Catch up on some business school news and tips with a few of this week’s top stories:

Reneging on an MBA Job Offer? It May Cost You $20,000 (Bloomberg Businessweek)

As two MBA students from Georgia Tech learned recently, reneging on an internship offer can have consequences.

Wharton Drops Application Essay (Poets and Quants)

The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School has cut the number of application essays in its 2013/2014 application to two, down from three in the previous application cycle.

B-Schools Get Serious About Writing (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Many students come to business school with writing skills that are lacking, and few MBA programs do much to improve them.

2+2 Program- A Change in Eligibility (Harvard Business School Admission Director’s Blog)

This week, Harvard Business School announced a change to their 2 + 2 Program, which is designed to give college students an opportunity to apply to HBS before entering the world of work.

Mission Admission: The MBA Resume, Part 3 (mbaMission)

Here are some great tips from our friends at mbaMission on ways to cut down and format your resume concisely.

Did we miss your favorite article from the week? Let us know what you have been reading in the comments below or tweet @ManhattanGMAT

Going for 90^th+ percentile on verbal? Chances are you’ve spent most of your Critical Reasoning study time focused on the major question types, and that is a good place to start. If you’re going for a very high verbal score, though, then you’ll also need to tackle the minor question types.

That’s what we’re going to do today; below is a GMATPrep CR problem. Give yourself about 2 minutes to do this problem.

In Asia, where palm trees are non-native, the trees’ flowers have traditionally been pollinated by hand, which has kept palm fruit productivity unnaturally low. When weevils known to be efficient pollinators of palm flowers were introduced into Asia in 1980, palm fruit productivity increased”by up to 50 percent in some areas”but then decreased sharply in 1984.

Which of the following statements, if true, would best explain the 1984 decrease in productivity?

(A) Prices for palm fruit fell between 1980 and 1984 following the rise in production and a concurrent fall in demand.

(B) Imported trees are often more productive than native trees because the imported ones have left behind their pests and diseases in their native lands.

(C) Rapid increases in productivity tend to deplete trees of nutrients needed for the development of the fruit-producing female flowers.

(D) The weevil population in Asia remained at approximately the same level between 1980 and 1984.

(E) Prior to 1980 another species of insect pollinated the Asian palm trees, but not as efficiently as the species of weevil that was introduced in 1980.

(Note: if you aren’t yet familiar with the 4-step process for answering CR questions, take a look at this article.)

Step 1: Identify the Question

This question stem contains the classic clues for an Explain a Discrepancy question. These questions, like Strengthen and Weaken questions, typically include the words if true (or the equivalent). Further, the question literally asks what would explain something.

Step 2: Deconstruct the Argument

All right, this is a Discrepancy question. The argument won’t contain a conclusion. It’ll contain some facts, at least one of which is surprising in some way. It won’t fit with the rest of the information.

Here’s what I thought and wrote while I did the problem. Your own thought process won’t be exactly the same as mine and, of course, your notes will probably look quite different, since we all have our own ways of abbreviating things. (Note: ED = Explain Discrepancy)

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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:

You have 1 minute (yes,  only one minute!) to do this problem. Further, don’t do any long-hand math (multiplication, etc.)”shortcuts exist for every single calculation. Find them!

In how many ways can a four-letter password be chosen, using the letters A, B, C, D, E, and/or F, such that at least one letter is repeated within the password?

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