000/25000/36000/… set of choices tells you you can forget about all those trailing 0’s and just focus on the “head” of the answer.  As we stress in our Foundations of GMAT Logic book, the answer choices are part of the problem.

Have you ever been on the exam and the question is asking you something that you know well but can’t remember the details at that crucial moment? This happens to all of us at one time or another, and sometimes it helps to have a catchphrase or keyword to help recall the concept in our mind. Since certain things are easier to remember than others, it helps to associate a difficult concept with something you’re less likely to forget, such as the lyrics to your favorite song.

It was 8:46 AM on a cloudy Saturday in April 2007 and I was at the William St. test center in Manhattan.  My GMAT was at 9:00.  Unfortunately, that morning was also the date of the final exam for a nursing school in the city.  There were around 20 anxious nursing students reviewing flashcards and cheat sheets, asking each other last minute questions, and generally freaking out.  Watching them, I felt my pulse quicken.

I have been asked many times what type of snack to have and whether or not caffeine was a good option on test day.  While this can vary student to student, here are a few responses to those student questions:

• “Your brain can only make so many complex decisions before it starts to run down. This can happen quickly during a test like the GMAT. In scientific studies they made a remarkable finding, only sugar can restore the decision-making/self-control portion of the brain!!”

Some of the most challenging Quant questions on the GMAT involve Coordinate Geometry, so it’s important you have a solid grasp on the formulas and concepts on Test Day. You’ll see straight lines more than curved figures, but you may find it helpful to know the standard formula of the parabola in order to tackle some of the toughest Coordinate Geometry questions.

Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden was famous for winning numerous NCAA championships in the 1960s and 1970s.  A number of the life lessons and phrases that he passed on to his players (Woodenisms) have become well known.  I have sometimes found myself quoting these from time to time in my GMAT prep classes. Wooden saw himself as an educator even more so than a coach, and therefore his lessons extend to all facets of higher education, whether your goal is to make it to the NBA or to achieve an elite MBA.  So regardless of your goals, heed the wise words of the Wizard of Westwood to raise your performance.

In GMAT Reading Comp, we’re sometimes asked to determine why the author includes a certain detail within a paragraph, or why the entire paragraph itself is included in the passage. We have to understand the logical structure of the author’s argument, the “flow” of one paragraph to the next, and the logic behind the use of a particular piece of information.

“How can I improve my Critical Reasoning ability?” is a common question for any GMAT instructor, but particularly for our own David Newland, who owns a 99^th percentile LSAT score in addition to several 99ths on the GMAT.  As an expert on both GMAT Critical Reasoning and its LSAT counterpart, Logical Reasoning, David is regularly sought out by those seeking advice on CR questions.  Here’s his most common reply:

The pope’s recent announcement that he would be leaving the papacy came as a surprise to millions of people around the world last month. After all, election as pope carries a lifetime mandate by definition, and no sitting pope has resigned in the past 600 years. This string of some 60 popes serving their full mandate has now been broken, and the news brings up the topic of abdicating in the scope of the GMAT exam.

Set theory is no one’s favorite GMAT concept (unless you’re a masochist), but since nearly all test-takers will see at least one overlapping-sets question on the Quantitative section of the GMAT, it’s certainly important.  And take solace in this – becoming confident with this challenging type of word problem can be as simple as learning how to rock a Venn diagram.

The first time I took the GMAT, I got stuck on a geometry problem. It required a knowledge of the rules of arc angles (Page 33 in the new Veritas Prep Geometry book) and I, at the time, had no idea such rules existed. But I’ve always been best at Geometry – I’m very visually oriented so I often see how to slice a shape into triangles, rectangles, and circles, even if it’s not immediately apparent how to do so. So I figured I should be able to slice the circle in such a way that I could find the arc angle. Suddenly, without my realizing it, over 6 minutes had gone by, and since this was a particularly hard problem, I was at the end of the test. I had 5 minutes to finish 4 questions, and I only answered one (incorrectly) and left the rest blank. My percentile ranking plummeted from somewhere around 90% to 70% when I finished the test.

During your preparation for the GMAT, you will learn myriad techniques, shortcuts, rules, exceptions and strategies. Unfortunately, even the best of us tend to draw a blank once or twice under test day pressure, so sometimes you may have to solve questions using deduction and strategic thinking more than with known mathematical identities and theorems. Consider the following question:

Over the holiday season, you may have taken the time to go see the Hobbit, the much-hyped precursor to the Lord of the Rings movies which breathed life into the seminal Tolkien books published over a half century ago. After watching and reflecting on the movie, there are many parallels between it and the GMAT exam that can be drawn. Most glaringly, the amount of time that must be dedicated to each, the unfamiliar visual experience, the importance of wordplay, and the known subject matter prior to even entering the theater. For the purposes of this analogy, the Pearson center will double as a movie theater, except with the no cell phone rule enforced quite vigorously.

Aiming for a 700+ on the GMAT? You never know when a challenging combination or permutation question will pop up three-quarters of the way through your exam to wreck havoc on your score. This advanced concept is not as commonly tested as algebra fundamentals or number properties, but it’s definitely worth knowing the basics in case you do see it.

