Each week, we 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 two free Manhattan Prep GRE Strategy Guides.

The 11th grade girls at Stumpville High School have an average GPA of 3.1, and the overall 11th grade average GPA is 3.05. If all of the boys enrolled in Honors Chemistry are in the 11th grade and those boys have an average GPA of 3.8, what is the average GPA of all the 11th grade boys who are not enrolled in Honors Chemistry?

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The following, by Jeff Brechlin, is the winning entry from a Washington Post Style Invitational contest that asked readers to submit “instructions” for something in the style of a famous person.

Here is Shakespeare’s Hokey Pokey.

For the benefit of our international students, the “Hokey Pokey” is a silly dance for children that goes something like this:

You put your [right leg] in,
You put your [right leg] out;
You put your [right leg] in,
And you shake it all about.
You do the hokey pokey,
And you turn yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about!

A different part of the body is referenced in each verse (so, the song can go on for kind of a long time).

The Shakespearean version contains some antiquated words that wouldn’t appear on the GRE (“anon” means soon, quickly), but also some very excellent GRE words:

Lithe – bending readily; pliant; limber; supple; flexible: the lithe body of a ballerina.

Wanton – Done, shown, used, etc., maliciously or unjustifiably (a wanton attack; wanton cruelty); without regard for what is right, just, humane, etc.; careless; reckless; sexually lawless or unrestrained (wanton lust); extravagantly or excessively luxurious (Kanye West’s Tweets about how fur pillows are actually hard to sleep on might indicate a wanton lifestyle). Basically, wanton can mean lacking restraint in a number of ways.

Yoke – a device for joining together a pair of draft animals, especially oxen, usually consisting of a crosspiece with two bow-shaped pieces, each enclosing the head of an animal; a frame fitting the neck and shoulders of a person, for carrying a pair of buckets or the like, one at each end; an agency of oppression, subjection, servitude, etc.

Here’s a yoke pictured on Wikipedia:

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The following, by Jeff Brechlin, is the winning entry from a Washington Post Style Invitational contest that asked readers to submit “instructions” for something in the style of a famous person.

Here is Shakespeare’s Hokey Pokey.

For the benefit of our international students, the “Hokey Pokey” is a silly dance for children that goes something like this:

You put your [right leg] in,
You put your [right leg] out;
You put your [right leg] in,
And you shake it all about.
You do the hokey pokey,
And you turn yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about!

A different part of the body is referenced in each verse (so, the song can go on for kind of a long time).

The Shakespearean version contains some antiquated words that wouldn’t appear on the GRE (“anon” means soon, quickly), but also some very excellent GRE words:

Lithe – bending readily; pliant; limber; supple; flexible: the lithe body of a ballerina.

Wanton – Done, shown, used, etc., maliciously or unjustifiably (a wanton attack; wanton cruelty); without regard for what is right, just, humane, etc.; careless; reckless; sexually lawless or unrestrained (wanton lust); extravagantly or excessively luxurious (Kanye West’s Tweets about how fur pillows are actually hard to sleep on might indicate a wanton lifestyle). Basically, wanton can mean lacking restraint in a number of ways.

Yoke – a device for joining together a pair of draft animals, especially oxen, usually consisting of a crosspiece with two bow-shaped pieces, each enclosing the head of an animal; a frame fitting the neck and shoulders of a person, for carrying a pair of buckets or the like, one at each end; an agency of oppression, subjection, servitude, etc.

Here’s a yoke pictured on Wikipedia:

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Each week, we 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 two free Manhattan Prep GRE Strategy Guides.

In a family of four people, none of the people have the same age, but all are a prime number of years old. Two of the people are less than 12 years old, and the other two people are between 40 and 52 years old. If the average of their four ages is also a prime number, what are the ages of the family members?

Indicate four such ages.

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Thinking of taking one of our 9-session GRE classes? Here’s one benefit of our classes that we don’t mention anywhere else on our website, and that sometimes takes our students by surprise—when we give you a list of 49 words to learn every week (that’s 7 per day), we also follow up with a vocabulary email using those 7 words in context.

Here’s an example of the vocabulary emails our course students receive every day.

Dear Students,

Not long ago I was working as a private eye when a SLIGHT young man came in asking for my help. He was so emaciated, enervated, and lacking in VIGOR, in fact, that it looked as though he hadn’t eaten for a week, although he had just enough energy to twitch nervously.

I don’t mean to be PRESUMPTUOUS, he said in a peculiar accent, but this case is more important than anything you could possibly be moiling over and I just know you’ll be my detective.

Well, then, I said, a bit ruffled. Cut the drama — tell me EXPLICITLY what the case is about.

He began his story. He had been working as a busboy, clearing dishes from a table of pugnacious-looking women when one of the women shrieked and began grabbing at his apron. He scuttled back into the kitchen, only to find the women at his apartment door the next morning. He ran. He had been running ever since. It was a verisimilar tale.

Just then, a terrible FRACAS erupted on the street below my office. That was always happening back in my private eye days “ just as I’d sit down with the paper and a nice cigar, some petty criminal would run off with an old lady’s purse or a bunch of bananas and cause a din down below that scotched my equanimity. Anyway, this young man looked terrified. They’ve found me! he cried, attempting to hide in my coat closet.

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Each week, we 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 two free Manhattan Prep GRE Strategy Guides.

Everyone at a party is either a man or a woman. After 8 women leave, there are four times as many men as women. After 35 men leave (and the 8 women do not return), there are twice as many women as men.

Quantity A

The number of women originally at the party

Quantity B

15

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The exhibit is not so much a retrospective as a __________ ; the artist’s weaker early work is glossed over and any evidence of his ultimate dissolution is absent entirely.

Select two correct answers.

paean
philippic
tirade
panacea
eulogy
crescendo

(Note: When you see six answer choices and square checkboxes, that’s a clue that this is a GRE Sentence Equivalence problem, to which there will always be two correct answers.)

Make your selections before reading any further!

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Mnemonics or mnemonic devices are memory tricks to help us remember things like vocabulary words. However, many mnemonics are pretty cheesy — often involving the kind of jokes some people call “groaners.” For instance…

Tantamount means, “equivalent, as in value, force, effect, or signification.”

The word is often used to say that something is 99.9% as bad as something really bad, as in, “The dictator’s call to action is tantamount to a declaration of war.”

Here’s the mnemonic:

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Each week, we 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 two free Manhattan Prep GRE Strategy Guides.

The perimeter of an equilateral triangle is 1.25 times the circumference of a circle.

Quantity A
The area of the equilateral triangle

Quantity B
The area of the circle

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Did you know that our acclaimed GRE Strategy Guides are also available in the eBook format? You can now enjoy the full weight of the knowledge contained within our strategy guides without having to lug around the full weight of the books! It’s win-win!

To celebrate digital GRE prep, we’re giving away a complete set of our 8 Manhattan GRE Strategy Guides in the eBook format and, so you have something to read them with, we’re also giving away a brand new iPad along with them!

To enter to win, all you need to do is go to our Facebook page and “Like” our status about this giveaway. We’ll pick a winner at random from the list of people who “liked” that staus on May 15th at noon, EST.

Good luck!