Many a true word is said in jest.—I don’t know, but I heard it from my mother.

Folks don’t score as well as they should on the GMAT for a variety of reasons. One major reason for this is that folks worry about the wrong thing.  They worry about what they know, but they should be worrying about what they do.  They should worry about the reality of doing.  As an athlete does physically and as a method actor does mentally.  (Wait for it.)

The GMAT is an aptitude test, not a knowledge test.  It tests the same logic system throughout—in both the math and the verbal.  In both sections, the modus operandi is to be specific, don’t assume, and don’t rationalize.  Be more precise than in life; notice the exact meaning of the words.  It takes classes three weeks to open their third eyes and notice the difference between precision and hoping.  Second, no outside knowledge or assumptions are allowed.  However, the hardest part for GMAT test takers is not to rationalize.  The questions ask what MUST be true, not what COULD be true by adding opinions.  Folks want to demonstrate the depth of their thoughts, but the questions ask what must follow—-so, whatever you do, don’t think. . .much like in life.  Just do.

A student, who was accepted to both Harvard and Stanford, once said to me, The funny thing about the GMAT is that the math is the verbal and the verbal is the math.  Because it is one logic system, there is a truth to this—the verbal is the math because you must not only be as precise as, but also as systematic as you are in quantitative work.  On the other hand, the math revolves around noticing exactly what the words say, as well as and reading and writing with symbols.  Doing the arithmetic and algebra is the moral equivalent of reading English—it is taken for granted and not tested per se.  This is a double edged sword. Folks are ruined because they concentrate on challenging math topics but their shoddy mechanics cost them at least half a minute per problem.  That, however, is a separate reason for, and separate article about, why folks do not score as well as they should.

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We invite you to test your GMAT knowledge for a chance to win! Each week, we will post a new Challenge Problem for you to attempt. If you submit the correct answer, you will be entered into that week’s drawing for a free Manhattan GMAT Prep item. Tell your friends to get out their scrap paper and start solving!
Here is this week’s problem:

For all non-negative integers x and n such that 0 ≤ x ≤ n, the function f_n(x) is defined by the equation f_n(x) = x^n“x. The smallest value of n for which the maximum of f_n(x) occurs when x = 4 is

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Did you ever have one of those anal teachers in high school math or science who would take off points if you did not include the correct units? So an answer of 7 would only receive partial credit when the answer was 7 inches.  Although this practice likely seemed frustrating at the time, I hope to provide some method behind this madness “ or specifically how awareness of units can help you on the GMAT.

My appreciation of units first began during college. I was a chemistry major in college, and as part of my major I had to take physics.  The topics in physics never came naturally for me so I was always looking for little tricks that would lead me towards a correct answer.  One trick I found that was surprisingly effective was to just combine the numbers in the way such that the answer was in the appropriate units.  For example if the question asked for an acceleration (the rate at which speed is changing or the second derivative of distance for the calculus-inclined), I knew that acceleration is always in the form of units of distance / units of time^2 (e.g. meters/ seconds^2).  So unless I combined the numbers in a way that resulted in these units as the answer “ for example by dividing a speed in meters per second by a time in seconds “ I knew I had done something wrong.

Since units are not required on the GMAT, I find many students exclude them entirely from their note taking and calculations.  But keeping track of units, while it may cost a little time, can help lead you towards right answers and prevent you from doing illogical algebra.
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Here are the free GMAT events we’re holding this week. All times are local unless otherwise specified.

1/16/13 – Austin, TX – Free Trial Class – 6:30-9:30 PM

1/19/13 – Boston, MA – Free Trial Class – 2:00-5:00 PM

1/19/13– Chicago, IL- Free Trial Class – 10:00 AM-1:00 PM

1/14/13– Dallas, TX- Free Trial Class– 6:30-9:30 PM

1/17/13– Denver, CO- Free Trial Class– 6:30- 9:30 PM

1/14/13– Glendale, CA – Free Trial Class– 6:30- 9:30 PM

1/17/13– Encino, CA- Free Trial Class– 6:30- 9:30 PM
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Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s top business school related articles:

How to Choose MBA Elective Courses (U.S. News Education)

Be smart when choosing electives in business school. Here are some electives that MBAs and professors advise graduate business students to pursue.

