I love teaching, but I also love to travel. In 2009, I took a year off to travel around the world. And the thought that kept returning was, What would have been different in my life if I’d done this ten years ago? So Loop Abroad was born.

Loop is a high school travel program that brings students to Southeast Asia. Amidst traveling and volunteering, we connect students to with NGOs and other inspirational leaders who are passionate about what they do.

Two organizations we love are the Elephant Nature Foundation (ENF) and the Save Children in Asia Foundation (SCAO). The ENF is working to rescue and rehabilitate Asian elephants who have been abused in the logging and trekking industries. The Elephant Nature Park in Thailand is now home to almost 40 of these gentle giants. This year, the ENF has been granted a portion of a record-breaking one-million-acre wildlife preserve in Cambodia upon which elephants will be able to interact as if in the wild. This is a huge and exciting step toward replenishing the Asian elephant population. And because elephants require so much continuous land to thrive, replenishing their habitat means saving the habitats of thousands of other species and, in the process, preserving an entire ecosystem.

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In keeping with our 5th Edition Release Week festivities, we’re really excited to bring to you an interview with three of the people behind our awesome new 5th Edition Manhattan GMAT Strategy Guides.

Below is part 2 of a 2 part interview with David Mahler, Stacey Koprince, and Liz Moliski. Learn what part of the books was hardest to write, what part was our interviewee’s favorite, and how a student should work their way through the books. Part 1 is here.

What was it like to finally finish the books? What was the final rush to beat the deadline like?

Stacey Koprince: I was lucky in that I received the research relatively early on for my book, so I was done in advance of the eventual deadline. I say the “eventual” deadline, because the first deadline I was given didn’t end up being the final deadline. Because some of the other books were delayed, all of the deadlines were pushed back several times, so I finished on time. I’ll admit, though, that I might’ve missed the original deadline if it hadn’t been moved back. : )

For the quant books, though, I would sometimes receive part of the galleys (the files that needed to be proofed) one day and need to give my edits the next day or the day after. Towards the end, we were all working to turn things around so quickly that I would often only be given a chapter at a time, and by the time I was done with it (an hour or two later), the next chapter would be ready to edit.
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In keeping with our 5th Edition Release Week festivities, we’re really excited to bring to you an interview with three of the people behind our awesome new 5th Edition Manhattan GMAT Strategy Guides.

Below is part 1 of a 2 part interview with David Mahler, Stacey Koprince, and Liz Moliski. Learn what it’s like to write a textbook, how long the process takes, what it’s like approaching the final deadline, and more! Be sure to check back tomorrow for part 2.

What’s it like to actually write a textbook? Where do you start? What is the day-to-day process like?

Stacey Koprince: We do a lot of research before we can even think about starting to write. We examine every all of the most recent official questions to determine patterns, language structures, traps, and so on. We use that data to determine the best solution methods and what and how our students need to study in order to succeed with that question type or content area.

After several months, we’re finally ready to start writing. The process isn’t that different from writing a school paper – a really long school paper! I start with an outline, and then I expand the outline chapter by chapter. Once I have a clear idea of the sub-sections I want to have in each chapter, then I dive into the actual writing.

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In celebration of the release of our 5th Edition Strategy Guides, we’re giving away a complete set (10 books!) to one lucky person. For a chance to win the beautiful books you see to your left, head over to our Facebook page and “like” our post announcing the giveaway. We’ll pick one person at random Friday afternoon. If we get over 100 “likes”, we’ll give away a second set of books, so get as many people to “like” it as you can!

We’ll also be giving away a complete set of 5th Edition Strategy Guides on Twitter at some point this week, and in the next issue of our newsletter, GMATTERS, as well as a few other places online. Keep your eyes peeled for a chance to win! Or, if you can’t wait, head over to our store and pick up the books now and see how great they really are.

Update, 4/26/12: We’re giving away a set of 5th edition books on GMAT Club and Beat the GMAT. Post on the linked threads for a chance to win!

