Here are the free GMAT events we’re holding this week. All times are local unless otherwise specified.

8/13/13– New York, NY – Free Trial Class- 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/13/13– Chicago, IL- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/13/13– Denver, CO- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/13/13–  Seattle, WA- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/14/13– Online – Choosing the Right B-School Presented by MBA Mission– 8:30-10:00PM (EDT)

8/14/13– Arlington, VA- Free Trial Class- 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/14/13–  West Hollywood, CA- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/15/13– New York, NY- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/17/13– Washington, DC- Free Trial Class– 10:30AM- 1:30PM

8/17/13– Online – Free Trial Class– 10:00AM- 1:00PM

8/18/13– Online – Free Trial Class– 1:30PM- 4:30PM

8/18/13– London- Free Trial Class– 10:00AM- 1:00PM

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

Bloomberg Businessweek recently reported that Bain & Co, a well-respected management consulting firm, is considering using Integrated Reasoning scores in its hiring process. What does this mean for you?

Bain represents one of two major post-MBA career paths: management consulting and banking. Harvard Business School, for example, reported that approximately 35% of graduates enter the financial services industry and 25% accept a consulting job (these stats represent the first job after obtaining the degree).

Because so many students want these jobs, the consulting firms and banks can afford to be choosy. At the same time, they have to wade through a large number of resumes—what to do?

One possibility, evidently, is to let the GMAT do some of the sorting for them. Keith Bevans, global head of recruiting at Bain, told Bloomberg Businessweek, “The IR scores are trying to test analytical abilities, which is important to us. We hope it’s a good match for determining if you’ll be successful at Bain.”

Quick GMAT aside: did you spot the errors in that quote? The which modifier improperly refers to a verb, not a noun. Also, it’s whether you’ll be successful, not if. We’ll give Mr. Bevans a pass, though; nobody actually speaks in fully grammatical sentences. (…with the possible exception of Oprah Winfrey—have you ever really listened to how well she constructs her sentences, even in speech? It’s impressive.)

[Edited to add: One of my fellow teachers, Pedro Ledesma, pointed out to me that the sentence could be corrected in a different way. The IR scores are trying to test analytical abilities, which ARE important to us. In this case, the which modifier would refer to abilities. Alternatively, if Mr. Bevans had wanted to refer to the whole clause, he might have said: The IR scores are trying to test analytical abilities and this  (the fact that they are doing so) is important to us.]

Bain hasn’t actually decided yet whether to use IR scores (or, if so, how). Mr. Bevans did make a point of saying that other important factors—such as “work experience, education, leadership experience, and one-on-one interactions with staff”—will still be just as important as ever.

So what should I do?

If you don’t want to go into banking or consulting, then your only IR concern is what the business schools think. Last year, the schools didn’t use IR, so most test prep companies and admissions consultants were counseling students to aim for 4 or higher (the high score on IR is 8).

Some schools may begin to use IR this year, so we’ve been counseling people to go for a 5 or higher—possibly a 6, if you’re applying to a top 5 school. Several schools, though, have said that they want to see how well IR scores predict success in business school, so it will be a couple of years at least before they begin to place any serious emphasis on this section.

I do want to go into consulting / banking…

You have a choice to make. You can take more time to study now and focus on maximizing your IR score as well. To be competitive at the very best companies, you’ll need a 7 or 8.

Let’s say, though, that you have very limited time now, or that you’re not sure yet whether you’ll want to go into banking or consulting. In that case, you might decide to take the test again after starting business school, either before your first summer break (if you need the score to help secure an internship) or before the recruiting season begins in earnest in the winter or spring of your second year in school.

Realistically speaking, a lot of people will want to follow that second path. I just want to warn you: the last thing you’re going to want to do in a year or two is to re-take the GMAT just for the IR score. You’ll also have to study again for quant and verbal because you won’t want to risk a big score drop in those areas; the firms will see those scores as well.

If you are applying in 2 months and you just don’t have time to add thorough IR prep into the mix, then the decision is made for you. Quant and Verbal are more important now, so you might have to re-take the GMAT in the future to get that IR score.

