GMAT Tip: Think Like the Testmaker Series, Volume 3 » Clear Admit: MBA Admissions Consultants Blog

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Admissions Director Q&A
Below are links to Clear Admit's exclusive interviews with MBA admissions directors at leading programs.
Dawna Clarke (Tuck)
Rose Martinelli (Chicago)
Judith Hodara (Wharton)
Sara Neher (Darden)
Soojin Kwon Koh (Michigan)
Randall Sawyer (Cornell)
Beth Flye (Kellogg)
David Simpson (LBS)
Liz Riley Hargrove (Duke)
Linda Meehan (Columbia)
Bruce DelMonico (Yale)
Peter Johnson (Berkeley)
Isser Gallogly (NYU)
Mae Jennifer Shores (UCLA)
J.J. Cutler (Wharton)
Jake Cohen (INSEAD)
Rod Garcia (MIT Sloan)
Mary Miller (Columbia)

Clear Admit School Guides
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Clear Admit Career Guides
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Clear Admit Strategy Series
Craft a winning application with the Clear Admit Strategy Series! Step-by-Step guidance through the application process. Titles include a Resume Guide, Recommendations Guide, Waitlist Guide and more!

Clear Admit Interview Guides
Be as prepared as possible for your MBA interviews this season with the Clear Admit Interview Guides! School-specific sample questions and in-depth strategy, campus visit details and places to stay.

Application Deadlines
Below are the upcoming deadlines for admission to top-tier schools.
Feb 10: INSEAD R3
Mar 1: Michigan / Ross R3
Mar 3: CBS
Mar 3: LBS R3
Mar 4: Kellogg R3
Mar 8: Cambridge / Judge R4
Mar 8: CMU / Tepper R3
Mar 9: Duke / Fuqua R3
Mar 9: Penn / Wharton R3
Mar 10: Berkeley / Hass R4
Mar 10: Chicago Booth R3
Mar 10: Yale SOM R3
Mar 15: NYU / Stern R3
Mar 17: UCLA / Anderson R3
Mar 19: UNC / Kenan-Flagler R4
Mar 30: Cornell / Johnson R4
Mar 31: UVA / Darden R3
Mar 31: INSEAD R4
Apr 1: UT-Austin / McCombs
Apr 2: Dartmouth / Tuck R3
Apr 2: Oxford / Saїd R3
Apr 7: Stanford GSB R4
Apr 8: Harvard R3
Apr 14: CBS

Essay Topic Analysis
Below are links to our comments on some of the top programs' essay topics.
The Career Goals Essay
Berkeley / Haas*
Chicago Booth*
CMU / Tepper*
Columbia*
Cornell / Johnson*
Dartmouth / Tuck*
Duke / Fuqua*
Harvard*
Indian School of Business*
INSEAD*
London Business School*
MIT / Sloan*
Michigan / Ross*
Northwestern / Kellogg*
NYU / Stern*
Oxford / Said*
Penn / Wharton*
Stanford GSB*
UCLA / Anderson*
UNC / Kenan-Flagler*
USC / Marshall*
UT Austin / McCombs*
UVA / Darden*
Yale SOM*
* denotes '09-'10 commentary

Categories
Use categories to access all that has been written on each of the topics. We have categorized by school and by subject matter.

Interview Reports
A selection of interview field reports from fellow applicants posted to the MBA Admissions Wiki. Add your reports when you are finished with your interviews.
Chicago
Columbia
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Harvard
Kellogg
Michigan / Ross
MIT / Sloan
Stanford
UNC / Chapel Hill
Virginia / Darden
Wharton
London Business School

GMAT Resources
MBA.com
Manhattan GMAT
GMAT Club
Princeton Review
Test Prep New York
Kaplan
Beat The GMAT
Knewton

Writing Resources
Guide to Grammar and Writing
The Internet Grammar of English
English Usage, Style and Composition
The Economist Style Guide
Paradigm Online Writing Assistant

School Rankings
Rankings are a good way to start your research on various MBA Programs. Keep in mind each uses a different methodology.
Business Week
Economist
Financial Times
Forbes
USNews
Wall Street Journal

Career Guides
The following resources should be useful to those who want to research the careers open to them after (or before) earning an MBA.
Vault.com
Wetfeet

Business School Resources
The following are business resources offered by a variety of leading Business Schools. It's useful to subscribe to these resources, especially for the schools to which you are applying.

