Posted by Clear Admit on November 3, 2011, at 1:00 pm
Posted in:  GMAT News , GMAT Test Prep Company Series , MBA News Some test preparation experts believe that the new GMAT exam, which the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) will introduce in June 2012, could require test-takers to study for as much as 30 to 40 extra hours in order to obtain high scores, according to an article in the Financial Times this week.
The new GMAT exam will replace one of the two essay questions that is part of the existing exam with an integrative reasoning test featuring four more types of questions than the current quantitative and verbal sections. Andrew Mitchell, director of pre-business programs at test preparation firm Kaplan, is warning prospective applicants that are planning to take the new exam that they could need to prepare for longer to get a high score.
Posted by Clear Admit on July 26, 2011, at 3:00 am
Posted in: GMAT News , GMAT Test Prep Company Series Are you thinking about applying to business school in your near future?
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Posted by Clear Admit on March 1, 2010, at 2:19 am
Posted in: Admissions Tips , GMAT Test Prep Company Series , GMAT Tips For all you “early birds” who are planning to apply to business school this fall, we wanted to offer a few tips on managing your time as it relates to the GMAT exam. Because this is an important element for many applicants in determining at which schools they will be competitive, it’s best to prep intensively and get this out of the way early in the process.
You should ideally be finished with the GMAT by mid-summer. The reason for this is that you will want to reserve the months of August, September and October for essay writing, school visits, managing your recommenders and other miscellaneous application-related tasks. The last thing you want to be doing in September is juggling the demands of GMAT prep alongside your MBA applications, your responsibilities at work, extracurricular involvements, etc.
Of course, putting the GMAT to rest by mid-summer is much easier said than done. Given the strength of the test-taking pool and the importance of earning a high score when targeting a top program, in order to be successful, you should ideally budget time for a GMAT prep-course or 8-12 weeks of solid self-study. You should then consider the fact that you may need to take the exam more than once.
Given these considerations, here is a rough schedule to follow:
April, May: Attend a GMAT prep-class, spending as much as 2 hours each weekday doing problems, use the weekends to take full-length tests (under realistic, timed conditions).
June: Take the GMAT early in the month. If you are unsatisfied with your score, work towards taking the exam again. Ideally, you’ll take a short break 1-2 weeks (to clear your mind) and then leave at least 4 weeks to prep for the second sitting of the exam. Consider hiring a tutor to address your specific needs.
July: Take the GMAT again, hopefully achieving a score that is within the range of the MBA programs on your list. If your score doesn’t improve, it may be time to reevaluate your target schools and expand your roster to ensure that your selection is realistic.
In some cases, it may make sense to parallel your work on the GMAT by simultaneously enrolling in a calculus or statistics class at your local university or community college. While this is especially true for applicants who have a weak track record in quantitative subjects and need to build an alternative transcript, in general these classes can often help applicants get the most out of their GMAT preparation.
Good luck! For more information about how the GMAT fits into the application process and on business schools in general, feel free to email info@clearadmit.com to learn about our early bird planning services or set up an initial consultation. You can also 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!
What’s your GMAT . . . → Continue Reading
Today’s GMAT challenge question comes from our friends at ManhattanGMAT. To help you with your GMAT studying, try to solve the problem on your own, and then read on for the explanation of its solution:
Problem
Two different primes may be said to “rhyme” around an integer if they are the same distance from the integer on the number line. For instance, 3 and 7 rhyme around 5. What integer between 1 and 20, inclusive, has the greatest number of distinct rhyming primes around it?
(A) 12 (B) 15 (C) 17 (D) 18 (E) 20
Solution
First, make sure that you understand the new concept that the problem presents: “rhyming primes,” which are the same distance on the number line from a central number. You are given an example: 3 and 7 rhyme around 5, since both are 2 units away from 5 on the number line. Don’t let the new terminology confuse you. Instead, try to rephrase the concept into something you’re more familiar with. Ideally, you recognize that “rhyming” is just another way to say “average (arithmetic mean)” – saying “3 and 7 rhyme around 5” is the same thing as saying “the average of 3 and 7 is 5.” So, rhyming primes rhyme around their average. Alternatively, we can say that the sum of two rhyming primes (e.g., 3 and 7) is twice the central number (2×5 = 10). Sums are quick operations, so it might be good to rephrase our question in terms of taking sums of two primes.
We are asked which integer between 1 and 20, inclusive, has the greatest number of rhyming primes around it. So we should list out the primes up to 40, since the larger number in any pair of rhyming primes that average to 20 would have to be below 40 (primes are restricted to positive integers).
