What Makes a Hard GMAT Quant Question: Part 1
Two years ago, GMAC reached out to me with an offer to curate and write explanations for their GMAT Official Advanced Questions. Since the job required selecting the “hardest” of the hard questions, they asked me to explain to them what I thought constituted a difficult GMAT question. I wrote up a pretty lengthy explanation for them, and was ultimately offered the job. Unfortunately, we eventually…
GMAT Verbal: Think Before You Write
The GMAT Verbal can be tough to crack. While GMAT Quantitative percentiles have been steadily increasing over the years (compare old GMAT Quant Percentiles from 2007 to this current Quant percentile chart), Verbal scores have mostly stagnated, with, for example, a 40 scaled score from 2007 corresponding to same percentile now (again, compare old GMAT Verbal percentiles to this current Verbal percentile chart). The increase…
Using (and Misusing) GMAT Practice Tests
Among the many myths that abound regarding optimal preparation for the GMAT, one of the more common and, unfortunately, more harmful ones is that there exists a direct relationship between quantity of practice tests taken and score improvements. And, unfortunately, this myth is perpetuated by large GMAT classes that will advertise 6 or 8 or 15 practice tests in conjunction with their course offerings. All…
GMAT Quantitative Errors: Understanding Incorrect Answers
When most people miss a GMAT quant question, the ensuing chain of events tends to be some version of the following: refer to the answer explanation, make sure they understand the explanation, re-do the question, and move on to the next question. Though such an approach certainly benefits test-takers whose only issue is conceptual, it grossly oversimplifies the numerous factors involved in the problem-solving process….
GMAT Critical Reasoning vs Data Sufficiency: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Traditional GMAT wisdom suggests that the skills needed for success on the Verbal section overlap little, if at all, with one’s quantitative abilities. Given our educational system and the very fact that the GMAT has separate Quantitative and Verbal sections, such a distinction seems uncontroversial and downright obvious. But, as we all know, the structure and content of the GMAT can often run against our…
Using the LSAT for GMAT Practice: User Beware
As an independent tutor, I pride myself in taking unorthodox approaches to meet my clients’ needs. Sometimes, this requires creativity in how I teach a concept, how I structure a lesson, or how I assign homework to my students. A good GMAT tutor will target your specific needs, and if that requires breaking from convention, then that’s what we’ll have to do. However, one area in…
GMAT Data Sufficiency: “I don’t know” vs “Not Sufficient”
If you’ve been preparing at all for GMAT data sufficiency, you’ve probably been confronted with situations in which the information in the statement seems inscrutable. You know that it’s telling you something, but you’re not quite sure what, if any, relevance the information has to the question in the prompt. This, in and of itself, is a fairly common situation. Even though almost all Data Sufficiency statements…
Pigeonholing GMAT Questions
This post is inspired by a recent student of mine who was able to improve from a 480 on his diagnostic to a 660 on the real GMAT. He was great at categorizing GMAT questions, but he really started seeing a jump after he took the below advice to heart. If you spend enough time studying for the GMAT, you inevitably run into advice espousing…
No “Almosts” on GMAT Verbal
So you’ve been studying a couple months for the GMAT. You’ve seen an increase in your Verbal score, but now you’ve suddenly plateaued. When you do a set of 20 Critical Reasoning or Reading Comprehension questions, you consistently get 15 right, but you’ve been stuck at this rate for a couple weeks. But, there’s good news! You were between the correct and incorrect answer on…
GMAT Timing Tip: Is It Time to Guess?
If you even scratch the surface of a GMAT prep book, a GMAT forum, or just a random GMAT conversation on the street (those do happen, I swear), you’ll hear something about the scoring algorithm — that you MUST get the first 10 questions right, that you’re doing poorly if you get an easy question in the middle of the test, and so on (both…