Recently, we talked about what to try if your deadlines are rapidly approaching and you don’t yet have the score that you want. I’d like to talk about next steps for those of you who decide to postpone your exam and possibly your b-school applications.

I didn’t actually decide “ I just didn’t get the score I wanted

First, a pep talk. You always have a choice. You could, for example, choose to apply this year but lower your standards in terms of where you apply. In fact, if you fall into certain categories, this may be better than waiting a year to try to get into a better (or, at least, higher-ranked) school. Let’s say that you’re being groomed to take over a family business. The current CEO is getting older. The business is well-established and fairly regional, so actually the best thing might be to get a degree from a respected (but not necessarily top) school in the same geographic region as the company headquarters.

On the other hand, let’s say that’s NOT you “ in your case, you’re only willing to spend $100,000+ if you can get into a top-fill-in-the-blank school (top 5? top 10? top 20?), and your current GMAT score is probably going to hold you back. In that case, postponing for a year may be the way to go. Any helpful friends or family members who say, Hey, I thought you were applying to business school! can be told, It’s actually a smarter career move to wait until next year. They don’t need to know that the GMAT had anything to do with that decision.
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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’ve been wanting to do this problem with you for a while, but I’ve been delaying because well, you’ll see when you get to the table. It takes a lot of work to recreate that in a blog post. ? But that ridiculously large table is also the reason why I want to talk about this one—so let’s test it out! 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:

If x³ = 25, y⁴ = 64, and z⁵ = 216, and xy > 0, which of the following is true?

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We’ve heard the expression Don’t reinvent the wheel. There is no need to start from scratch every time you undertake a task.  The same reasoning applies in many ways to GMAT problems.  In fact, this logic is exactly why doing practice problems is a valuable tool for improving your GMAT score.  If you have seen a similar problem before, you will probably have a jumping off point for that problem on the actual GMAT.

While focusing on efficiency is important on the GMAT, in some cases it can be problematic to rely on traditional rules of thumb.  The GMAT is good at finding and testing the exceptions to rules that apply in many cases.  For example, the adage it takes two equations to solve for two variables is not true in all cases.

One common shortcut of thinking is the assumption that to show the converse of a statement you need exactly the opposite information.
That is: If in order to prove x, I must know y and z are true then in order to prove the opposite of x I must know that y and z are false.
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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.

For every five hours of studying combinatorics-type questions, the average GMAT student increases their chances of being able to correctly answer a question type that is found only on the very difficult end of the GMAT spectrum. Meanwhile, the same student will have to compute hundreds of basic computations without the aid of a calculator. For students who know how to quickly do these computations, they are rewarded with extra minutes that can be spent double-checking their work and critically thinking about whether their answers make sense. As BenGMAT Franklin might say, a second saved is a second earned on the GMAT, but it doesn’t matter if those extra seconds come from being faster at doing combinatorics questions or quicker at computations. So check out these five math tricks, learn the ones that you like, and practice them daily to give yourself some extra time to finish off that 37th and final Quant question.

Note: like everything else on the GMAT, being able to do something and being able to do something QUICKLY are two different tasks. If you like any of the following math tricks, make sure you know it inside and out before you try using it during your test. Read more

In December, Manhattan Prep took part in three separate holiday drives. We collected non-perishable food to be donated to New York’s City Harvest with a goal of collecting a minimum of 100 pounds of food items and/or the estimated equivalent in monetary donations. We also collected children’s toys to be donated to the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation with a  goal of collecting a minimum of 50 new toys to be distributed to needy children in NYC. Finally, we collected warm clothing to be donated to the  New York Cares Coat Drive. We aimed to collect as many new or gently used coats as possible to be distributed to those affected by Hurricane Sandy in Staten Island, the Rockaways and other hard hit areas. After a month of collections, we surpassed the goals for both our food and toy drives in addition to collecting over a dozen coats for those in need. Furthermore, our sister company mbaMission, graciously matched our food donation to City Harvest with an additional $250 donation. Thank you to all of our staff, instructors and students who participated!