This week, we have a follow-on article from Chris Ryan, Manhattan GMAT’s Director of Instructor and Product Development. Chris introduced the concept of layering to us in this article on Sentence Correction. Layering is a technique used by a test writer to make a question more difficult. Today, Chris is going to show us how layering works in data sufficiency questions.

Note: I’ve repeated the introduction from the first article below, in case some of you haven’t read that one. If you did read the first one, the first few paragraphs will be review for you.

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) determine which questions are harder than others?

First, ACT engages in a process called “normalization,” wherein all freshly written questions are tested by actual test takers to determine what percentage answer the questions correctly (we know these questions as experimental questions). If too many people answer correctly, the question may need to be toughened up. If too few people answer correctly, the question may need to be dumbed down. ACT is looking to assemble a pool of questions that covers a range of difficulty, from cakewalk to mind-bending, and the test takers help them do so.

Read more

As you may have heard from our partners at MBAmission, HBS has announced its new dean: Nitin Nohria, a professor of business administration. As this Washington Post article points out, one especially interesting aspect of Harvard’s pick is that Nohria has long advocated administering a voluntary MBA oath to create responsibly and ethically. He’s at the forefront of a push to provide MBAs with a more solid background in ethics. Harvard President Drew Faust called Nohria’s appointment an important moment for the future of business. It certainly marks a turning point for business school curriculums.

For years, voices in academia have called for greater emphasis on ethical education for MBAs, but now they seem to be entering a new era of influence.  The Wall Street Journal reports that a recent survey of business-school administrators ranked ethics as currently the most important subject for students. An overwhelming majority of schools surveyed advocated a stakeholder approach to inculcate a sense of corporate responsibility. That growing consensus has translated into new courses and, in some cases, made a significant impact on the entire program. In building the curriculum for Johns Hopkins’ Carey Business School, dean Yash Gupta chose to weave ethics into many courses, rather than cordoning the subject off into a single semester. “We’ll teach students about decision making ” behavioral, rational, how the brain functions ” in the first year, but we’ll also give them chances to make decisions,” he says.

This isn’t simply an academic notion, either. Companies are looking explicitly for ethical qualities in their new hires. According to the Journal, Pascal Krupka, MBA director at France’s Rouen Business School, “Companies, when they used to come to the school, they used to start with ‘We want talented people,’ but now they start their speech with ‘We need people with very good ethics.’

Plus, as the USA Today suggests, the financial crisis has energized this movement in business management education. “If we don’t teach people to sort of look around and have greater peripheral vision, then we’ve just set ourselves up for the next crisis,” says Stephen Spinelli, president of Philadelphia University (and co-founder of the Jiffy Lube).

Whatever the impetus, look out for changes in MBA programs across the world.

You don’t need another reason to get excited about your MBA, but here’s one anyway: Business schools spawn some awesome ideas, and they aren’t limited to finance or IT.

Take two submissions to recent business plan competitions. About a week ago, the New York Times covered Tough Mudder, born as a semifinalist entry in Harvard Business School’s annual business plan competition.  Founder Will Dean believed he could convince 500 people to pay to run a grueling, muddy obstacle course. After graduation, he launched the business with just Facebook ads and a website for marketing. And so far, he’s pulled it off”the company just staged its first race with an impressive 4,500 participants.

And just this past Sunday, the Financial Times featured some Scottish participants in a short entrepreneurship program at MIT’s Sloan School of Business. It’s not a traditional MBA, but it is a testament the nifty ideas you can cook up in the environment of a b-school. Michael Laurenson, a mussel farmer, was a member of the team that won the competition. Their concept was neither a social media start-up nor a new medical product. Instead, it was a device for improving fish farms. When we were at MIT the thing they said to us was: ˜Do what you are good at’, he says. His native Shetland isn’t ideal for finance or IT start-ups, so he stuck with what he knew: Aquaculture.

These examples fit nicely with our recent post on alternative careers chosen by MBAs. B-school grads can take their degrees in any number of directions. So pursue what inspires you!

The 12th Edition of the Official Guide for GMAT Review is an awesome resource, likely the best available, and we heartily recommend it to all of our students. Indeed, the Official Guide and its supplements are included with all of our courses and form the core of our curriculum.

However, if there is one weakness that students often cite, it is that the Official Guide’s explanations are sometimes confusing and/or unhelpful, particularly on some of the math problems.

To address this need, we are very proud to announce the imminent publication of the Official Guide Companion! This book includes thorough, step-by-step explanations to every math problem in the Official Guide, using the principles of our curriculum for consistency. Problems that customarily give students headaches are flagged as part of ‘Horacio’s Hotlist,’ named after ace Instructor Horacio Quiroga. There is also an online version of the OGC for easy reference.

Note that all of the referenced questions appear in the Official Guide itself, which is necessary to make use of the Official Guide Companion (hence the name).

All of our course students will begin receiving the book May 17th, as part of their course materials free of charge. The online version will be active one week earlier, on May 10th. It’s good to be one of our students!

