There are really only a dozen different Critical Reasoning problems in the Official Guide to the GMAT. The test writers recycle the same basic argument structures over and over, and they use the same right answers over and over, too. Even though the topics change — an argument might be about school funding the first time you see it, and industrial efficiency the next — you can sometimes recognize the underlying structure, outsmart the test, and earn some well-deserved points on the Verbal section. Read more

Whenever I see a story problem, I immediately make myself think, “How would I solve this in the real world?” I don’t want to get sucked into doing a bunch of annoying textbook math. In the real world, we lay things out on paper very differently than when we’re in “I’m taking a math test” mode.

Want to see what I mean? Try this GMATPrep® problem from the free exams and then we’ll talk! Read more

Last time, we talked about how to use holiday downtime to get ready for round 2 GMAT admissions. This time, we’re going to talk about what to do if you aren’t applying for round 2 this year.

We have two broad scenarios to talk about: Read more

The holidays are fast approaching and all of my students are asking me how best to use their extra downtime over the next few weeks. I have some different recommendations, depending upon your circumstances.

In this installment, we’ll talk about what to do if you’re aiming for the second round (in other words, your applications are due in January 2016—soon!). In the next installment, we’ll talk about what to do if this circumstance does not apply to you. Read more

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.

In our previous article, we divided the logical errors that test-takers make on Data Sufficiency questions into two types:

Type 1: You thought that something was sufficient, but it was actually insufficient.

Type 2: You thought that something was insufficient, but it was actually sufficient.

We already covered the most common reasons for Type 1 errors to occur and a few good ways to avoid them; now, let’s cover Type 2 errors. Read more

Over the past five or so years, I have seen more and more students take the GMAT twice.

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In the first part of this series, we talked about how to analyze your strengths and weaknesses and in which categories of “low hanging fruit” to concentrate your studies.

We left off talking about timing; let’s talk about how to make better decisions as you take the test. Read more

I am very excited to announce that our new GMAT® study app is available on both iOS and Android!

Download now!

iOS

Android

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Most second-round deadlines are in early January, so around now, a lot of people are asking me how to eke out the last 30 to 80 points they need to reach their goal.

Let’s talk about what to do to try to lift your score that last bit in the final 2 months of your study.

Is this article for me?

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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.

Let’s talk about GMAT Data Sufficiency.

Specifically, let’s talk about getting GMAT Data Sufficiency (DS) problems wrong. And I don’t mean those problems that you missed because of careless math errors, or because of concepts you hadn’t learned yet. No, I’m talking about the missed DS problems that make you want to bang your head against the wall: How on Earth did I not get that?

There are two reasons you might have this experience: Read more