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.

Check out these two sentences:

The horse raced past the barn.

The horse raced past the barn fell.

Believe it or not, both sentences have good grammar. But one of them makes a lot more sense than the other one! Let’s break them down and understand why. Read more

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.

GMAT Data Sufficiency questions can seem a little mysterious. (If you’re just getting started, or if you need a refresher, here’s a great article on the basics of Data Sufficiency.) These problems are more like logic puzzles than math questions. That makes Data Sufficiency a good opportunity for those of us who want to score well on Quant, but don’t like doing math! However, you might have some questions about Data Sufficiency as you start to understand the problem type a little better. Here’s one of them: why do we categorize Data Sufficiency questions into “yes/no” and “value”? Read more

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.

Here’s a phrase that might bring back some memories from middle school math class: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally, or PEMDAS. (If you went to school outside of the U.S., you may have learned the acronym BEDMAS or BODMAS, instead.) You use this phrase to decide what order to do mathematical operations in: Parentheses first (from inside to outside), then Exponents, then Multiplication and Division (left to right), then Addition and Subtraction (also left to right).

PEMDAS isn’t terribly fancy stuff. It’s just a useful little tool that helps us communicate clearly—it’s what tells us, for instance, that “2x(3+4)” means something different from “2×3 + 4.” But if there’s one thing the GMAT loves, it’s making things look more complicated than they really are. Read more

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.

That’s a good question! Do you really need to solve all the GMAT problems in the Official Guide to the GMAT in order to score a 700? What about the other side of the issue: is it possible that there aren’t enough problems in the Official Guide? How many GMAT problems should you solve before taking the official GMAT?  

Before I share my answer, let’s get some facts on the table. Read more

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.

Here’s one of the most common math questions my students ask: “What’s up with negative numbers and square roots on the GMAT?” Luckily, the answer doesn’t involve a lot of complex rules. In this quick article, I’ll lay out the issues surrounding square roots and negative numbers, and share everything you need to know to handle them confidently.

If you’ve been studying for a while, or if you’ve worked your way through Foundations of Math, you probably know that there’s a strange interaction between negative numbers and exponents. If you square a negative number, the result is positive. If you square a positive number, the result is also positive. Squaring a number makes the negative sign ‘go away.’ This is where the problem with square roots comes in.

Suppose you’re looking at an equation that looks like this: Read more

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In the previous articles in this series, we developed a critical skill for GMAT probability and combinatorics problems: listing out cases. Let’s start by taking another look at the practice problem from the end of the last article. Read more

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.

In the previous article in this series, we introduced two big ideas about GMAT probability and combinatorics:

1. Most people find them counterintuitive.
2. The best way to get past that is to list the possibilities.

In this article, we’ll focus more on #2. How do you list out the possibilities in a GMAT probability or combinatorics problem? Let’s try it on a simple probability problem. Read more

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.

There’s a classic brain teaser called the Monty Hall problem. It’s named after the host of an old-timey TV game show, who used it to confound contestants. He’d present each contestant with three closed doors. Behind one door was a new car, and behind the other two doors were goats.

Monty invited the player to pick one of the three doors. Whichever door the player chose, Monty would then open a different one, revealing a goat, not the car. Then, he would offer the player a choice. If the player wanted, he could switch doors, picking the other unopened door. Or, he could stick with the door he picked in the first place. Whichever decision he made, he would win the prize behind the door he chose. Read more

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.

First of all, let me state the obvious: you aren’t stupid. If you’re making plans to earn an MBA, you’re already a capable, accomplished professional. Give yourself credit for that. However, you probably don’t know everything about succeeding on the GMAT! If it feels like you just can’t get there no matter how hard you try, here are a few things you might not have thought of. Read more

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.

There are some GMAT study practices that almost everyone agrees on: don’t pull all-nighters, don’t try to study at a metal concert, and don’t schedule your GMAT for 8 a.m. the morning after your best friend’s birthday party. However, there’s also some misinformation out there that sounds like good advice. I’ve already busted 4 popular GMAT myths, so let’s take a look at 4 more – this time, focusing on popular wisdom about how to study.   Read more