If you have the luxury of time, though, then use it. Plan to add about 4 weeks to your overall study timeframe. Then start incorporating IR throughout your study (there are actually a lot of overlaps between IR, quant, and verbal). Some starting points are below.

If you’re one of our students, watch the two-hour IR workshop tape in your student center. Use that in conjunction with our IR Strategy Guide to learn all of the strategies for IR questions.

Here are four free How To Analyze articles, one for each of the four IR question types:

Table

Two-Part

Multi-Source Reasoning

Graph

Questions? Concerns? Let us know here or contact our office to discuss (800.576.GMAT).

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

Best GMAT Books (Test Study Guides)

Test Study Guides shares their hand-picked list of the best GMAT prep books and explains why these are the most effective study guides for the test.

Maximizing the Minimalist MBA App (Poets & Quants)

You should view your MBA application as the admissions committees do: as a holistic package of documents that work together to provide a comprehensive and cohesive introduction to you.

Students Offer Inside Look at Harvard Business School Admissions Process (Business Administration Information)

The student news organization at HBS has produced an unofficial admissions and interview guide, offering potential b-school candidates an advanced look at what types of questions they will get in their admissions interview.

Target MBA Jobs That Pay Well, Require Fewer Hours (U.S. News Education)

Find out which jobs offer a competitive salary and also have more flexibility in their work hours.

Do You Need a Résumé in the LinkedIn Era? (Harvard Business Review)

Your LinkedIn profile should be the most-viewed and most current version of your professional life. That has many people asking: Do I even need an old-fashioned résumé anymore?

Bain May Use GMAT Integrated Reasoning Test to Help Screen MBA Hires (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Bain & Co., one of the most coveted MBA employers, may soon use scores on GMAT’s new Integrated Reasoning section to screen applicants for consulting jobs.

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

In honor of the final season of Breaking Bad, we decided to put together our ultimate Breaking Bad GMAT quiz. Those of you who fall in the overlapping section of the “Breaking Bad Fan” “GMAT student” Venn diagram should test your skills below… yo!

1. Data Sufficiency

Does x+4 = Walter White?

(1) x+4 is the danger
(2) x+4 is the one who knocks

A. Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (2) ALONE is not sufficient
B. Statement (2) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (1) ALONE is not sufficient
C. BOTH statements TOGETHER are sufficient, but NEITHER statement ALONE is sufficient
D. EACH statement ALONE is sufficient
E. Statement (1) and (2) TOGETHER are NOT sufficient to answer the question asked, and additional data are needed

2. Discrete Quant

The front portion of Walter White’s Roof is a 7 ‘ by 15’ rectangle. If the diameter of a pizza is 22”, what is the approximate area of the shaded region of this diagram?

A. 13,600 inches sq.
B. 14,740 inches sq.
C. 15,120 inches sq.
D. 15,500 inches sq.
E. 16,640 inches sq.

3. Critical Reasoning

Today, Walter White will cook 100 pounds of methamphetamine.

This argument is flawed primarily because:

A. Cooking methamphetamine presents a moral dilemma for Walter White.
B. Walter White has to prioritize the needs of his wife and children and be a better father.
C. Walter has already paid for his cancer treatment and no longer needs to cook methamphetamine.
D. There is a fly in the laboratory.
E. He was told not to cook that day and is obeying his instructions.

4. Critical Reasoning

Hank’s collection of rocks includes over 400 different items. Hank’s rock collection is clearly the most impressive in New Mexico.

This argument is flawed primarily because:

A. Rock collections are not judged by the total number of rocks but by the rarity of each item included.
B. Rock collections are not impressive to anyone.
C. Hank’s rock collection is a metaphor and therefore cannot be judged against other rock collections.
D. Hank’s wife stole most of the rocks and it is therefore ineligible for any superlatives.
E. They aren’t rocks, they are minerals.

5. Discrete Quant

Walter Junior eats 3 eggs for breakfast every morning. Given that Walter Junior never misses breakfast, how many eggs does Walter Junior consume in March?