We are excited to announce the release of our new 5th Edition GMAT Strategy Guides! Months of intensive work by our 99th percentile instructors has resulted in what we believe are the finest GMAT prep books money can buy. The 10 5th Edition books (which amount to nearly 1,900 pages!) were designed with our content-based approach to prepare students for the most recent changes to the GMAT, including Integrated Reasoning. The 5th Edition Strategy Guides come with access to 6 free online practice exams as well as access to over 200 additional free practice questions in 9 subject-specific question banks.

Interested in learning more? Check out the individual book pages in our MGMAT Store. We’re also going to have a lot of great content and giveaways relating to the new 5th Edition guides on the blog this week so make sure you check back every day!

Manhattan Prep is pleased to announce its Complete Crash Course, an intensive 9-day sprint through the complete GMAT curriculum.

Do you have a GMAT test date booked before the exam changes on June 5th?

Would you benefit from exposure to Manhattan GMAT’s full curriculum beforehand?

If so, this course may be just the structure you need to organize your next couple weeks of studying.

This course is not for the faint of heart or for those expecting miraculous, 150-point score improvements in two weeks. If you learn very quickly and have the GMAT basics already mastered, then allow Manhattan GMAT a chance to take your studying to the next level.

Learn more here.

On February 3rd, the team at Manhattan Prep joined together and wore red for the National Wear Red Day. This annual event is sponsored by the American Heart Association. Additionally, Manhattan Prep held its first Give A Heart drive. Throughout the month of February, Instructors and staff donated money towards the purchase of paper hearts. All funds were donated to the America Heart Association.

Manhattan Prep is a proud supporter of heart health, in addition to overall wellness. The company promotes an active and healthy life-style, encouraging employees to participate in company exercise initiatives and organizing healthy lunch programs each month. We are proud to support such a wonderful cause. Thanks to all that were involved!

After spending much of this past weekend trying the new GMATPrep, I have better insights on the new IR section. Here is what I found:

• There are 12 questions and 10 prompts in the IR section
• There is a timing recommendation of 2:30 per question that is pretty reasonable, although you will need more time to read some prompts than to read others
• Scoring is 1 to 8, with no halfbased primarily on the number right, with no partial credit, although there seems to be some forgiveness at the top, because 0,1, 2, or 3 wrong led to a score of 8

There are also a number of significant changes to the test that aren’t specific to the IR section. Here is my summary, including my takes, on the changes:

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Editor’s Note: This is a follow-up to Liz’s post from Wednesday, reviewing the new GMATPrep 2.0.

Late yesterday afternoon I got an exciting email from GMAC! It said that GMAC had found and fixed what was described as a section scoring error and posted an updated version of the GMATPrep practice software for students to download.

Of course I immediately downloaded the new software in order to test it. Version 2.1 asks if you want to replace version 2.0 before it downloads, which is a nice feature, but a bit irrelevant, because of course you want the version where IR scoring works.

The big surprise is that the IR section score is on a 1-8 scale, not 1-25 as it appeared to be previously. I tried it and missed one question in one out of 12 prompts and got an 8, but when I tried it again and missed 1 question in each of 4 different multiple answer prompts, I got a 7, so it looks as though GMAC must be giving some sort of partial credit, but I won’t be positive of this until I’ve tried the test several more times. Unfortunately, you can’t complete just the IR section and get a score. You have to complete the entire test if you want scores.

After you finish the test, you can use the review screen, but beware, as soon as you exit, you will no longer have access to the questions that you answered. The software will save your scores for you though, so at least you don’t lose those.

This morning I was delighted to discover a new version of GMATPrep up on the mba.com website. You have to have an mba.com account and be logged in to download it, just as before, but Mac users will be pleased because now there is a version that runs on the Mac OS (version 10.6 or greater) along with the version that runs on Windows XP, Vista, or 7.

After I downloaded and started the actual test (there are two provided, just as with the old GMATPrep) I noticed that it looks more like an actual GMAT administered at a test center than the old GMATPrep looks. It has all of the instructions and the mini-tutorials that the real test has. Read more