Here are the primes less than 40: 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37
Rephrasing the question in terms of sums, we can ask: what number between 1 and 20, when multiplied by 2, can be expressed as a sum of two different primes from this list in the greatest number of different ways?
We should now start from the answer choices, rather than test all 20 theoretical possibilities. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut; you actually have to check the possibilities. Primes are unevenly distributed, so there’s no way to intuit the answer.
We should start by checking the highest number, because we will probably be able to construct more valid pairs around larger numbers than around smaller numbers. Construct the pairs by inspecting your list of primes. Since you know the smaller primes better than larger primes, and since the larger primes are more spread out, put the larger prime first in the potential sum, then look for the smaller prime in the second position.
(E) 20×2 = 40 37 + 3 = 40 29 + 11 = 40 23 + 17 = . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 27, 2010, at 8:00 pm
Posted in: GMAT - Verbal , GMAT News , GMAT Test Prep Company Series , GMAT Tips Today’s GMAT tip comes from our friends at Kaplan. In this article, Kaplan GMAT instructor Arthur Ahn offers advice on how to approach the Reading Comprehension section:
Let’s first note the two reasons why we read in everyday life:
1) We read because we are required (for real-life purposes) to be knowledgeable about the content we are reading: studying for a history exam, delivering on a business proposal, etc. 2) We read because we have a natural interest in the topic at hand, as in leisurely reading: a novel, an analysis of a favorite sports team, etc.
You may have already known that the GMAT does not use particularly “interesting” topics. Most content of a passage deals with topics such as a biological process, a historical event, or a technological innovation. It would be silly to simply hope that your passages on the GMAT will be about specific topics that interest you.
However, you should also not view the passages as a set of details and factoids to be memorized. Any reading passage may have up to 350 words. That would be a lot to memorize, especially for a timed test. From this passage, you may be tested on as little as two different details. This doesn’t seem very efficient. Moreover, once you are done with a passage and its accompanying questions, you will never have to care about that passage and questions again. So why put so much effort to memorize something that you’ll forget about eight minutes later?
Instead, you should keep a couple of different approaches in mind. The first is to look for structural patterns. For example, if you see any biographical passage, you’re likely to see a few sentences about the subject’s childhood and what led to that person becoming interested in what she is famous for now, and a few sentences dedicated to how she worked toward that interest. A passage about contrasting theories almost always has one paragraph dedicated on one theory, and another dedicated to the other theory, and then some sort of conclusion — sometimes advocating one over the other. Looking for structure will help streamline your reading.
In conjunction, when you start encountering specific details, think in the context of why the author mentions these things, as opposed to what those things actually are. Again, there’s no need to memorize — the passage will remain on the screen as you’re answering the relevant questions. “Why is this detail important?” or “What’s the purpose behind this paragraph?” are the questions you want to ask yourself as you’re reading; by keeping these questions in your mind, you also won’t think “this is boring”, because there’s purpose behind your reading.
Reading Comprehension, more than any other question type, tests your critical thinking and time management abilities, which are the real-life skills that business schools are looking for. Mastering these will not only lead to success on the GMAT, but also through b-school. Good luck!
For more information on Kaplan, download . . . → Continue Reading
Today’s GMAT challenge question comes from our friends at ManhattanGMAT. To help you with your GMAT studying, try to solve the problem on your own, and then read on for the explanation of its solution:
Problem
The consumer price index in Zeropia in 2009 relative to the year 2000 was 1.75, meaning that for every Zeropian dollar spent on consumer goods in 2000, $1.75 on average had to be spent in 2009. In Zeropian dollars, what was the increase in the price of Brand Z running shoes from 2000 to 2009, if these shoes’ price increased precisely according to the consumer price index?
(1) The price of Brand Z running shoes was $91 in 2009.
(2) The ratio of the dollar increase in the price of Brand Z running shoes to the price of the shoes in 2009 was 3:7.
A: Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (2) alone is not sufficient. B: Statement (2) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (1) alone is not sufficient. C: BOTH statements TOGETHER are sufficient, but NEITHER statement ALONE is sufficient. D: EACH statement ALONE is sufficient. E: Statements (1) and (2) TOGETHER are NOT sufficient to answer the question asked, and additional data are needed.
