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).

Some people really like ratio problems while others struggle with these. What do you think?

Let’s talk about a go-to solution method when handling a problem of this type. Try this GMATPrep problem:

* ” The number of stamps that Kaye and Alberto had were in the ratio 5 : 3, respectively. After Kaye gave Alberto 10 of her stamps, the ratio of the number Kaye had to the number Alberto had was 7 : 5. As a result of this gift, Kaye had how many more stamps than Alberto?

 

“(A) 20

“(B) 30

“(C) 40

“(D) 60

“(E) 90”

My very first thought as I read this problem: I have to be very careful with my work here, because it would be really easy to solve for the wrong thing (and, of course, that wrong answer will probably be among the answer choices).

As an aside, I’ve found that this attitude is one of the biggest differences between someone who has the potential to hit a top score on quant and someone who won’t make it. When you see something and you think, “I know how to do this!” the top test-taker is going to go in The Zone and pay even more attention to detail, thinking “I am going to be really careful not to make a mistake on this one!” Someone who isn’t going to hit a tip-top score will instead start to coast a little mentally, thinking, “Yeah, I’ve already got this.” Even worse, someone might think, “I can speed up on this one since I know how to do it.”

No! Don’t speed up! You don’t necessarily have to take the full 2 minutes, but don’t go any faster than you’d normally go. Don’t increase the chances that you make a careless mistake!

Okay, let’s solve this thing.

First, make very clear on your scrap paper what you want: Kaye NEW minus Alberto NEW. Not just Kaye (new or old). Not Kaye’s original number of stamps minus Alberto’s original number.

Skip a few lines and write this on the scrap paper and put a big circle around it: K_n – A_n. Do the actual work up above this text and, when you’re done, you’ll “run into” the reminder that you want Kaye NEW minus Alberto NEW.

Also, make sure you organize your work carefully as you go so that you know which portions represent the original numbers versus the new ones.

Let’s see.

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Last week, GMAC updated its percentiles for GMAT scores. The organization does this once a year to smooth out any differences in the testing pool.

What do I mean by “differences?” The demographics of the people taking the exam change over time. In particular, over the last ten years or so, GMAC has seen a huge increase in the number of non-United-States-based students taking the test. A majority of these students speak English as a second (or third!) language; a majority also have a better grounding in quantitative skills than the average U.S.-educated student. These differences lead to changes in the data over time.

Scaled Scores vs. Percentiles

GMAT results are reported using various “scaled scores.” We receive a 2-digit score for quant, a separate 2-digit score for verbal, a Q+V-combined 3-digit score, and two more separate scores for the essay and IR sections.

Think of these scaled scores as “skill levels.” They reflect a specific, measurable level of ability. Here’s the interesting thing: the skills needed to reach a certain level do not change over time. A quant score of 45 today reflects the same skill level as a quant score of 45 earned ten or even twenty years ago.

What does change over time is the percentile ranking associated with that score. A percentile ranking reflects how much better you did than a certain percentage of the test-taking population. For example, if you score in the 75^th percentile, then you scored better than 75% of the people taking the test—not just that day, or that week, but for the past couple of years (or whatever timeframe is designated for that test).

Imagine that you give a math test to a bunch of 10-year-olds. The scoring algorithm is very simple: if you get a question right, you get one point. You then gather all of the scores and figure out percentile rankings for that group. Let’s say that a certain score (let’s call it 5) represents the 50^th percentile. A student who scores 5 earned a better score than 50% of her peers.

Then you take that exact test and give it to a bunch of 14-year-olds. They’re a lot better at math. The same score of 5 might represent only the 25^th percentile for this new group, because more of these students have better math skills and can answer more questions correctly. A score of 5 still means the same thing (in this case, 5 questions right), but the pool of testers has changed and so the percentile rankings change too.

This is essentially what happens with the GMAT over time as well. If more people who are good at math start taking the test, then that score of 45 (which represents a certain, fixed level of skill) will drop in the percentile rankings because more people will be capable of performing at that level or higher.

We’ve seen especially big demographic changes on the GMAT over the last 5 to 10 years. In 2006, a quant score of 45 was rated the 78^th percentile. Someone scoring at that level had better quant skills than 78% of the people taking the exam around that time.

Today, that same skill level of 45 rates the 66^th percentile. This does not mean that someone scoring a 45 today is worse at math than someone with the same score in 2006; rather, the two students are equally good. Instead, a greater percentage of the population taking the test today has stronger math skills.

You might be thinking: oh, great. So that means I have to do even better at math. Actually, the opposite is (sort of) true. Keep reading.

This Year’s Trends

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You already know how to learn—you’ve been learning all your life. The problem is that the way you learn best for school is often not the best way of learning to take the GMAT. Read more

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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I sat down to think about a topic and suddenly realized that I’m writing my 201^st  GMAT article! How do I have anything left to write about?!?

The GMAT is actually a pretty fascinating topic (in my opinion, at least!). I have to give a big shout-out to all of my students (class, tutoring, and forums!) because you guys have inspired most of my articles. I just think about what my students have been struggling with lately and, boom, I’ve got a topic.

A fellow teacher, though, is the inspiration for this particular article. We were teaching a 9-session course together recently and he asked me how I always had an article to recommend when a student had a question on any particular topic. I keep a list of every article I’ve written, so I sent it to my colleague not really thinking about how very long that list is, or how unhelpful it is to be handed something that contains a couple of hundred titles. : )

Sure enough, he replied, Um, yeah this is great. So, which ones do you think are the most important?

