Yesterday was the 4th GMAC Test Prep Summit (GMAC is the organization that makes the GMAT) and we’ve got all sorts of interesting things to tell you. We’ll share a couple of highlights with you today; check back on Monday for a longer post.

Many students have been reporting that Sentence Correction on the real test has been feeling… different this year. We had some theories as to what was changing, and we were able to get confirmation yesterday from Dr. Larry Rudner, who is in charge of psychometrics for GMAC (or, in less fancy language, he’s the one who’s responsible for the overall development and construction of the test).

They’ve been writing more Sentence Corrections that emphasize issues surrounding meaning. There are more questions now in which two or more answers are grammatically correct, but only one maintains the meaning of the original question stem. There are already some examples of this in the existing, released materials (more about this on Monday), but these didn’t used to be as common. According to Larry, these are becoming more and more common – so those who are focusing primarily on grammar without paying much attention to meaning are going to find the real test a lot harder.

Larry also told us that they are moving towards completely phasing out idioms! They don’t want to penalize non-native speakers for things that don’t really interfere with comprehension and communication, so they are moving away from idioms entirely. When we asked how common idioms still are right now and when they would be gone completely, he said that “ideally” he hopes they’re all gone already, but there may still be some in the pool – it takes time to scrub the questions completely. So that’s big news – we really shouldn’t be worrying about idioms any longer!

We’re still poring through all of the material we heard and were given yesterday, so we’ll have more for you on Monday, but we wanted to get these tidbits out ASAP because they’ll definitely impact how we study going forward. Check back again on Monday for the rest of our news and analysis from the GMAC Summit.

For a more detailed article on this topic, check here.

Starting in June 2012, the GMAT will have a new section, called Integrated Reasoning. This section will take the place of one of the two essays at the beginning of the exam. As the date for this new section looms closer, the GMAC (the company that makes the exam) have slowly been releasing more information about it. One of the ways in which they have been doing so is via video, and we thought we would share their insight with you.

Here is a good overview of what the new section will include:

And here is a breakdown of the Graphics Interpretation Question Type — one of the four sections to be tested within the 12 Integrated Reasoning questions: Read more

By Chris Ryan

We all know that the GMAT is a computer adaptive test, and computer adaptive tests give us questions based on the difficulty level that we earn as we take the test. How do the test writers at ACT (the organization that writes the GMAT; it used to be ETS, but ETS lost the contract to ACT 4-5 years ago; GMAC manages the algorithm and owns the test) determine which questions are harder than others? Read more

When I make an error, I get excited. Seriously “ you should be excited when you make errors, too. I know that I’m about to learn something and get better, and that’s definitely worth getting excited!

Errors can come in several different forms: careless errors, content errors, and technique errors. We’re going to discuss something critical today: how to learn from your errors so that you don’t continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. First, let’s define these different error types.
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This is part 5 of a series featuring b-school advice gleaned from one of Manhattan GMAT’s own. Until recently, Patty managed marketing and student services for our sister company, Manhattan LSAT. But she chose to return to business school and started at Wharton last fall. She has agreed to share her application experiences with us  in a series called, “Patty’s Path to Wharton.”
Read Part 4 here.

Recommendations are one of the more fraught aspects of your b-school application, because you’ve got the least control over the process. But, once again,  Patty’s experiences can provide some guidance.
If you’re wondering who to approach, here’s her advice:

People always want to know who to ask for recommendations, the person you work with or the person with the best titles. I already knew who I wanted because I’d worked with them closely. I just knew I wanted people who knew me best as a person and as a professional. My only advice for people who do have that question is to think about it: If you’re on the ad com, do you want a generic form letter or a genuine note? And which one do you think is going to distinguish you from a sea of a thousand.

Once you’ve selected recommenders, be sure to Read more

Have you ever experienced the panic stare? That’s when you stare at a problem for way too long without really doing anything besides thinking that you don’t know what to do. Or you sit down to study, but you’re not sure where to begin, and so you take way too long to get started, while you shuffle your papers aimlessly.

The more decisions we need to make, or the more options we have, the harder it is to act, or the more likely we are to act rashly or make snap decisions. The New York Times recently published an article on this topic entitled Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue?

What is decision fatigue?

The basic theory is this: the more decisions we make, the more our mental energy suffers, though we’re not necessarily aware of this fatigue in the same way that we’re aware when we’re physically tired. According to the article, we tend to deal with this mental fatigue in one of two ways: either we start making very quick, snap decisions without necessarily thinking everything through, or we just refuse to make a decision at all “ we do nothing.

What are the consequences?

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This article is written by Angela Guido, Manhattan GMAT Instructor and Senior Consultant at mbaMission.

You may have heard the MBA admissions truism: You can’t turn a bad idea into a good essay. And that is why we recommend a lengthy brainstorming process at the outset of your applications to discover the stories that make you unique. As you uncover your stories, it is important to consider them from as many different angles as possible. Doing so will not only help ensure that you understand the various tools in your tool box, it will also provide you with maximum flexibility (considering that MBA admissions committees ask questions that vary dramatically from school to school).

For example, an experience coaching a baseball team at an underfunded high school may have multiple dimensions, such as the following: Read more

In this post, we’re going to analyze a challenging GMATPrep Critical Reasoning question.

First, set your timer for 2 minutes and try the problem!

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This article, written by Eric Caballero, was adapted from our upcoming book, The GMAT Roadmap: Expert Advice Through Test Day. The full book will be available mid-November.

Make no mistake about it. Business Schools love the GMAT. And despite admissions officer statements that the GMAT score is only one piece of your application, it is a huge piece. Since its inception in 1953, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) “ creator of the GMAT “ has studied the desires of Business Schools. In fact, GMAT content is refined by intelligence gathered from frequent surveys of MBA faculty around the world. Additionally, GMAC sets aside profits to fund management education research ” since 2005, GMAC has awarded $1.3MM in grants and fellowships to business school faculty and PhD candidates. The lesson? Take your GMAT seriously. Here’s why: Read more

A few months ago, we shared an article with MBA-Social.com about how to avoid becoming That Guy at business school. It was an excerpt from the recently published book Case Studies & Cocktails: The Now What? Guide to Surviving Business School, and we found it to be a witty overview of how to keep one’s ego in check in b-school. There can be no denying that prospective MBAs are remarkable people: they’ve attended prestigious undergrad programs, earned good grades, launched companies, excelled in business, and stopped just short of saving the world.  For all of this, we applaud them “ we just don’t need to be reminded of it constantly.

Enter Mike Moradian.  Read more