I have been doing GMAT test prep for a long time.  While I do score nicely, this was not always so.  In fact, the first practice GMAT I sat for was in the low 600s.  Having always aced my classroom courses, I was disappointed that my score was not aligned with my academic track record.

Double negatives can often intimidate and confuse students on the GMAT. Let’s review some strategies to help you not dislike double negatives so much. Hopefully you don’t feel incapable of navigating these questions already, but if you do, here are some strategies to ensure that you don’t feel uneasy when faced with one on test day.

Today’s post comes from New England-based instructor, David Newland. Before reading, be sure to check out Part I from last week!

Last week, we mentioned a couple of good errors and explored how making mistakes can turn into opportunities for learning. This week, we’ll explore bad errors and how we can avoid them on test day.

It’s OK to be a little neurotic when taking your GMAT.  I am not encouraging you to freak out or anything like that.  What I am encouraging you to do is to write little notes to yourself.  Use your dry-erase board to write little reminders to yourself.  You may feel stupid or silly when you are doing it, but feeling silly while getting a problem correct is a way better feeling than not feeling silly while missing a problem you should have gotten right.

Today’s post comes from Seckin Kara, a Veritas Prep GMAT instructor from Turkey. Before reading, be sure to check out Part I from last week!

We talked about the importance of test endurance and practice on the GMAT. Here are some practical, easy to apply tips for improving your test endurance and your final performance.

Vivian Kerr is a regular contributor to several GMAT and SAT websites, allowing her to flex her intellectual muscle while she is in between film and stage projects as an actress.

Data Sufficiency: Value Questions Can Be Sufficient Without Values! That may sound confusing, but it’s true! We’re used to separating “yes or no” data sufficiency from “value” data sufficiency by what is required by each for sufficiency. For a “yes or no” data sufficiency, we need either an exclusive “yes” or an exclusive “no.” For a “value” data sufficiency, we need a single numerical answer. To get that numerical answer, however, you may not always need the values you think you need!

Today’s guest post comes from New England-based instructor David Newland. David has been teaching for Veritas Prep since 2006, and he won the Veritas Prep Instructor of the Year award in 2008. Students’ friends often call in asking when he will be teaching next because he really is a Veritas Prep and a GMAT rock star!

Today, we introduce a new guest contributor. Seckin Kara has been a GMAT instructor for Veritas Prep since 2006. He began teaching in Providence, RI when he was a student at Brown and upon graduating, he went on to teach for us in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt. After years of finance and banking, he left that career to pursue his passion of education forged largely from his interactions with Veritas Prep students, and can soon be found teaching GMAT classes in his homeland of Turkey.

Vivian Kerr is a regular contributor to several GMAT and SAT websites, allowing her to flex her intellectual muscle while she is in between film and stage projects as an actress.

Pronoun-agreement is a concept we see quite often on GMAT Sentence Correction. Pronouns must have clear antecedents, meaning they can only refer to one noun in the sentence, and they must agree with their antecedents in number. Relative pronouns are special pronouns often used to link a dependent clause back to the main independent clause in a sentence. Relative pronouns include “that,” “who,” “whom,” “which,” “where,” “when,” and “why.” Luckily, you won’t need to identify them by name, but there are two rules that you should remember to help you use relative pronouns correctly, and eliminate Sentence Correction options using them incorrectly.

Vivian Kerr is a regular contributor to several GMAT and SAT websites, allowing her to flex her intellectual muscle while she is in between film and stage project as an actress.

Studying for the GMAT in the next few months would be a lot easier if we let go of some bad study habits, misconceptions about the exam, and kicked our study plan into high gear. It’s a New Year, so start 2013 off right with some GMAT resolutions to take your 500-600 score to a 700+.

Today’s guest post comes from New England-based instructor David Newland. David has been teaching for Veritas Prep since 2006, and he won the Veritas Prep Instructor of the Year award in 2008. Students’ friends often call in asking when he will be teaching next because he really is a Veritas Prep and a GMAT rock star!

Vivian Kerr is a regular contributor to several GMAT and SAT websites, allowing her to flex her intellectual muscle while she is in between film and stage project as an actress.

Geometry is essential to GMAT Quantitative success, and knowing the special right triangles are a fundamental “you-will-definitely-see-it” type of concept. The special right triangles are so called because their side-ratio never changes. If we know the value of one side, we can find the values of all the other sides. The first is a 30-60-90 triangle. Its sides will always be in a ratio of x: x√3 : 2x. The other special triangle is the 45-45-90 triangle. Its sides will always be in a ratio of x: x: x√2.

Today’s guest post comes from New England-based instructor David Newland. David has been teaching for Veritas Prep since 2006, and he won the Veritas Prep Instructor of the Year award in 2008. Students’ friends often call in asking when he will be teaching next because he really is a Veritas Prep and a GMAT rock star!

Vivian Kerr is a regular contributor to several GMAT and SAT websites, allowing her to flex her intellectual muscle while she is in between film and stage project as an actress.

Advanced Geometry questions on the GMAT will involve concepts such as surface area and volume of three-dimensional shapes. Occasionally (just to make things more difficult), the GMAT will require you to visualize a two-dimensional shape inside a three-dimensional shape. To get these questions correct you will need to 1) draw the shape/s cleanly and carefully, and 2) look for ways to transfer information from one shape to another. Let’s look at an example!

Today’s post comes from Seckin Kara, a Veritas Prep GMAT instructor from Turkey. Before reading, be sure to check out Part I from last week!

So how can we train ourselves to master the Sentence Correction section of the GMAT? Lesson materials are not enough to make up for the natural speed disadvantage non-natives have against native English speakers. Here is a relatively understated fact: In order to create homogenous sentence correction questions in their data bank, GMAC is in general putting similar incorrect sentence structures into all SC questions. Therefore, if you practice solving many questions it could give you the edge you are missing. I will be bold here and suggest tackling 350 to 500 SC practice questions before exam day if you think you really need to improve your SC. The more the better, but don’t overkill yourself, after 300+ questions you should check your performance and decide at some point that you improved enough.

Vivian Kerr is a regular contributor to several GMAT and SAT websites, allowing her to flex her intellectual muscle while she is in between film and stage project as an actress.

The best thing about Sentence Correction on the GMAT is that it’s easy to improve quickly by memorizing and reviewing certain grammar fundamentals we know the GMAT loves to test. The more familiar you are with the concept of singular/plural, parallelism, pronouns and their antecedents, etc. the better you’ll do! One of the most fundamental concepts you’ll need to understand about English grammar is what makes a complete sentence (i.e. an independent clause).

Today, we introduce a new guest contributor. Seckin Kara has been a GMAT instructor for Veritas Prep since 2006. He began teaching in Providence, RI when he was a student at Brown and upon graduating, he went on to teach for us in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt. After years of finance and banking, he left that career to pursue his passion of education forged largely from his interactions with Veritas Prep students, and can soon be found teaching GMAT classes in his homeland of Turkey.

This blog post is one in a series of lessons that come from the free Veritas Prep GMAT Question Bank and the statistics gathered from its user base. For each question, the data behind correct and incorrect answers tell a story, and many of these stories hold in them great value for you as you prepare to take the GMAT. In each of these posts, we’ll take a question from the GMAT Question Bank and show you what you can learn from the trend in correct/incorrect answers submitted by other students.

While we discuss GMAT question difficulty, let’s start by mentioning this: it’s often quite difficult to convince GMAT students of what on the GMAT is truly difficult. Students overestimate the difficulty of the “math” on the GMAT quant section, studying and discussing in forums the various rules, shortcuts, and properties that they can cram from flashcards or highlight in notebooks. In doing so, they underestimate the capacity of their competitors to do the same – remember, every single competitor of yours on the GMAT has been to college. Every single competitor “knows how to study,” and theoretically every single competitor of yours has passed year-long classes on the content of the GMAT (largely algebra, geometry, and arithmetic). Mastering high school math skills is necessary for success on the GMAT, or at least a very good idea, but when you’re competing with a pool of test-takers who have all demonstrated the ability to do the same, it’s not sufficient for you to separate yourself!

This blog post is one in a series of lessons that come from the free Veritas Prep GMAT Question Bank and the statistics gathered from its user base. For each question, the data behind correct and incorrect answers tell a story, and many of these stories hold in them great value for you as you prepare to take the GMAT. In each of these posts, we’ll take a question from the GMAT Question Bank and show you what you can learn from the trend in correct/incorrect answers submitted by other students.

One of the more fascinating themes surrounding the GMAT is that the math concepts that tend to drive adults crazy are those that they mastered as kids – the grad school level test in many ways flummoxes students with middle school and even elementary school math. Many a GMAT student has even joked that the GMAT is similar to the TV game show “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?”

This blog post is one in a series of lessons that come from the free Veritas Prep GMAT Question Bank and the statistics gathered from its user base. For each question, the data behind correct and incorrect answers tell a story, and many of these stories hold in them great value for you as you prepare to take the GMAT. In each of these posts, we’ll take a question from the GMAT Question Bank and show you what you can learn from the trend in correct/incorrect answers submitted by other students.

One of Veritas Prep’s most-beloved employees is Scott Shrum, co-author of the book Your MBA Game Plan and our resident “scientist” (given that designation because of his BS from MIT; he doesn’t wear a labcoat but when you ask him a science question he pretty much always nails it even after the disclaimer “You know that not everyone who went to MIT is actually a scientist”). Scott is a natural to test out hard GMAT problems –- he scored 770 on the GMAT and was admitted to Kellogg and HBS — and one of our favorite internal barometers for determining question difficulty is when we find what we call a “Shrumbuster” — a question that Scott Shrum gets wrong.

Today’s post comes from Antony Ritz, a Veritas Prep GMAT instructor in Washington, D.C. Before you read this post, be sure to read Part I and Part II!

And now for the exciting conclusion — the correlation/causation issue in actual GMAT questions! Let’s try one:

A researcher discovered that people who have low levels of immune-system activity tend to score much lower on tests of mental health than do people with normal or high immune-system activity. The researcher concluded from this experiment that the immune system protects against mental illness as well as against physical disease.