A. 60
B. 74
C. 82
D. 93
E. 107

Answers are after the jump…

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Imagine two students sit down to study GMAT questions together. The first takes out 100 addition questions and gets all of them right. The other takes out 100 of the most-difficult, 800-level GMAT questions one can find, and gets all of them wrong. Who benefits more from this type of studying? It’s an absurd thought experiment since it’s fairly obvious that neither of these students is benefitting much from their study method. But over my years of teaching the GMAT, I’ve seen far too many students who fit too closely into one of these two camps. Students who are great at quant but not at verbal, yet spend all of their time doing quant questions because they are “more fun”. Other students are determined to score 750 and spend all of their time and effort doing as many 700-800 level questions as they can find, not seeing an improvement, and thinking that the solution is to see more 700-800 level questions. This isn’t some profound discovery, but too many students miss this critical point:

You get better at the GMAT by identifying a weakness, learning a better/faster method to attack that weakness, and practicing that method until it becomes habit. Repeat.

Note that this doesn’t mean that you have to do 50 rate questions and by question 50, you’ll be a master at determining the train schedule between two different towns. Nor do you need to do every question in every GMAT-related book you can get your hands on. If you’ve been to a Manhattan class, you’ve seen first-hand that our instructors’ goal is not to do as many questions as we can cram into a class. There are some topics in class where we only look at 4-5 questions, but we spend an hour breaking down the methods, key words, traps, and wrong answer choices that will be similar to the methods, key words, traps, and wrong answer choices that students will one day see on the real test. The goal is never to see why Answer Choice E is a trap answer. It’s to see why Answer Choice E fits into a certain category of trap answers and learn how to avoid that category of trap answers come test day.

So how does this relate to your own studying? Let’s talk about what a productive 1-hour study session might look like by examining what many of my own study sessions looked like while I was studying for my GMAT.

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When under pressure, do you tend to sit back and assess the situation in a thoughtful way, or do you instead recall everything you know and start jotting down formulae such as W=RT on your scratch paper? If you have a tendency for the latter, this blog post is for you.

I’ve recently had a few tutoring students who all suffered from the same issue: they try a problem in a relaxed state and can easily solve it, sometimes without even putting pen to paper… But when they are in the midst of a practice test (and even more so in a real test) they can see the same problem and spend 4 minutes on it, with a lot of messy algebra, and often times they just give up and move on (the right thing to do under that circumstance!).

The Quant section of the GMAT may feel like a math test, but I assure you it is not. It is a cleverly designed assessment of your thinking faculties, and if you turn on ‘autopilot’ you are no longer thinking. In order to succeed on this test, you have to think your way through each problem.

When I take the GMAT, I imagine that I’m hanging out with my buddies at the bar – we’re telling each other jokes and sharing brain teasers. Here’s how it works:  you’re all just out having a good time, there’s no pressure, maybe you’ve had a couple of drinks so you only try to solve those brain teasers that you think you can solve in 2-3 minutes or less. If the brain teaser seems too hard, you just give up (and no-one will think less of you!)

I suspect that your approach to the following problem would be completely different if your mindset is a ‘bar’ mindset vs. an ‘autopilot’ mindset:

I’m driving at a constant speed and it took me 4 hours to finish the first 1/3 of my trip. How long will it take me to complete the rest of the trip if I double my speed?

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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:

A coin purse contains 13 coins, each worth 1, 5, 10, or 25 cents; the total value of the coins is 150 cents. How many 10-cent coins are in the purse?

(1) The 13 coins can be divided among five separate envelopes so that each envelope contains the same total monetary value.

(2) The 13 coins can be divided among six separate envelopes so that each envelope contains the same total monetary value.

A. Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (2) alone is not sufficient.

B. Statement (2) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (1) alone is not sufficient.

C. BOTH statements TOGETHER are sufficient, but NEITHER statement ALONE is sufficient.

D. EACH statement ALONE is sufficient.

E. Statements (1) and (2) TOGETHER are NOT sufficient to answer the question asked, and additional data are needed.

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Here are the free GMAT events we’re holding this week. All times are local unless otherwise specified.