MBA Programs: North America
If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
Berkeley / Haas
Boston College / Carroll
Carnegie Mellon / Tepper
Chicago
Columbia
Concordia
Cornell / Johnson
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Emory / Goizueta
Harvard
HEC Montreal
Indiana / Kelley
Michigan
MIT / Sloan
Northwestern / Kellogg
New York / Stern
North Carolina / Kenan Flagler
Notre Dame / Mendoza
Pennsylvania / Wharton
Queens
Stanford
Syracuse / Whitman
Texas / McCombs
Thunderbird
Toronto
USC / Marshall
UCLA / Anderson
Vanderbilt / Owen
Virginia / Darden
Washington University in St. Louis / Olin
Western Ontario / Ivey
Yale

MBA Programs: Rest of the World
As there is some variety in the length of international MBA programs, we have denoted the length of the program next to its name (1 = one year; 2 = 2 years). If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
AGSM (Australia) 2
Cambridge / Judge (UK) 1
CIEBS (China) 2
Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (China) 1
Cranfield School of Mgmt (UK) 1
ESADE (Spain) 1 or 2
HEC (France) 2
Hult (UK) 1
IESE (Spain) 2
IMD (Switzerland) 1
INCAE (Costa Rica) 2
INSEAD (France) 1
IPADE (Mexico)
ISB (India) 1
London Business School (UK) 2
Manchester Bus. School (UK) 2
Melbourne (Australia) 2
Oxford / Said (UK) 1
Rotterdam (Netherlands) 1
Tsinghua IMBA (China) 2
University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) 1

Additional Resources
Here we link a host of additional resources available across the web. E-mail info@clearadmit.com to have resources added to this list.
AACSB International
Association of MBAs
Beyond Grey Pinstripes
EFMD
gradschools.com (worldwide)
Infozee
International Student Loans
mba.com (GMAT Scores)
MBAInfo
mbaleague.blogspot.com
MBAzone
MBA Jungle
TOEFL
Top MBA

MBA Tipline
We encourage admissions officers, students and applicants to alert us of interesting news and developments, please send an email to news@clearadmit.com so we can blog it.

Blog Archive

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Saturday, January 02, 2010

GMAT Tip: Think Like the Testmaker Series, Volume 3

Today’s GMAT tip comes from the folks at Veritas Prep. In today’s article, they present the third installment of their “Think Like the Testmaker Series,” which focuses this week on data sufficiency questions:

Admit it, data sufficiency questions are frustrating. They’re phrased in an awkward way — we live in a results-oriented society, where we want to get the answer, solve the problem, and move on. Why would we want to spend time simply determining if we can? Those who can do, and those who can’t have no business at a top business school, right?

To an extent, the above statement is an underlying philosophy behind the data sufficiency setup. Think about it — the GMAT should reward those who can solve problems with limited information more often than it rewards those who can’t. By that logic, E is an “inferior” answer choice to the others — E simply says that “the problem cannot be solved with the information given.” Now, if it were always incorrect, it would be a waste of an answer choice, so it has to be a plausible answer, but it stands to reason that business schools don’t want to reward the “I don’t know, so I guess it can’t be done” guess too often.

Consider the answer choices in this way:

D — with either piece of information on its own, I can solve it

A / B — I can solve it with one, but just can’t do it with the other

C – I can’t quite do it with either alone, but I can solve it with both of them

E — I can’t solve it with this information

The above is a loosely hierarchical structure. It’s not that D is inherently a “better” choice, but you can see why the Stanford GSB is likely to be more confident about admitting someone who can solve problems in multiple ways than admitting someone who can’t. Thinking strategically, then, you should approach data sufficiency problems this way: If you feel that it was relatively easy to arrive at an answer choice, be sure to check the “level” above it to ensure that you couldn’t have squeezed more out of the information given.

Consider a problem such as:

Is the product of integers xy > 2?

1) x + y = 3

2) x — y = 1

You might be inclined to select choice C, noting that, with two equations and two variables, you’ll be able to solve for both variables and definitively answer the question. However, it should seem pretty obvious that you’ll be able to do so, which might give you pause — they’re probably testing something deeper. If you look closer at statement 1, then, you can notice that, if x and y are both positive, the only combinations that will work are 1, 2 and 2, 1. In either case, the product is 2, which is not greater than 2. If we want either x or y to be larger than 2, our options are 3, 0 (in which case the product is 0, which is less than 2) or something greater than 3 and a negative number, in which case the product will be negative. Accordingly, there simply isn’t a combination that could possibly give us the answer “yes,” so we can conclude that statement 1 is sufficient.

Questions like this are common on the GMAT, which has a vested interest in determining who can make the most of their resources and do more with less. Knowing this, push yourself to consider the “higher level” answer choices on data sufficiency questions, and you should put yourself in position to reap those rewards.

For more information on Veritas Prep, download Clear Admit’s independent guide to the leading test preparation companies here. This FREE guide includes coupons for discounts on test prep services at ten different firms!

# posted by Clear Admit @ 9:00 am in GMAT - Quantitative, GMAT News, GMAT Test Prep Company Series, GMAT Tips

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A selection of the latest updates to MBA blogs compiled by Hella.
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MBA Students

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The following are links to bloggers at each of the schools listed.
Chicago
Columbia
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Harvard
Kellogg
Michigan
MIT / Sloan
New York / Stern
North Carolina / Chapel Hill
Stanford
Virginia / Darden
Wharton
Yale
ESADE
IESE
INSEAD
London Business School

Community Blogs

Bshoolers.com
Community blog with MBA student and alum contributors.

Forté Foundation MBA Diaries
Video blog entries posted by women MBA students.

Owen Bloggers
Independent blog with content by Vanderbilt MBA students.

Best of Blogging

2008-2009 Top Ten: