Below is an excerpt from Andrew Yang‘s new book, Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America, which comes out in February 2014. Andrew was named Managing Director of Manhattan GMAT in 2006, Chief Executive Officer in 2007, and President in 2010. He left Manhattan GMAT in 2010 to start Venture for America, where he now serves as Founder and CEO. 

The Prestige Pathways.  

Let’s imagine a very large company. It is a leader in its industry and much admired by its peers. It invests a tremendous amount of money—literally billions of dollars a year—in identifying, screening, and training its many employees. Those employees who are considered to have high potential are sent to special training programs at substantial additional cost. Happily, these top training programs are considered to be among the best in the world. After these employees complete their training, the company encourages them to choose for themselves the division in which they’d like to work. Employee preferences are deemed to be the most efficient way of deciding who works where.

This seems like a good system, and it works well for a long time. However, perhaps predictably, many of its most highly rated employees eventually become drawn to the finance and legal divisions because these divisions have very effective recruitment arms, are more visible, pay better, and are thought of as providing a more intellectual level of work.  Over time, proportionally fewer of the top recruits go toward the management of the company or the company’s operations.  The company’s basic training division is considered a backwater, with low pay and low recognition. And only a relative handful of employees go toward research and development or the launching of any new products.

Take a second to think about the company described above. What do you think will happen to this company as time passes? And if you think that it’s not set on a path to success, what would you do to fix it? This company reflects, in essence, the economy of the United States of America.

If you are a smart college student and you want to become a lawyer and go to law school, what you must do has been well established. You must go to a good school, get good grades (already accomplished, for many), and take the LSAT (a four-hour skill test). There is no anxiety in divining the requirements, as they are clearly spelled out. Most undergrads, even those with little interest in law school, know what it takes to get in. The path location costs are low.

The same is true if you want to become a doctor. Becoming a doctor is hard, right? Sort of. It is arduous and time-consuming, but it is not hard if you have certain academic abilities. You must take a battery of college courses (organic chemistry being the most infamous and rigorous of them) and do well, study for the MCAT (an eight-hour exam), and spend a summer or even a year caddying for a reseNavigator, doctor, or hospital. These are time-consuming hoop-jumping tasks, to be sure, but anyone with a very high level of academic aptitude can complete them.

If you attend an Ivy League university or similar national institution, legions of suit-wearing representatives from the big-name investment banks and consulting firms will show up at your campus and conduct first-round interviews to fill their ranks each year, even in a down period (as with the recent years following the financial crisis). They will spend millions of dollars enlisting interns and educating the market annually. Most freshmen have no idea what management consulting is, yet seniors can rattle off the distinctions of different firms with little difficulty. All undergraduates have friends in the classes above them who have gone through this process and gained analyst or associate positions at major investment banks and consulting firms.
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This week marks the release of our Foundations of GMAT Math Strategy Guide Supplement! This book is one of the first of our Fifth Edition guides to be released, and we are excited for the updates and improvements it represents. Our instructors have been working overtime to make the book more comprehensive and accessible to students on every level, and at 10 chapters and over 500 pages, the new Foundations of GMAT Math is a significant upgrade from the previous edition.

Covering algebra, geometry, number properties, and more, Foundations of GMAT Math was revised to focus not only on foundational knowledge, but on computation in general.  The book now covers all of the basic computation that is tested on the GMAT, teaching students the material through easy-to-follow explanations and cementing understanding with over 700 practice problems.

One of our favorite additions to the book is a series of “If you… Then you…” tables that are designed to make understanding fundamental math principles a snap. We’ve included an example below:

Other improvements include an expanded section on word problems, a clearer problem solving process, and an emphasis on more focused questions.  Additionally, Foundations of GMAT Math now includes more difficult content, including a greater number of questions in the 500-600 range.

With a new cover, a new layout, and an abundance of new content, the Fifth Edition Foundations of GMAT Math is better than ever!  Check it out for yourself by visiting our store.

Also released today was the GMAT Roadmap! Read about it here.

Exciting news “ our Advanced Quant Strategy Guide is finally ready for prime time! We’re also launching a Foundations of Verbal book; click on the link to read about that one.

Who should use this book? Great question. Are you already at the 70^th-plus percentile (minimum) on quant and you’re looking to push yourself well into the 90s? This book is for you. In addition, please note that this book assumes that you have already worked through our five regular Strategy Guides (or the equivalent material from another company).

To give you an idea of what to expect, excerpts from the new Advanced Quant guide are below. The main point I want to make is that this book covers both advanced concepts / mathematical material, and advanced problem solving processes. Both are critical for a 90th-plus percentile test-taker.

Okay, without further ado, here’s excerpt #1, an introduction to a methodical solving style inspired by mathematician George Polya. Read more