B-School Chart of the Week: Number of Living Alumni (mbaMission)

Looking for an MBA program with a sizable alumni base?  Check out this chart on mbaMission for some insight into which schools have the most living alumni.

M.B.A. Pop Quiz: Are You Employable? (The Wall Street Journal)

Business school admissions committees look for employable people. Some MBA programs are now using career-services staff to evaluate applicants.
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The last blog post I wrote showed how modifiers can fool people on quant problems “ here’s the link.

Several of my students who got the baseball problem from that post correct dismissed the issue entirely and scoffed at me for showing them such an easy problem, then inevitably missed a variant of the problem I’m about to show you. Try it for yourself, and watch out for the modifiers!

The town of Malmo, Sweden has only two late-night food options: Pizza and Kebab. All sellers of late-night food have either a street permit or a permanent store permit. 60% of all the late-night food sellers in Malmo are street vendors that serve Kebab; 20% of all the late-night food sellers who have a permanent store serve Pizza. If Malmo’s ratio of total street permits to total permanent store permits is exactly 7 to 3, what percentage of all late-night food sellers in Malmo serve pizza?

 

(A)  10%

(B)  16%

(C)  24%

(D) 30%

(E)  70%

(If you’re not sure how to approach this problem, try brushing up on overlapping sets, covered in the Manhattan GMAT Word Problems strategy guide. Then come back and give it a shot.)

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Recently, we talked about what to try if your deadlines are rapidly approaching and you don’t yet have the score that you want. I’d like to talk about next steps for those of you who decide to postpone your exam and possibly your b-school applications.

I didn’t actually decide “ I just didn’t get the score I wanted

First, a pep talk. You always have a choice. You could, for example, choose to apply this year but lower your standards in terms of where you apply. In fact, if you fall into certain categories, this may be better than waiting a year to try to get into a better (or, at least, higher-ranked) school. Let’s say that you’re being groomed to take over a family business. The current CEO is getting older. The business is well-established and fairly regional, so actually the best thing might be to get a degree from a respected (but not necessarily top) school in the same geographic region as the company headquarters.

On the other hand, let’s say that’s NOT you “ in your case, you’re only willing to spend $100,000+ if you can get into a top-fill-in-the-blank school (top 5? top 10? top 20?), and your current GMAT score is probably going to hold you back. In that case, postponing for a year may be the way to go. Any helpful friends or family members who say, Hey, I thought you were applying to business school! can be told, It’s actually a smarter career move to wait until next year. They don’t need to know that the GMAT had anything to do with that decision.
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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.

I’ve been wanting to do this problem with you for a while, but I’ve been delaying because well, you’ll see when you get to the table. It takes a lot of work to recreate that in a blog post. ? But that ridiculously large table is also the reason why I want to talk about this one—so let’s test it out! Read more

We invite you to test your GMAT knowledge for a chance to win! Each week, we will post a new Challenge Problem for you to attempt. If you submit the correct answer, you will be entered into that week’s drawing for a free Manhattan GMAT Prep item. Tell your friends to get out their scrap paper and start solving!
Here is this week’s problem:

If x³ = 25, y⁴ = 64, and z⁵ = 216, and xy > 0, which of the following is true?

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We’ve heard the expression Don’t reinvent the wheel. There is no need to start from scratch every time you undertake a task.  The same reasoning applies in many ways to GMAT problems.  In fact, this logic is exactly why doing practice problems is a valuable tool for improving your GMAT score.  If you have seen a similar problem before, you will probably have a jumping off point for that problem on the actual GMAT.

While focusing on efficiency is important on the GMAT, in some cases it can be problematic to rely on traditional rules of thumb.  The GMAT is good at finding and testing the exceptions to rules that apply in many cases.  For example, the adage it takes two equations to solve for two variables is not true in all cases.

One common shortcut of thinking is the assumption that to show the converse of a statement you need exactly the opposite information.
That is: If in order to prove x, I must know y and z are true then in order to prove the opposite of x I must know that y and z are false.
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