Solution
The consumer price index gives us a ratio between prices in 2000 and prices in 2009. We are told that “for every Zeropian dollar spent on consumer goods in 2000, $1.75 on average had to be spent in 2009.” In other words, if something cost X dollars in 2000, it cost 1.75×X dollars in 2009 (as long as the price increased exactly according to the index, which is just an average). In dollar terms, the increase in price would then be 1.75×X – X = 0.75×X dollars.
We are asked for this dollar price increase for Brand Z running shoes. Representing the price of these shoes in 2000 as X, as we already have, we can rephrase the question as “What is 0.75×X?” We can further rephrase this question to “What is X?”
(1) SUFFICIENT. We are told that the price of the shoes in 2009 is $91. We have represented the 2009 price as 1.75×X dollars, staying consistent with our variable naming throughout the problem (never change variable designations midstream unless you’re starting over completely). So we can write an equation:
1.75×X = 91
We know we can solve for X, so we can answer the question. (Incidentally, if we had to solve for this X on a Problem-Solving problem, one fast way would be to convert 1.75 to a fraction. 1.75 = 7/4, so we can quickly write that X = 91×4/7. Since 91/7 = 13, we get X = 13×4 = 52.)
(2) INSUFFICIENT. We are told that the price increase in dollar terms, divided by the price of the shoes in 2009, is 3/7. However, this information is already completely implied by the stem. If the index is 1.75, then any good’s price increase was 75%, or 75 cents . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 20, 2010, at 8:00 pm
Posted in: GMAT - Quantitative , GMAT News , GMAT Test Prep Company Series , GMAT Tips Today’s GMAT tip comes from our friends at Kaplan. In this article, Kaplan GMAT instructor Ben Leff offers advice on how to tackle Data Sufficiency questions:
To succeed on the GMAT, there is a general rule of Algebra that you should know: to solve for all variables in a system of equations, you need as many distinct linear equations as variables. So if you get 2 variables, you need two equations; three variables, three equations, and so on. With that in mind, think about this Data Sufficiency question:
What is the value of x?
(1) 2x + 3y = 8 (2) 3x-5y = -7
We have two variables, and once we get both statements, we’ll have two equations, so we’ll be able to solve for x. The answer is (C), or the third Data Sufficiency answer choice—together the statements are sufficient. If you’ve figured this out, that’s awesome. You’ve discovered how to save a lot of time on Test Day.
But I always tell students not to get trigger-happy. Before you pick (C), keep in mind that the GMAT often gives you situations in which we can get sufficiency with just one equation, or when two won’t be enough. Here are three of those situations:
The Vanishing Variable
What is the value of x?
(1) 3x+4y = 2(x +2y)+3 (2) 4x = y-2
Both equations have two variables, so how could one possibly be sufficient to solve for x? Let’s play with Statement (1) a bit so we can isolate x. Distribute the right side of the equation to get 3x+4y = 2x +4y+3. Then we can subtract 4y from both sides, and poof! We have a single variable equation. We certainly can solve for x. The answer is (A), statement 1 alone is sufficient to answer the question. So before you settle for (C), ask yourself if you can eliminate a variable from one equation.
Solving for a Relationship
What is the value of 2x – y?
(1) 6x + 3y= 15 (2) 6x – 3y = -3
When the GMAT asks you to solve for a relationship between variables (a sum, difference, product, or quotient), ask yourself, Can I manipulate one of the statements to solve for that relationship? If you can do this, you’ll only need one equation for sufficiency. In this case, no amount of manipulating of Statement 1 can do the trick, but let’s play with Statement 2. Divide both sides by 3, and you get 2x – y = -1. We still don’t know what x or y is, but we do know what 2x – y is. The answer is (B), statement 2 alone is sufficient.
The Disguised Twin
What is the value of x?
(1) 2x+5y = 12 (2) 4x = 24 – 10y
It seems like we have everything we need to pick (C) here. Two equations, two variables, we’re golden. Except dig a little deeper; Statement (2) should cause Déjà vu. Add 10y to both sides of . . . → Continue Reading
Today’s GMAT challenge question comes from our friends at ManhattanGMAT. To help you with your GMAT studying, try to solve the problem on your own, and then read on for the explanation of its solution:
Problem
How many factors does x have, if x is a positive integer?
(1) x = pn, where p is a prime number.
(2) nn = n + n, where n is a positive integer.
A: Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (2) alone is not sufficient. B: Statement (2) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (1) alone is not sufficient. C: BOTH statements TOGETHER are sufficient, but NEITHER statement ALONE is sufficient. D: EACH statement ALONE is sufficient. E: Statements (1) and (2) TOGETHER are NOT sufficient to answer the question asked, and additional data are needed.
