Try to solve the following question, and time yourself:

If the volume of a big cube is 64 times that of a small cube, how many times bigger is the surface area of the big cube than that of the small cube?

If you cannot answer the above (classic GMAT) question in under 20 seconds, continue reading and you will learn a concept that will be super useful in your quest to crush the GMAT!

I was watching Austin Powers the other day and it suddenly hit me: Dr. Evil and Mini-Me are similar shapes! You know, like similar triangles, where the proportion between any two matching sides is always maintained “ if Mini-Me’s fingers are exactly half the length of Dr. Evil’s fingers, then Mini-Me’s eyes, ears, nose, and feet must also be exactly half their counterparts in Dr. Evil’s body. It got me thinking “ what other kinds of similar shapes could be out there? I will investigate that thought further in the second half of this post, but first let’s see why that might be useful

We know triangles are similar whenever they have the same three angles. If the base of the bigger triangle is exactly twice that of the smaller triangle, then each side in the bigger triangle will also be twice as big as its matching side in the smaller triangle.
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We invite you to test your GMAT knowledge for a chance to win! Each week, we will post a new Challenge Problem for you to attempt. If you submit the correct answer, you will be entered into that week’s drawing for a free Manhattan GMAT Prep item. Tell your friends to get out their scrap paper and start solving!
Here is this week’s problem:

Different breeds of dogs get older at different rates in dog years. Livonian wolfhounds age 7 times as fast as humans, whereas Khazarian terriers age 5 times as fast and Akkadian retrievers age 4 times as fast. If Dan bought a newborn Akkadian on January 1, 2010, a newborn Khazarian 1 year later, and a newborn Livonian 1 year after that, in what year will the sum of the dog-year ages of the Akkadian and the Khazarian first be exceeded by twice the age of the Livonian in dog years, rounding all ages down to the nearest integer?

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Here are the free GMAT events we’re holding this week.

9/24/12 – New York (Wall St.), NY – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/24/12 – Philadelphia, PA – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/24/12 – Online – MBA Admissions Myths Destroyed – 7:30 – 9:30 PM

9/24/12 – Online – Free Trial Class – 9:00 PM – 12:00 AM

9/25/12 – Online – GMAT Preview – 8:00 – 9:30 PM

9/25/12 – Houston, TX – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/25/12 – San Antonio, TX – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/26/12 – Evanston, IL – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/26/12 – Dallas, TX – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/26/12 – San Francisco, CA – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/26/12 – Online – Free Trial Class – 8:00 – 11:00 PM

9/26/12 – West Hollywood, CA – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/27/12 – Online – Thursdays with Ron – 7:00 – 8:30 PM

9/29/12 – Washington D.C. – Free Trial Class – 10:30 AM – 1:30 PM

9/29/12 – Online – Free Trial Class – 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM

9/30/12 – Boston, MA – Free Trial Class – 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM

9/30/12 – Chicago, IL – Free Trial Class – 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM

9/30/12 – San Francisco, CA – Free Trial Class – 2:00 – 5:00 PM

Looking for more free events? Check out our Free Events Listings Page.

Marketing Associate Job Description

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU 

Manhattan Prep is a high-end test prep company serving college students and young professionals studying for the GMAT (business school), LSAT (law school), and GRE (Master’s & PhD programs).

Our organization is entrepreneurial, growth-oriented, and energetic. Our people genuinely enjoy what they do and take pride in it.  If you seek a challenging, exciting, and creative marketing role — while working with talented and passionate people — this might be the position for you.

We are seeking a part-time Marketing Associate to work within our college marketing group.

JOB DESCRIPTION 

Work closely with the College Marketing Manager to create and develop both marketing strategies, to drive brand awareness on top U.S. college campuses.

Marketing

• Development of key messages for all audiences to communicate our core brand identity.
• Assist in providing monthly reporting to senior executives.
• Develop media packs and giveaways for campus outreach.
• Provides liaison support between the company and on-campus interns.

