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?

Read more

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

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

Manhattan Prep GMAT Instructor Jonathan Schneider explains some of the most common mistakes he sees students make when studying for the GMAT.

Be sure to check back every Tuesday for a new video in our GMAT 101 series, detailing the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the GMAT.

Have you ever worked with someone who inevitably managed to come up with things to do that were a complete waste of time? Maybe it was an insecure boss who was never confident about what he was doing, so he went for the “everything and the kitchen sink” approach to generating deliverables in the last few days before the deadline. Or maybe it was a fellow student on a group project, someone so diligent (cough, cough) that she wanted to turn in a 20-page report when the teacher suggested 10 pages (and actually specified a 12-page limit).

You know who I’m talking about, right? We’ve all run across these situations in our academic or working lives. You want to be polite…but you also want to get your work done and not waste time on activities that don’t really help you reach the overall goal.

The GMAT is trying to waste your time

Okay, the test writers are not literally sitting there cackling and saying, “How can we get them to waste their lives?!?” But the overall sentiment still holds because of the way that the GMAT is constructed. You already know the classic “If you get something right, they give you something harder” pattern, right?

Well, at some point, that “something harder” is going to be something that isn’t worth your time. You’re probably not going to get it right no matter what you do. Even if you do, you’re going to use up valuable time that you could be using on other problems.

Most important of all, you’re going to be using up your finite brain energy on something that probably isn’t going to pay off. How many times in your life have you crashed towards the end of a test or a long day at work because your brain just couldn’t keep going any longer? The GMAT is a “where you end is what you get” test: if you crash before the end of the section, your score will suffer greatly.

This is basically no different than that co-worker who’s trying to get you to build a marketing presentation when the client has specifically requested that you analyze the pros and cons of acquiring a competitor. Tomorrow at the client meeting, it won’t matter how good your intentions were. Your client is going to be mad that you wasted time on something that doesn’t actually help them.

Read more

My last article discussed the difference between inductive and deductive arguments. Today’s article will focus mostly on the rules of deductive arguments. I promise to nerd out on inductive reasoning in later articles.

Here’s a quick quiz on the difference between inductive and deductive logic: //www.thatquiz.org/tq/previewtest?F/Z/J/V/O3UL1355243858

To review: In a deductively “valid” argument, if all the premises are true, the conclusion must also be true, with 100% certainty. Luckily, on the GMAT, we should usually act as if the premises of an argument are true, especially when the question specifies, “the statements above are true.”

Deductive reasoning shows up most often on inference (aka “draw a conclusion”) questions and “mimic the reasoning” questions, but it often appears on other types of questions, and even on reading comprehension!

On inference questions, the correct answer will usually be deductively valid (or very very strong, inductively). An incorrect answer will be deductively invalid, with some significant probability that it could be false.

What follows are most of the formal rules of deductive reasoning (from a stack of logic textbooks I have on my shelf), with examples from the GMAT. For shorthand, I’ll label the arguments with a “P” for premise and a “C” for conclusion:

P) premise
P) premise
C) conclusion

Remember: these are not the same kind of conclusions (opinions) you’ll see on strengthen and weaken questions. Deductive conclusions are deductively “valid” facts that you can derive with 100% certainty from given premises.

EASY STUFF: Simplification/conjunction (“and” statements)

This is kind of a “duh” conclusion, but here goes: If two things are linked with an “and,” then you know each of them exist. Conversely, if two things exist, you can link them with an “and.”

Simplification:

P) A and B
C) Therefore, A

Conjunction:

P) A
P) B
C) Therefore, A and B

P) Bill is tall and was born in Texas.
P) Bill rides a motorcycle.
C) Therefore, Bill was born in Texas (simplification).
C) Therefore, at least one tall person named Bill was born in Texas and rides a motorcycle (conjunction).

CAUTION: Fallacies ahead!!

Don’t confuse “and” with “or.” (More about this later.) More importantly, don’t confuse “and” with causality, condition, or representativeness. Bill’s tallness probably has nothing to do with Texas, so keep an eye out for wrong answers that say, “Bill is tall because he was born in Texas” or “Most people from Texas ride motorcycles.”