Solution
We cannot easily rephrase the question. Note that we may not need to know x in order to know how many factors it has.
Statement (1): INSUFFICIENT. Without knowing the value of n, we cannot determine the number of factors x has.
Statement (2): INSUFFICIENT. This statement by itself is unconnected to the question, because the statement involves only the variable n, whereas the question only involves the variable x.
Statements (1) and (2) TOGETHER: SUFFICIENT. First, we should analyze the second statement further, to see whether we can find a unique value of n.
Since n is a positive integer, we can test simple positive integers in an organized fashion, checking for equality of the two sides of the equation.
11 = 1 + 1? No.
22 = 2 + 2? Yes.
33 = 3 + 3? No.
44 = 4 + 4? No.
Notice that the left side of the equation is growing at a much faster rate than the right side, so the equation will not be true for any higher possible values of n. Thus, we can determine that the value of n is 2.
Now, we do not know the value of p, nor of x, but we do now know that x = p2, with p as a prime number. Since a prime number has no factors other than 1 and itself, we can see that x has no factors other than 1, p, and p2. Thus, x has exactly 3 factors, and we can answer the question definitively.
The correct answer is C: BOTH statements TOGETHER are sufficient, but NEITHER statement ALONE is sufficient.
For more information on ManhattanGMAT, 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 on January 13, 2010, at 8:00 pm
Posted in: GMAT - AWA , GMAT News , GMAT Test Prep Company Series , GMAT Tips Today’s GMAT tip comes from Veritas Prep. In today’s article, they present the fifth installment of their “Think Like the Testmaker Series,” which focuses this week on the Analytical Writing Assessment:
Brian Galvin is the Director of Academic Programs at Veritas Prep, where he oversees all of the company’s GMAT prep courses.
The Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) is an interesting component of the GMAT for several reasons:
• Its score is significantly less important than your composite quant/verbal score, but the AWA score is something that schools will see as part of your application package • The AWA essays are the first section of the exam, giving you 30 minutes each for two essays before you begin the multiple-choice quantitative and verbal sections • The essays are graded in part by a computer scoring system, which should indicate that there is a similar level of “standardized” testing involved in the AWA as there is in the multiple-choice sections. What’s more, ask any teacher who has graded dozens of essays in successions and she should tell you that, by the time you’ve graded that many in a row, you’re essentially a computer or robot at that point, not taking time to be swayed by arguments or engaged by prose, but rather completing a task. Here, you can use this knowledge of how the test is scored to your advantage.
Because the essays will be graded somewhat mechanically, you can infer that you won’t be graded on your level of innovation or novelty with regard to the examples you draw or the unique nature of your arguments. Similarly, because your task is to craft an essay for each prompt in 30 minutes, you won’t be expected to write a detailed, compelling thesis paper. More practically, you will be evaluated on how you structure your argument, and not nearly as much on what your argument is. Simply put, if you put together a well-structured argument, you won’t have to worry too much about putting together a well-reasoned argument.
In order to put together a well-structured argument, you should take care to include a clear introduction and conclusion. By including transitional language that indicates you are making a point — therefore, thus, consequently, in conclusion — you can make it clear to the reader (or computer) what your position is.
Furthermore, well-structured arguments will include transition language to indicate support for your argument — furthermore, moreover, in addition, also, second, third, etc. — and language that will demonstrate that you are transitioning between opposing ideas — conversely, however, in contrast.
Simply by including such transitional language, you’ll cue the reader (or computer) to take note of the way that you have organized your argument, and you’ll also remind yourself to keep your argument organized and structured in the process. A clear, easy-to-read argument will ensure that the computer can pick up your points quickly, and that the overwhelmed-by-reading-the-same-essay-thirty-times human grader will be able to do so, . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 9, 2010, at 9:00 am
Posted in: GMAT - Verbal , GMAT News , GMAT Test Prep Company Series , GMAT Tips Today’s GMAT tip comes from our friends at Veritas Prep. In this article, they present the fourth installment of their “Think Like the Testmaker Series,” which focuses this week on sentence correction questions:
If you’ve written an essay or letter on your computer in the past few years, you’ve undoubtedly encountered that green underline somewhere in your composition that indicates that you’ve made a grammatical mistake. (Editor’s note: I guarantee that that will happen during the writing of this post.) Perhaps your subject didn’t match your verb, or your modifier was misplaced; whatever the situation, as soon as you put a period on that sentence, your computer recognized the error and not only alerted you to it, but also offered its suggestion for a correction. What a world we live in!