Business Development

• Build and maintain strong relationships with campus administrators.
• Research editorial opportunities and assist in building relationships with key industry media.
• Assists in the development of promotional strategies and product development.
• Participate in recruitment of remote College Marketing Interns

Communications

• Develop promotional materials including marketing collateral and print copies.
• Write press releases, company newsletters, copy for marketing materials, brochures, web content, advertisements, and other related material.
• Update company news and headlines on the college intern intranet site.
• Translation of materials into other media.

RELATIONSHIPS AND ROLES 

• Demonstrate ability to interact and coordinate with all company employees.
• Build trust, value others, communicate effectively, drive execution, foster innovation, focus on the students’ needs, collaborate with others, solve problems creatively and proactively, and demonstrate high integrity.

REQUIREMENTS

 Work Related

• Able to quickly develop expert knowledge of the product (GMAT, LSAT, and GRE).
• Able to understand the demands, needs, satisfaction, etc., of the consumers.
• Strong ability to understand customer and market dynamics, requirements, and needs.
• 2 years of marketing experience preferred.

Communication

• Excellent communication skills.
• Very, very strong writing skills (will need to submit writing sample).
• Personal.
• Self-confident, motivated, initiative, challenger.
• Strong at time management.
• Creative. Energetic.

Academic Qualifications

• Experience with acting as a campus marketing intern for a high-end brand is preferred.
• A background in leading a major college student organization (club officer) is preferred.

If you’re interested in applying, you can do so here.

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

I was hanging out with a friend of mine the other day. She is a graduate student, and she asked me a question that she had come across during her research: Read more

We invite you to test your GMAT knowledge for a chance to win! Each week, we will post a new Challenge Problem for you to attempt. If you submit the correct answer, you will be entered into that week’s drawing for a free Manhattan GMAT Prep item. Tell your friends to get out their scrap paper and start solving!
Here is this week’s problem:

On January 1, 2010, Dave invests 70% of his retirement savings in Antarctic largecap stocks, 20% in Antarctic midcaps, and 10% in Antarctic smallcaps. In 2010, largecaps rise 5%, midcaps rise 10%, and smallcaps rise 15% in the Antarctic stock market; however, in 2011, largecaps fall 10% and midcaps fall 20%, while smallcaps rise x% in Antarctica. If, on January 1, 2012, Dave has the same total amount of retirement savings as he did two years before, then x is between

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Note We at Manhattan GMAT are very excited to welcome mbaMission Founder/President Jeremy Shinewald to our blog to offer his analysis on some recent MBA application news. Here’s what he has to say.

Last week, Bloomberg Businessweek published two articles on declining MBA application volumes, going so far as to call the current application environment a drought. In its first article (Columbia, NYU MBA Applications Plummet), Bloomberg Businessweek noted that Columbia Business School (CBS) and New York University’s Stern School of Business (NYU Stern) saw declines in the number of applications last year of 19% and 12%, respectively, from the previous year. Meanwhile, the number of applicants to Harvard Business School (HBS) declined by 2% and to Wharton by less than 1%. In a separate article (At Top Business Schools, an MBA Application Drought), Bloomberg Businessweek revealed that the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and the Yale School of Management (SOM) saw drops of 3.5% and 9.5%, respectively. So, is this truly a drought or is this just a blip”and what does it all mean for you?

Let’s start by taking a look at some incomplete numbers (some schools do not release data on application volumes) for a few schools mentioned in the articles:

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As we discussed in the first half of this series, Building Your Game Plan, during the last 7 to 14 days before you take the real test, your entire study focus changes. In this article, we’re going to discuss the second half of this process: how to review. (If you haven’t already read the first half, do so; then come back here and continue with the second part.)

What is a Game Plan?

The first half of the article, found at the link above, discusses how to build and implement your Game Plan. At the same time, you’re also going to be reviewing, so let’s talk about that!

