Articles published in 2018

Can You Ace GRE Quant if You’re Bad at Math? (Part 3)

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - Can You Ace GRE Quant if You're Bad at Math? (Part 3) by Chelsey Cooley

If you have a complicated relationship with math, you need to be especially careful about how you study. Some GRE Quant study techniques might seem to make perfect sense, but can actually leave you frustrated and demoralized in the long run. For painless studying, try these next few ideas instead. Read more

Explaining Your Contribution & Using School-Specific Info in MBA Application Essays

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - Explaining Your Contribution & Using School-Specific Info in MBA Application Essays by mbaMission

Taking the GRE for your business school application? You’re in luck. Each month, we’re featuring a series of admission tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner, mbaMission.


Many business schools use the questions in their MBA application essays as an opportunity to ask about the unique contributions you will make to their particular program. Read more

Can You Ace GRE Quant if You’re Bad at Math? (Part 2)

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - Can You Ace GRE Quant if You're Bad at Math? (Part 2) by Chelsey Cooley

You’re here because you’re bad at math, and you want to ace GRE Quant but aren’t sure how. But if you read the previous article, you know that you weren’t born without a “math organ,” and your brain is just as suitable for learning GRE Quant as anybody else’s. That doesn’t mean you don’t have challenges to overcome. But you should really be asking, How can I ace the GRE with limited math experience? Or How can I ace the GRE when I don’t know how to study math? Or even How can I get over my math anxiety and get excited about the GRE? Read more

S is for Summer AND GRE Studying!

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - S is for Summer AND GRE Studying! by Cat Powell

I am, without question, a summer person. As soon as the weather gets warm, I emerge from my perpetual crust of low-grade gloom and become the person I know I’m really meant to be: cheerful, energetic, relaxed (sort of), and ready to spend as much time as I can in the sun, near the ocean, and with friends. Ironically, the season in which I have the most energy is the one in which I’m least inclined to get anything done. Read more

Consider a Part-Time MBA — Or a European MBA Program!

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - Consider a Part-Time MBA — Or a European MBA Program! by mbaMission

Taking the GRE for your business school application? You’re in luck. Each month, we are featuring a series of admission tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner, mbaMission.


We at mbaMission often receive questions about part-time MBA programs, so we thought we should offer a look at some of the pros and cons of this option. Read more

Pluralize Nouns and Vary Sentence Length in Your Application Essays

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - Pluralize Nouns and Vary Sentence Length in Your Application Essays by mbaMission

One way to conserve words in your application essays and short-answer responses is by pluralizing nouns whenever possible. Singular words often require an article such as “a,” “an,” or “the.” These words can add unnecessarily to your word count, thereby cluttering your page without contributing to your argument or style. Consider the following example: Read more

Can You Ace GRE Quant if You’re Bad at Math? (Part 1)

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - Can You Ace GRE Quant if You're Bad at Math? (Part 1) by Chelsey Cooley

First, let’s get on the same page about what being “bad at math” really means. In my experience, GRE students who say that they’re bad at math tend to fall into these categories: Read more

How to Contextualize Goals in Your MBA Application Essay

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - How to Contextualize Goals in Your MBA Application Essay by mbaMission

Taking the GRE for your business school application? You’re in luck. Each month, we’re featuring a series of admission tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner, mbaMission.


When business school candidates read an MBA application essay prompt, they often interpret it quite literally. For example, when a school asks applicants a multi-part question such as “What will you contribute to our school’s community, and how will being part of it help you extend your professional vision?,” many applicants assume they must answer the sub-questions in the exact order in which they are asked. However, this is not true. Such questions are actually quite flexible, and sometimes, you can better engage your reader by pursuing your own structure. Read more

This Simple Visualization Exercise Will Help You Beat the GRE

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - This Simple Visualization Exercise Will Help You Beat the GRE by Chelsey Cooley

When I’m not teaching the GRE or writing this blog, I like riding my bicycle absurdly long distances. For the last five months, I’ve been training for one of the hardest bike races of my life: the 206-mile, 14-plus-hour Dirty Kanza. And now I want to share the best piece of advice I was given while training, because it applies to GRE test day just as much as it applies to bike racing. Read more

GRE Sentence Equivalence Questions: What Makes a Pair?

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - GRE Sentence Equivalence Questions: What Makes a Pair? by Cat Powell

There are two types of fill-in-the-blank vocabulary questions on the GRE: Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence. Text Completion questions ask you to fill in one, two, or three blanks with a single word; Sentence Equivalence questions ask you to fill in one blank with two words. Often, students think of these as the “synonym” questions, but that’s not entirely accurate; being too focused on looking for exact synonyms trips up some test takers. Others aren’t rigorous enough when looking for a pair. In this article, I’m going to discuss exactly what we’re looking for when we “pair” answers for Sentence Equivalence and what common traps we should avoid. Read more