Here are the free GRE events we’re holding this week.

9/17/12 – Chicago, IL – Free Trial Class – 6:30-9:30 PM

9/18/12 – Austin, TX – Free Trial Class – 6:30-9:30 PM

9/19/12 – Atlanta, GA – Free Trial Class – 6:30-9:30 PM

9/23/12 – New York, NY – Free Trial Class – 5:30-8:30 PM

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

Of three possible events, events A and B are independent, and events B and C are mutually exclusive. The probabilities that the individual events A, B, and C will occur are 0.5, 0.3, and 0.2, respectively. What is the probability that both event A and event C will occur?

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Here are the free GRE events we’re holding this week.

9/10/12 – Denver, CO – Free Trial Class – 6:30-9:30 PM

9/10/12 – Online – Free Trial Class – 8:00-11:00 PM

9/11/12 – Online – Mondays with Jen GRE Study Hall – 7:00-8:30 PM

9/10/12 – New York, NY – Free Trial Class – 6:30-9:30 PM

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

Have you started studying Number Properties yet? Most people find this topic on the more difficult side in general, particularly the area of divisibility and prime. We did learn all of these basic concepts years ago, when we were about 8 or 10 years old “ number properties refers to all of the building blocks we use later in school to do algebra, geometry, and more advanced math.

However, most of what we learned in school was at a much more basic level (we were only 10 after all!) and we also didn’t have to understand the number properties theory or answer questions that were anything like some of the bizarre-seeming questions we find on standardized tests.

Let’s try this problem first (© Manhattan Prep) from our GRE Number Properties Strategy Guide. Set your timer for 2 minutes.

The quantity 3³4⁴5⁵6⁶ “ 3⁶4⁵5⁴6³ will end in how many zeros?

(A) 3

(B) 4

(C) 5

(D) 6

(E) 9

Got your answer? Great, let’s get started. You want to know what the correct answer is? Let me ask you a couple of questions first.

Are you confident about your answer? Did you end up having to guess? Did you give up without guessing? (If the last, make a guess right now. You can’t keep reading till you do. Well, obviously I can’t stop you, but I’m serious “ make a guess.)

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Here are the free GRE events we’re holding this week.

9/4/12 – New York City – Free Trial Class – 6:30-9:30 PM

9/5/12 – Berkeley, CA – Free Trial Class – 6:30-9:30 PM

9/5/12 – Washington, D.C. – Free Trial Class – 6:30-9:30 PM

9/9/12 – Boston – Free Trial Class – 5:30-8:30 PM

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

At Medville Hospital, Drug X is prescribed only for Condition A and Condition B, which may occur simultaneously in the same patient. Last year, the department recorded the following statistics for prescriptions of Drug X.

Condition	Number of Cases (i.e. Number of patients with the condition)	% of cases in which Drug X was prescribed
A	4,000	25
B	2,000	80

Which of the following could be the number of Medville Hospital patients for whom Drug X was prescribed last year?

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Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

Did you know that you can find everything you ever wanted to know about Reading Comprehension here on our blog? Well, okay, perhaps I’m exaggerating just a little but not that much! Follow the links! 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.

The volume of a chemical solution in a tank is described by the formula , where k is a constant, T is the temperature, c is the concentration of the chemical solution, and p is the atmospheric pressure.  The solution in the tank can be either hot or cold.  When hot, c is half of what it is when cold, p is double what it is when cold, and T is triple what it is when cold.

If the tank can be no more than  full when hot for safety reasons, what is the maximum fraction of capacity to which the tank can be filled when the solution is cold?

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How much did you study for the GRE this past week-end? For how many hours? Over how many sittings? What did you study and how did you study it?

Most importantly: how many breaks did you take and how long were they?

Time Magazine just published a fascinating little article: To Boost Memory, Shut Your Eyes and Relax. Go take a look at it. Don’t worry, I’ll wait. : )

Has this happened to you? You have ambitious plans to study a ton of things this week-end. You get tired, but you’re determined to push through, so you keep studying. You begin to get a bit anxious because you feel you aren’t learning well (and you’re not!), so you study even more. You get even more tired, and that makes it even harder to learn. By the end of the week-end, you’re exhausted, frustrated, and demoralized.

You may have already heard me say this (many times on various forums or in blog posts!), but I’m saying it again because it’s so important: your brain makes better memories when it’s not tired.

The Time article quotes Michaela Dewar, the lead author of a new research study on this topic. She notes that we are at a very early stage of memory formation when we first start to study new information, and further neural processes have to occur after this stage for us to be able to remember this information at a later point in time.

The italics are mine. Note what Ms. Dewar has said: more stuff has to happen in our brains after we have studied this info in order for us to be able to recall that information later on.

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This incredible post on Gawker catalogues the rather prodigious vocabulary displayed in Mariah Carey’s oeuvre.

The post does seem to be making fun of Carey a bit:

Her lyrics are littered with, as she might say, peculiar words that suggest she is a vocabulary booster enthusiast. She loves her some adverbs. The result is a body of words that are rarely, if ever, heard in pop music.

(What’s a “booster enthusiast”? Considering that one definition of booster — and the only definition that really applies to a person — is “enthusiast,” I think “booster enthusiast” is a bit redundant.)

In any case, I read over the entire list of lyrics, lyrics like:

“I can’t be elusive with you honey / ‘Cause it’s blatant that I’m feeling you”

“Do you care for me beyond idolization?”

“I had a crush on you / Painstakingly I would conceal the truth”

“Keep pressing on steadfastly”

“Thoughts run wild as I sit and rhapsodize”

“After so much suffering I finally found unvarnished truth”

“My defenses start to wane”

… and Mariah Carey is basically using those words correctly.

We think she’d do pretty well on the GRE! At least the verbal part.

Check out the entire list here.

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