What to Review

Part of the game planning process is determining your strengths and weaknesses (which is why I recommended that you read the Building Your Game Plan article first). You’ll then need to consider your list of strengths and weaknesses from the point of view of how frequently those topics or question types tend to be found on the real exam. Struggling with probabilities or evaluate the conclusion Critical Reasoning questions? Neither type is that common and you have just two weeks left; drop them from your list. Struggling with exponential or quadratic equations or inference Reading Comprehension questions? Those are much more common, so they need to be on the review list.

If you’re not sure how frequently a particular type of content or question appears on the exam, look on the forums. (I’m not providing a list in this article because these frequencies can change over time; I don’t want people reading this in future to be misled when things do change.)

How to Review

How you review is going to vary somewhat depending upon whether you’re reviewing a strength or a weakness. You do NOT want to do the same kind of review for everything, but you DO want to review both strengths and weaknesses. Below, I will discuss easier-for-you and harder-for-you questions, since we don’t actually know any difficulty levels when taking the test. Easier-for-you means that you find the question fairly straightforward and you expect to answer it correctly without needing extra time, though you may sometimes make a careless mistake. Harder-for-you means that this question is more of a struggle, though you still will answer some of these correctly.

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Here are the free GMAT events we’re holding this week.

9/17/12 – New York, NY – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/17/12 – Ann Arbor, MI – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/17/12 – New Orleans, LA – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/17/12 – Berkeley, CA – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/18/12 – New York, NY – Free Trial Class – 1:00 – 4:00 PM

9/18/12 – Denver, CO – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/18/12 – Santa Monica, CA – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/18/12 – San Bernardino, CA – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/18/12 – Online – Free Trial Class – 8:00 – 11:00 PM

9/19/12 – New York, NY – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/19/12 – Arlington, VA – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/19/12 – Columbus, OH – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/19/12 – Evanston, IL – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/19/12 – Tempe, AZ – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/19/12 – San Diego, CA – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/19/12 – Online – Free Trial Class – 7:00 – 10:00 PM

9/20/12 – Chicago, IL – Free Trial Class – 6:30 – 9:30 PM

9/20/12 – Moscow, RU – How To Approach Difficult Problems (Online Workshop) – 9:30 – 11:00 PM

9/22/12 – Boston, MA – Free Trial Class – 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM

9/22/12 – Santa Monica, CA – Free Trial Class – 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM

9/22/12 – New York, NY – Free Trial Class – 2:00 – 5:00 PM

9/22/12 – New York, NY – Free Trial Class – 5:30 – 8:30 PM

9/23/12 – London, UK – Free Trial Class – 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM

9/23/12 – Atlanta, GA – Free Trial Class – 5:30 – 8:30 PM

9/23/12 – Santa Clara, CA – Free Trial Class – 5:30 – 8:30 PM

Looking for more free events? Check out our Free Events Listings Page.

Are you aware that, during the last 7 to 14 days before you take the real test, your entire study focus changes? This is crucially important “ I cannot count the number of people who don’t realize what they need to do leading up to Real Test Day and so miss the chance to maximize their scores.

There are two levels to this discussion: (1) building a game plan and (2) reviewing. This post will cover the first topic and my next post will cover the second one.

Throughout both articles, I’m going to discuss the ideal scenario: the one in which you have a full 2 weeks to conduct your review. This review can be compressed into a 7 to 10 day period, if needed “ if so, just note that you are going to take only one practice test, not two, and you of course won’t be able to do as much review because you won’t have as much time.

Warning: please do not literally compress everything discussed into 7 days instead of 14. It’s a terrible idea to take the last week off of work and try to study for 6 to 8 hours a day. You’ll just burn yourself out.

Focus Shift

In the last two weeks before your test, you’re going to make a major focus shift. You’re going to stop trying to learn a bunch of new things in order to improve your score and instead acknowledge that your skills are what they are. They’re not going to change an enormous amount in the last two weeks; you can tweak some things, but now is not the time to change major strategies across an entire question type. Further, it would be a mistake to spend your last two weeks entirely focused on your weaknesses; if you do that, then you won’t be prepared to excel on your strengths.

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