Here’s What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do on the GMAT
You’re staring at a GMAT problem that you just don’t understand. There’s a minute left on the clock. What do you do? Read more
Here’s How to do GMAT Unit Conversions Like a Pro
Sometimes the whole point of a specific GMAT problem is to convert between miles and kilometers, or meters and centimeters. In other problems, you’ll need to do a unit conversion as part of a longer solution. It’s easy to mess up unit conversions, and the GMAT writers know this — they include them on the test in order to test your level of organization and your ability to double-check your work. Here’s how to add fast unit conversions to your repertoire of skills. Read more
Can you fix this GMAT Critical Reasoning discrepancy?
The GMAT Critical Reasoning question type “Explain a Discrepancy” has a very specific goal. If you know what your goal is, you’ll be much more likely to answer the question correctly. If you don’t, it can be very easy to get turned around and fall into a trap.
Try this problem from the free questions that come with the GMATPrep® software and then we’ll talk about how Discrepancy questions work! Read more
Should I take advantage of the GMAT Select Section Order Pilot?
Note: The pilot project has now gone live as “Select Section Order”—however, the details are a bit different. Read this post for all the info you need on the new Select Section Order feature.
You may have heard that, on Monday, some GMAT students started receiving emails inviting them to take part in a Select Section Order Pilot program that GMAC (the organization that makes the GMAT) is holding in late February/early March.
This pilot is to test an awesome potential new feature: the ability to select the order in which you do the various sections of the GMAT!
Below, I’ve laid out all of the important details and I also talk about how to decide whether to join, if you were one of the lucky students invited to take part.
How does the pilot work? What are they testing?
GMAT Critical Reasoning Problems: Arguments That Tell You Why
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
Here’s why you should take the GMAT twice.
Over the past five or so years, I have seen more and more students take the GMAT twice.
Manhattan Prep’s GMAT® study app is now available!
I am very excited to announce that our new GMAT® study app is available on both iOS and Android!
Download now!
iOS
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Here’s why you might be missing GMAT Data Sufficiency Problems – Part 1
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
The GMAT’s not a math test – it’s a foreign language test!
A student of mine once emailed me after he took the GMAT. Instead of telling me his score, he wrote, “let’s just say that 4 times my score is a multiple of 88, and 5 times my score is a multiple of 35.”
Can you tell what he got? If not…you may need to work on your GMAT translation skills! Read more
This mindset will help you feel good about guessing on the GMAT
If you’ve ever read any of my articles, then you know how much I harp on the idea that the GMAT is primarily a test of your business decision-making, or executive reasoning, skills. Sure, there’s a bunch of facts and rules you need to know, but you don’t need to be a math or grammar superstar in order to get a good score on the GMAT (even though I know it feels that way sometimes).
You do, though, have to be a GMAT master. Business schools want to know that you are going to be a good executive. You can assess a situation rapidly, noticing positive and negative factors that may affect how you want to move forward in that situation. You make appropriate decisions most of the time and you follow through: if you decide that a particular product line needs to be cut, you make that cut. You don’t dribble in another million dollars because you’re reluctant to let go. In short, you can manage your scarce resources (time, money, people) masterfully.
The GMAT is the same game, though your scarce resources on the test are time and mental energy. As such, it is crucial to approach the test as a series of business decisions, not a school test.
How do you take the test with a business mindset? Glad you asked! Read on. Read more