So why, in said world, would business schools test you on Sentence Correction as a primary means of determining your fitness for upper-level management?
Proper grammar is important for its own sake — effective communication is certainly a key element of a successful management team — but the strategic portion of these questions may well be more important to schools. In your corporate strategy classes, you’ll study the idea of “core competencies,” the smaller-scope things that a business does well, and items from which businesses should try not to stray. The ideology is that quality and efficiency are achieved through specialization, and that those who try to generalize, instead, won’t be able to compete.
Bringing that back to Sentence Correction, the writers of these questions will often try to bait you toward generalization, tempting you to discern the difference between methods of phrasing an obscure idiom or asking you to read a multi-clause, 45-word sentence five different times to see what “sounds right.” You’re applying to business school, however, not to the editorial desk of the New York Times; your “core competencies,” as they pertain to grammar, are likely somewhat limited. Accordingly, your goal should be to seek out the errors that you know how to correct, and only worry about others when absolutely necessary (which shouldn’t be often, if at all).
Consider the question:
Unlike water, which is complimentary, all passengers will need to pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.
(A) Unlike water, which is complimentary (B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge (C) Unless the drink is water, which is complimentary (D) Not like water, which is offered free of charge (E) With water being the only exception
The GMAT doesn’t explicitly test the preferential difference between “complimentary” and “free of charge,” nor does it explicitly test “unlike” vs. “besides.” It does, however, test the agreement of modifiers like “unlike water,” which cannot possibly describe “all passengers.” In fact, answer choices A,B, D, and E all make the same mistake — they attempt to modify “passengers” with “water,” which is an illogical comparison. In contrast, answer choice C changes that game, using “Unless the drink is water” as an . . . → Continue Reading
Today’s GMAT challenge question comes from our friends at Test Prep New York. To help you with your GMAT studying, try to solve the problem on your own first, and then read on for the explanation of its solution:
Television sitcom writers get no opportunities to craft scripts that are truly “out of the box.” One contributing factor is the pressure from the network to follow a formula that has a proven ability to deliver high ratings. At the same time, there is pressure from advertisers to avoid edgy or controversial material that might offend the audience. These factors taken together make it impossible for television sitcom writers to create scripts that break new ground.
Which of the following is an assumption that is required to draw the conclusion above?
(A) If advertisers believed that edgy material helped sell their products, television sitcom writers would have opportunities to write what they want.
(B) The formulas that sitcoms follow did not start out as edgy or innovative.
(C) The formulas that networks prefer are not always as safe and uncontroversial as the advertisers would like.
(D) Television sitcom writers do not engage in scriptwriting outside of that required for their jobs.
(E) The formulas, which guarantee high ratings, are also the formulas most likely to be approved by advertisers.
How should you approach this problem? First, read the set-up carefully and see whether anything seems suspicious. The set-up makes very strong claims: sitcom writers get “no opportunities” to write scripts that are out of the box; it’s “impossible” for them to create groundbreaking scripts. Remember that on the GMAT, these claims have to be taken literally: if the set-up says it’s impossible for the person to do something, it’s impossible, period. That’s an extremely strong claim, so look to see whether the argument has made an airtight case that it’s impossible.
What evidence does the set-up give to convince you that it’s impossible? Well, it tells you that writers are under pressure from both networks and advertisers. Does that prove that it’s impossible for them ever to write groundbreaking scripts? Look for loopholes. You can probably find a few. Scriptwriters could write groundbreaking scripts that never get produced because the network executives insist on approving all scripts before filming – but even if the episodes are never filmed, the writers would still have written groundbreaking scripts. Or they could write groundbreaking scripts that get filmed and aired, after which the advertisers and network executives complain, and the scriptwriters lose their jobs – but they still would have written the scripts. Or maybe the scriptwriters write scripts on the weekends that have nothing to do with the writing they do for their jobs (for all we know, maybe they want to do something different in hopes of landing new jobs). You may come up with other ways that the scriptwriters could write groundbreaking scripts, despite the pressure from the networks and the advertisers.