8/5/13– Glendale, CA – Free Trial Class- 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/5/13– Washington, DC- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/5/13– Online- Free Trial Class– 9:00PM- 12:00AM (EDT)

8/5/13– New York, NY- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/7/13– Durham, NC – Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/7/13– Dallas, TX- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/7/13– New York, NY-Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/7/13– Online- The Last Minute MBA Application presented by mbaMission– 4:00PM- 5:30PM (EDT)

8/7/13– Bellaire, TX- Free Trial Class– 6:30PM- 9:30PM

8/8/13– San Francisco, CA- Free Trial Class– 6:30AM- 9:30PM

8/10/13– Boston, MA – Free Trial Class– 10:00AM- 1:00PM

8/10/13– Online- Live Online GMAT Preview– 2:00PM- 3:30PM (EDT)

8/10/13– New York, NY – Free Trial Class– 2:00PM- 5:00PM

8/11/13– Online – Free Trial Class– 7:00AM- 10:00AM (EDT)

8/11/13– New York, NY – Free Trial Class– 5:30AM- 8:30PM Read more

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

5 Essential Tips for Surviving Awkward Networking Events (Brazen Careerist)

Networking events are awkward. And when you don’t go to them often, you might have no idea what to do or how to act.

MBA students take their skills on the road (Graduate Guide)

Four Harvard Business School students are making a difference and learning in the process through a project known as MBAs Across America

Inflated GPAs Good For MBA Applicants (Poets & Quants)

To get into a highly selective business school, is it better to have a higher grade point average from a school where grade inflation is the norm?

Stress Management at B-School (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Case studies, class projects, recruiting, clubs, travel… the life of an MBA student is enough to make otherwise levelheaded adults crack under the pressure.

If You Don’t Define Your Personal Brand the Market Will (Both Sides of the Table)

Don’t forget about personal branding, the most important way to proactively control your career development and how the market perceives you.

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

We’ve invited mbaMission to share their Business School Essays Analyses as they’re released for the 2013-2014 application season. Here is their analysis for UC-Berkeley Haas. 

The Haas School of Business at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, offers you more opportunity to tell your story than most business schools do these days—its three short essays favor those whose candidacies include a variety of dimensions and accomplishments. Your job is to ensure that the reader is constantly learning about you as he/she reads on. Ask yourself, “Am I offering a new skill or a new experience in each essay?” If your answer is not “yes!” then you must go back to brainstorming to ensure you are providing a broad and compelling picture of yourself. If you want the admissions committee to stay interested, you must keep providing new information throughout your essays.

1. If you could choose one song that expresses who you are, what is it and why? (250 word maximum)

As absurd as this prompt may seem, you of course want to take it seriously. Rather than trying to identify what might be an impressive or interesting song in and of itself, stop, think about the various facets of your character and then back into your choice. Ask yourself what defines who you are and then work to find an appropriate song that reflects and reveals these elements—preferably one that you are sincerely connected to or that triggers a strong response in you. To add another level of creativity, consider different versions of the same song and the different singers who have performed or recorded it. (For example, the famed song “New York, New York” has been recorded by a number of artists over the years and in different languages—not that we are suggesting this song!) If the lyrics of a particular song seem to match well with your personality, you may also be able to identify a version of that song with a certain style, tempo or featured instrument, and these elements can further illustrate your personality. There is no “right” song in the eyes of the admissions committee. Your task is to find one that serves as an avenue for discussing your character and to clearly explain how and why it does so, using examples.

2. What is your most significant accomplishment? (250 word maximum)

Your most significant accomplishment can be from any sphere—professional, community, academic, personal. As mentioned in our introduction, be sure to represent different dimensions of your candidacy as you respond to these short-essay prompts. In other words, whichever aspect of your profile you choose to highlight here, it should be one that is not represented elsewhere in your application. (Note: you can tell two stories from the same “venue,” but they need to represent your skills/talents in different ways. Mentorship is a different skill than business development, for example, but both can occur in the workplace.) The key to this essay is choosing an experience that is simple but powerful—one that speaks for itself and draws the reader in, allowing him/her to draw a clear conclusion about your capabilities. Even with just 250 words, you can sufficiently recount a story that accomplishes this goal.
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