Thanks to Chris, Dave, Carrie, Graham, and all of the other Instructors that worked so hard to make the Official Guide Companion possible! Many students are about to have a problem solved (pun intended). 🙂

Our partners over at mbaMission recently wrote a post about what it takes – and doesn’t take – to get into a good business school.  Based on data released by top business schools like HBS and Stanford, many would be surprised to find that graduating from a non-Ivy school  does not decrease their chances of acceptance.  As Jeremy Shinewald puts it:

The admissions committees are more interested in your performance “ academic, professional, volunteer, personal “ than your pedigree. Further, the admissions committee is interested in diversity. We don’t feel that we are going out on a limb stating that Wharton does not want and cannot have a class of 850 UPenn undergrads, because they simply want the best potential business leaders out there and thus must jump into a much deeper pool.

You can read the full post here.

This week, we’re going to tackle a challenging GMATPrep problem solving question from the topic of Rates & Work.

Let’s start with the problem. Set your timer for 2 minutes. and GO!

*Circular gears P and Q start rotating at the same time at constant speeds. Gear P makes 10 revolutions per minute, and gear Q makes 40 revolutions per minute. How many seconds after the gears start rotating will gear Q have made exactly 6 more revolutions than gear P?

(A) 6

(B) 8

(C) 10

(D) 12

(E) 15

Given info about two different gears, P and Q, we have to figure out something about how quickly they move relative to each other. In particular, we’re supposed to figure out when this is true: (# of Gear Q revolutions) = (# of Gear P revolutions) + 6.

Read more

Business school applications are a daunting prospect, and new questions pop up constantly. That’s why mbaMission founder Jeremy Shinewald will be holding regular Q&A sessions in our live online classroom, starting tomorrow at 6pm EST. Feel free to drop in at any point during the session”Jeremy will be available for the full hour.

If you can’t make it tomorrow, we’ll be holding another MBA Q&A in two weeks, on May 13. Stay tuned for future sessions as well.

An MBA degree does not necessarily have to be synonymous with a career in finance.

While most MBAs do still choose to go into finance and consulting, the options for business school graduates are not limited to these two fields.  Health care, for example, is attracting a substantial number of MBAs. A recent New York Times article points out:

Health care is the target career for 10 percent of students working on a master of business administration degree at Harvard Business School, making it the third most popular choice, behind financial services and consulting.

This trend is accelerating as the boomer generation ages and needs increased health care. In fact, the Times article notes business schools like Tufts and Duke already have programs focusing on health care management, and Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business is in the process of creating a new masters of health care delivery science.

But if the health care sector doesn’t strike your fancy, you can follow in the footsteps of MBAs like Tim Elliott, who, as this BusinessWeek article describes, left his job as a vice-president of finance and technology to join MBAs Without Borders. The nonprofit program sends MBAs overseas for six months to work in the developing world, and it’s seen a substantial increase in applicants over the past year.

In fact, if you’re interested in nonprofits, there are now MBA programs that focus specifically on nonprofit management.  Beyond Grey Pinstripes is a great place to start if you’re looking for a business school devoted to sustainability and nonprofit management.

And for a list of the top 100 companies MBAs would like to work at, you can always refer to Fortune Magazine’s list.

A recent Business Week post about b-school summer reading lists got us thinking here at Manhattan GMAT. What other books might provide a good foundation for your first year? We turned to Chris Ryan, our Director of Instructor and Product Development, for some recommendations. His suggestions make good reading for incoming MBA students and curious applicants alike.

1. First and foremost, Chris recommends Larry Gonick’s Cartoon Guide to Statistics, which will give you a jump on the hardest quant class in your first semester, one on which other important classes ” like Finance and Operations ” depend. “If you actually understand the content in this book, you will do better in your stats class ” it’s as simple as that,” Chris tells us. The title might sound silly, but the content is truly useful.

2. A more theoretical start for your reading would be Co-Opetition (Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff), which covers game theory and its practical applications for business. The authors argue that to maximize success, companies sometimes have to cooperate with traditional rivals.

3.You should also pick up something about the economic turmoil of recent months. “You’re going to need to have an opinion,” Chris says. Pair your selection with Roger Lowenstein’s When Genius Failed, which covers the rise and fall of Long Term Capital Management, a hedge fund that brought about a late-90s precursor to the current financial crisis.

Plus, for a b-school beach read, try Predictably Irrational (Dan Ariely), a nice introduction to behavioral economics.

For more suggestions, try Business Week’s list.

Several news outlets recently wrote about a list of strange questions that you might encounter in a business school admissions interview.

The admissions process is stressful enough without having to worry about which type of tree you think you would be if you were a tree. Thankfully, our partner mbaMission has confirmed that it is very unlikely you will be asked such a question. In fact, they’ve conducted interviews with top admissions officers at Yale, Tuck and Kellogg, and all of the officers said their goal for interviews is to get a feel for the applicants and who they really are. They are not looking for how quickly prospective students can answer strange questions on their toes. A new mbaMission blog posting notes:

We feel that our responsibility as an admissions consulting firm is to calm MBA candidates and keep them focused on what is truly important within the application process. Interviews are not easy, but overwhelmingly the questions are straightforward and will be about you. So, you should be able to rely on your experiences to answer the questions. By entering your interview calmly and staying in your everyday frame of mind, you will be able to thoughtfully address the questions that you are asked. If you can do that, you should perform to the best of your abilities and you may even enjoy your interview.

You can read the rest of the blog post, which includes quotes from interviews with top admissions officers, here.