“I’m Bad at Memorization” and Other Lies You Tell Yourself

Did you know that your ability to memorize and recall information is not only a skill, but also an improvable one? Most people are born with approximately the same ability to memorize information. If you’re fluent in a language, any language, you’ve memorized at least tens of thousands of words that you can instantly recall and use. So why is it so hard to remember what the cube of five is? Or to remember that before you start reading a sentence correction sentence, you should take a glance first at the answer choices?

Read more

Music and the GMAT

Before we talk about grammar, let’s talk about music.  Trust me. I’ll bring it back.

When I turned 30, I started taking piano lessons.  Beyond a vague recollection of butchering “Hot Cross Buns” on a plastic recorder in third grade, I’d never had any musical training whatsoever.  I quickly discovered that music isn’t just about pressing buttons at the right time to make the notes come out; it’s also about learning to listen for rhythms, harmonies, and intervals between notes.  When you learn to notice these things, you start hearing them everywhere and wondering how you ever missed them. Better yet, you start to notice your own musical successes and mistakes before someone else points them out to you.

Read more

I know this is a totally unnecessary article, since I’m sure you enjoy taking the GMAT very much already. But do keep reading: at the very least, you’ll have a new way of explaining to your friends why you’re spending all your weeknights curled up with a gently used copy of the test’s Official Guide.

Read more

I’ll be honest, when I started studying for the GMAT, I couldn’t tell the difference between an adjective and a verb. If you asked what my biggest weakness was, I would absolutely have said “Grammar. I’m awful at it.” But I was wrong, and if you think you’re bad at grammar, there’s a good chance you are wrong too.

Read more

In my last blog post, I had a chat with my dad, a math teacher, about the importance of mental math. Today, I want to get more specific: I want to give you some things to memorize before you take the GMAT or GRE, along with a few tips about how to practice memorizing them.

Read more

The GMAT is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s not a given that you’ll be able to stay motivated to study without burning out, and many people find themselves studying for the GMAT for months longer than they meant to because they just needed a break. So let’s talk about how you can study without putting your life on pause.

Read more

There are a lot of rumors and misinformation about the topics that the GMAT tests. The test writers provide plenty of good info about what the GMAT does test (here’s a good place to start, as well as the Official Guide to the GMAT), but it’s much harder to find reassurance that certain topics won’t be tested. So, let’s look at some of the topics that students ask me about the most, and get the low-down on whether you have to study them. 

Read more

How can you get the elusive Q51 on the GMAT? To start, let’s be clear that this question is mostly a matter of curiosity. You don’t need a 51 on Quant to score a 700 on the GMAT: technically, with a perfect Verbal score, you would only need a 36! You don’t need a 51 on Quant to get into HBS: the median score last year was 48. You don’t even need a 51 to be a test prep teacher (although if you want to work for MPrep, you do need to be in the 99th percentile)!

And this is a good thing, because as you’re about to learn, getting a 51 on Quant involves at least a little bit of luck.

Read more

Are you getting ready to take the GMAT? Let’s talk about the logistics of registering for and taking the exam!

Read more

On the GMAT, your score isn’t based on getting points for right answers. Instead, the GMAT lobs your way a series of questions of varying difficulty, working to figure out what your skill level is in each section, and then assigns you a corresponding point value based on where you end.

Read more