But now let’s . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on January 2, 2010, at 9:00 am
Posted in: GMAT - Quantitative , GMAT News , GMAT Test Prep Company Series , GMAT Tips 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 . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on December 30, 2009, at 8:00 pm
Posted in: GMAT - AWA , GMAT News , GMAT Test Prep Company Series , GMAT Tips Today’s GMAT tip comes from our friends at test prep firm ManhattanGMAT. In this article, ManhattanGMAT instructor Stacey Koprince offers advice on how to tackle the essay portion of the GMAT:
We all know that the essays on the GMAT are scored separately and that the schools don’t care as much about the essay scores. We also know we have to write the essays first, before we get to the more important quant and verbal sections, so we don’t want to use up too much brain-power on the essays. Still, we can’t just bomb the essay section; the schools do care about the essays somewhat. So how do we do a good enough job on the essays without expending so much energy that we’re negatively affected during the multiple-choice portion of the test?
We need to develop a template, an organizational framework on which to “hang” our writing. The template will not, of course, tell us exactly what to write. For that, we need the actual essay prompt, which we won’t see until we take the test. We can, however, determine how to organize the information ahead of time, as well as the general kinds of messages we need to convey at various points throughout.
The template should tell us:
-how many paragraphs to use -the primary purpose of each of those paragraphs -the kinds of information that need to be conveyed in each paragraph
The template will vary a little bit from person to person; the important thing is to have a consistent template for yourself that you’ve worked out in advance of the official test. In addition, we will need slightly different templates for the two different kinds of essays, so take note of the differences below.
As a general rule, essays should have either four or five paragraphs total. The first paragraph is always the introduction, the last paragraph is always the conclusion, and the body (middle) paragraphs are for the examples we choose to use.
Each paragraph should contain certain things; these are listed in the below sections. The information does not need to be presented in the given order below, though; just make sure that each paragraph does contain the necessary information in some sort of clear and logical order. In addition, the information listed below is the minimum necessary info; you can certainly add more where appropriate.
First Paragraph
-summarize the issue -state a thesis -acknowledge that the other side does have some merit -introduce your examples
The first paragraph should contain a brief summary of the issue at hand in your own words (don’t just repeat what the essay prompt said). For an Argument essay, briefly summarize the conclusion of the given argument. For the Issue essay, briefly summarize the issue upon which the prompt has asked you to convey your opinion. For either, you don’t need more than a one to two sentence summary.
The first paragraph should also contain a thesis statement. The thesis is typically one sentence . . . → Continue Reading
Posted by Clear Admit on December 27, 2009, at 3:00 pm
Posted in: GMAT - Quantitative , GMAT News , GMAT Test Prep Company Series , GMAT Tips Today’s GMAT tip comes from Veritas Prep. Earlier this week, we shared with you the first volume of their “Think Like the Testmaker Series.” In today’s article, they present their second installment to help you as you study:
The writers of the GMAT are tasked with a fairly difficult challenge — using fairly basic, high-school level math and verbal skills, they must create questions that will elicit incorrect answers from some of the most intelligent people on the planet. If you’re even interested in taking the GMAT, you’ve either graduated from or intend to shortly graduate from a four-year university, and you likely have at least a few years of quality work experience, plus the desire to spend two years and a healthy amount of money to obtain a Master’s degree. People like you, quite frankly, are difficult to consistently outsmart!
The writers, however, are quite sharp themselves, and realize astutely that intelligent people have learned over time to make time-saving assumptions that allow them to consistently perform at a high level without spending undue time to do so. As a multitasker, you allow yourself to take shortcuts that can be your undoing on the GMAT.
Consider this question:
How many even integers exist within the range -9 to 9?
As you attempt to answer this quickly, you’ll likely note that the range is symmetrical, and that by recognizing 2, 4, 6, and 8 as the positive even integers, you can multiply by 2 to account for all of the negative integers. Accordingly, you might choose 8 as your answer.
In doing so, however, you’ll have forgotten about 0, one of the devilish devices that the GMAT uses to bait unaware test-takers. Zero, quite literally, means “nothing,” making it an easy number to overlook. Furthermore, it’s neither positive nor negative (which mean “greater than zero” and “less than zero,” respectively), so it has no opposite in a situation like this when you might try to bank on the symmetry of the data set to shorten your workload.
To be successful on the GMAT, be keenly aware of the presence of the number 0 in any problems where it could appear. Much like a talented, multi-dimensional football player can cause defenses to always seek for his jersey number on the field (“Where’s number 5? Who’s covering number 5?”), the number 0 should keep you alert, as well. Ask yourself how 0 might factor in to each situation you face (it’s nonnegative but not positive; it’s even; when multiplied, it makes the entire product 0), as it just may be the difference-maker that the authors of the test need to keep your score down.
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