MEDIUM STUFF: Disjunctive syllogism (“or” statements)

With “or” statements, if one thing is missing, the other must be true.

Valid conclusions:

P) A or B
P) not B (shorthand: ~B)
C) Therefore, A

P) We will go to the truck rally or to a Shakespeare play
P) We won’t go to the Shakespeare play.
C) Therefore, we will go to the truck rally.

CAUTION: Fallacies ahead!!

Unlike in the real world, “or” statements do not always imply mutual exclusivity, unless the argument explicitly says so. For example, in the above arguments, A and B might both be true; we might go to a play and go to the movies. Yes, really. A wrong answer might say “We went to a play, so we won’t go to the movies.” This error is called “affirming the disjunct.”

Invalid:

P) A or B
P) B
C) Not A

GMAT example:

To see this in action, check out your The Official Guide for GMAT Review 13th Edition, by GMAC®*, question 41. This argument opens with an implied “or” statement:

“Installing scrubbers in smokestacks and switching to cleaner-burning fuel are the two methods available to Northern Power…”

The author here incorrectly assumes that by using one method, Northern Power can’t use both methods at the same time. Question 51 does the same thing; discuss it in the comments below?

TOUGH STUFF: Fun with conditional statements

This is important! Keep a sharp eye out for statements that can be expressed conditionally and practice diagramming them. Look for key words such as “if,” “when,” “only,” and “require.”

I use the symbol “–>” to express an if/then relationship, and a “~” to express the word “not.” Use single letters or abbreviations to stand in for your elements.
Read more

At Manhattan GMAT, we spend a good deal of time thinking about education. We’re committed to the highest quality of teaching, and we’re always interested in the latest pedagogical developments. And so, lately, this interesting article from the New York Times has been making the rounds in our office.

The piece contends that much of the conventional wisdom about study habits has little basis in reality. For example, it’s often assumed students should commit to a particular workspace. But recent research has found individuals actually remember more material when they alternate rooms while studying. It’s also more helpful to work on a range of distinct (but related) skills in a single study session, rather than narrowing your focus to one topic. What we think is happening here is that, when the outside context is varied, the information is enriched, and this slows down forgetting, says one scientist.

What do our instructors say? Stacey Koprince tells us:

We’ve known for a long time that making multiple “connections” while studying helps us to store and retrieve information more effectively. It’s fascinating that the researchers have extended this to the physical location in which you make the connections – apparently, we even make connections based upon things we see around us while we’re studying the information.

In fact, these findings support advice we already give students: Vary how you study within a single study session, and study via many shorter study sessions rather than a few long ones. As the article points out, musicians do a combination of scales, musical pieces and rhythmic work when they practice, while athletes’ workouts typically mix strength, speed and skill drills. Stacey recommends:

Do some reading in a certain area, or watch a short lesson, then do some practice problems that touch on the same material (but may also include other things), then spend some time reviewing those problems. During your review, go back to any necessary sources when you need to check or refresh something; the more you do this, the more connections you’ll make. Once or twice a week, do a mix of random problems (and more often as you get closer to the test); this allows you to practice figuring out what’s in front of you in the first place.

Stacey did find one of the article’s points a bit dubious, however”the suggestion that there may not be different learning styles.

The one thing that I’m a bit skeptical about is the proposal that there might not be different learning styles. From personal experience, I know that I learn certain things better in certain ways. Recently, I took a French immersion course (3 to 5 hours of French every day for three weeks). When we reviewed vocabulary orally, I didn’t retain anywhere near as much as I did when the teacher gave us a hand-out or I looked up the word myself. It was mostly new information and I personally make much better connections when I see new info written down. On the other hand, because I know English grammar so well, I was able to base my French grammar connections on similarities and differences between the two languages; here, I benefited more from an oral discussion because I could ask immediate questions to clarify my understanding (and so make better connections).

There you have it: Train like an athlete, but base your studies on your unique needs.