Point taken. There are too many”nobody’s going to read all 200”so which ones should you read? Where should you start?

What would I do if I were about to start my studies?

We’ll start today with the highest-level stuff: what we’re really trying to do here and how to approach studying in general. Next time, we’ll take a look at more nitty-gritty details. Also, I’m going to limit the list to just my own articles”but you shouldn’t limit yourself in this way! Obviously there are a lot of great study resources out there.

The one article Everyone Should Read

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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.

Which Critical Reasoning question type drives you crazy? Boldface? Find the Assumption? Inference?

I’ve put together what I’m calling the Master Resource List for Critical Reasoning. A couple of disclaimers. First, this list includes only free resources, no paid ones. There are a lot of good resources out there that cost some money—they’re just not on this list!

Second, this list for Critical Reasoning is limited to my own articles. I’m not trying to claim that only my articles are good enough to make such a list—far from it. I’m most familiar with my own articles, so that’s what I’m using. (And, okay, I will admit that I think the Manhattan Prep Critical Reasoning process is the best one out there. But I’m biased. ?) Read more

A few months ago, I wrote a couple of articles targeted toward those students looking for a super-high score (one for quant, one for verbal). I challenged students to answer those questions in much less time than we typically average on test questions.

Well, I’m back with another one in the series. This problem is a bit different though: it’s from our Challenge Problem archive, a question bank consisting of what we call 800+ level problems. (Some might qualify as 750+ but most are harder than anything you’ll ever see on the real test.)

Do you need to be able to answer a question like this in order to score 750+? Absolutely not. (In fact, after my colleague Ron Purewal submitted this question, I tested it out on several of my fellow instructors, all of whom have scored 760+ on the test. Not everyone answered correctly.) Mostly, I’m offering this to stretch your brains, drive you a little crazy, and make one important point (see my second takeaway at the end).

If, however, quant is your strength and you’re hoping to score 51 in that section”you can certainly score 51 without getting this one right, but if you do get this one right in 2 minutes, then you know you’re ready for the quant section.

One more tidbit before we dive in. I chose this question because it is SO very hard. As of right now (as I’m typing this), 254 people have tried this problem and 44 have answered it correctly.

Do a little math here. What percentage of people answered the question correctly?

17%. Random guess position is 20%. Wow.

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I’ve talked to a ton of students recently who were surprised by some detail of test day”and that detail affected their performance. In most of these cases, the surprising detail was actually exactly what should have happened, according to the official rules. So let’s talk about what’s going to happen when you finally get in there to take the test.

When you arrive

There will be some kind of outer waiting area, followed by an inner office containing the biometric equipment and finally the inner sanctum: the testing room.

When you first arrive, you’ll be asked to read (and digitally sign) a bunch of legalese. Basically, you’ll promise not to share anything that you see with anyone else and you affirm that you’re only taking the test for the purposes of applying to business school. You have to sign this document or you won’t be allowed to take the test.

You’ll also be asked for your ID. Check the guidelines to determine what kind of ID you must bring. Further, when you’re registering for the test, make sure that the name and birthdate you enter into the registration system match exactly what’s written on the piece of ID you’ll use to enter the test center.

But wait! You’re not done with security yet. They’ll take a digital photo of you. You’ll also have the veins in your palm digitally scanned”turns out our palm veins are even more unique than fingerprints. Who knew?

Finally, before you enter the inner sanctum, you’ll be asked to place all of your belongings (except for your ID) into a locker to which you will have the key. Everything goes in this locker: your wallet or purse, your money, your mobile phone, your keys, everything. Do not bring any study notes into the test center with you; your test will be cancelled immediately even if you simply leave these in your locker! Don’t use any electronic devices at any time”not your phone, not your iPod, nothing. Do not write anything down during the breaks, even if you’re just writing down your grocery list. Don’t give them any reason to think that you might be cheating.

Starting the test

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Originally, I was only planning to do one question from the Meteor Stream passage. But this one is so much fun, I figured why not?

Yes, I’m being sarcastic. I don’t think anybody finds this passage fun. : )

In fact, that’s why I want to look at another problem with you”this thing is kind of a nightmare!

Okay, if you haven’t already, read the Meteor Stream passage. Note that this comes from the free set of questions in GMATPrep (not from the practice CATs). Here’s the link to the first question we did (though you don’t need to try that one before continuing with this article).

Click the first link in the previous paragraph and open up that passage in a separate window (I’m not going to show it here because it’s so long!).

Ready for the question? Give yourself about 1.5 minutes to answer.

The Question

The author states that the research described in the first paragraph was undertaken in order to

(A) determine the age of an actual meteor stream

(B) identify the various structural features of meteor streams

(C) explore the nature of a particularly interesting meteor stream

(D) test the hypothesis that meteor streams become broader as they age

(E) show that a computer model could help in explaining actual astronomical data

Solution

This is a detail question, so we’re going to use our notes and any clues in the question stem to know where to look. The question stem gives us one huge clue: it refers specifically to the first paragraph.

Next, the question says in order to. This language typically points to a Why question”that is, why did the author talk about or include something? In this case, the question asks why someone conducted the research described in the first paragraph.

Take a look at your notes. Mine are below, but everyone will have somewhat different notes.

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