Here are the free GRE events we’re holding this week (All times local unless otherwise specified):

3/18/13– Berkeley, CA – Free Trial Class- 6:30- 9:30 PM

3/20/13– Austin, TX – Free Trial Class- 6:30- 9:30 PM

Looking for more free events? Check out our Free Events Listing Page.

Happy Friday! Here’s a roundup of some great grad school tips and news links from the week:

Maximize Graduate School With a Dual Degree (U.S. News Education)

U.S. News details the difference between dual, joint, and interdisciplinary degrees and explains why these options may not be as expensive as you think.

The Best Graduate Schools for 2014: US News Releases the Rankings (Examiner)

U.S. News & World Report’s 2014 edition of the Best Graduate Schools was released online this past week. Here is the scoop on this year’s rankings.

Use These 5 Strategies to Pay for Graduate School (U.S. News Education)

According to U.S. News, one survey reported that almost 60 percent of employers offer some form of tuition assistance for grad students. Continue reading for five helpful strategies to consider when it comes to graduate school funding.
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Grouping to win.

I am not a great vocab learner. I never took Latin in high school, so I don’t know any roots. I did take Spanish “ but I was terrible at it. Ultimately for me, the best way to learn vocab is to learn vague definitions by grouping words together.

Most GRE questions can be better attacked if you know vaguely what a word means than if you have an exact definition memorized but you don’t really understand it. Sure, there are questions that depend on nuance of meaning. But if you have a basic understanding of a word, that’s almost always enough.

I find it easiest to learn vocab words by grouping them together. Two of my favorite groups are presented here. These groups contain a lot of words, so it’s helpful for both memory and for learning synonyms and antonyms.

To talk or not to talk? First, not to talk.

There are a LOT of words on the GRE that have to do with how talkative or quiet someone is. For example, the words reticent, taciturn, terse, laconic and brusque all basically mean not saying much. They are different in meaning from one another, to some extent. But I contend that you can get pretty far on the GRE without knowing that.

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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.

If a, b, and c are positive integers such that  is an integer, which of the following could be the value of x?

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Here are the free GRE events we’re holding this week (All times local unless otherwise specified):

3/11/13– Online- Mondays with Jen– 9:00PM- 10:30PM

3/12/13– Washington, D.C.- Free Trial Class- 6:30- 9:30 PM

Looking for more free events? Check out our Free Events Listing Page.

We’re using the launch of our latest book, the 5 lb. Book of GRE Practice Problems, as motivation to take a look at each of the major question types. The book contains more than 1,100 pages of practice problems “ crazy! “ so you can spend all of your spare time doing nothing but studying. (Kidding. : ) )

Let’s try out one of the problems! Give yourself approximately 1 minute to get to your answer. Afterwards, we’ll solve the problem and also discuss how to approach SE questions in general.

Note: If you haven’t done SE before, you need to pick two answers, either of which could fill in the blank!

A field trip was arranged so that this troupe of ___________ dancers could observe the real masters of their art.

•        seasoned
•        fledgling
•        expert
•        torpid
•        novice
•        lithe

© ManhattanPrep, 2013

Do you have your two answers? Let’s go! There are several important steps that help us to answer SE questions both effectively and efficiently. (Note: if you’ve already read the TC article, the steps are the same!)

(1) Read only the sentence

Read all the way to the period, but do NOT then jump to the answer choices. Instead

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Our latest book, the 5 lb. Book of GRE Practice Problems, just hit the shelves! The book contains more than 1,100 pages of practice problems (and solutions), so you can drill on anything and everything that might be giving you trouble.

We’ve already tried out a regular math problem. This time, we’re going to try out one of the weird Quantitative Comparison problems. If the question type looks unfamiliar, or if you just haven’t had much practice with QC yet, you might want to check out this introductory article first.

Alright, are you ready to try one? Give yourself about 1 minute and 15 seconds to do this problem. (Remember that these times are averages, not limits “ you can choose to take a bit longer, but don’t go beyond about 30 seconds longer than the average. At that point, all the extra time is telling you that you don’t really know how to do this one.)

0 < a <  < 9

Quantity A                                                   Quantity B

9 “ a                                                             b/2 – a 

© ManhattanPrep, 2013

 

Yuck. That inequality thing at the top doesn’t look fun. It might have been fine if it said 0 < a < b < 9, but I'm not really sure how to think about that b/2 piece.

Let’s see. So a itself is between 0 and 9. What about b/2? Here’s a cool little trick: when we have a multi-part inequality (an inequality with 3 or more pieces), we can just chop out two parts as long as we keep the correct relationship. So let’s look just at the last two parts: b/2 < 9. Read more

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.

If , what is the value of x?

Read more

Here are the free GRE events we’re holding this week (All times local unless otherwise specified):

3/10/13– New York, NY- Free Trial Class- 5:30- 8:30 PM

3/10/13– Atlanta, GA- Free Trial Class- 5:30- 8:30 PM

Looking for more free events? Check out our Free Events Listing Page.

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.

n > 0 and n² is an integer.

Quantity A

The remainder when n is divided by 1.

Quantity B

The remainder when  is divided by 1.

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