Did you take practice tests scoring well but then do horribly on the actual exam?

You might be suffering from panic anxiety on the real exam. This is actually quite common but a lot of people just don’t know why things changed when they take the actual exam.

The issue is that taking the actual exam under test conditions is a lot different from answering questions while leisurely studying. Your brain will have already spent a good 20-30minutes writing 2 essays for the Writing Section. It’s only after your brain has written two essays from scratch that you begin answering GMAT questions that actually count.

So what happens is you PAY EVEN MORE ATTENTION. You stay more ALERT, try to be more FOCUSED. This actually works against you, especially for the reading comprehension section.

By paying more attention, you start reading every sentence in the passage and will start to overanalyze every word – this is going to slow you down. Worse, it’s going to make you so bogged down into the details of the passage you don’t even remember where it started off at. Only your short term memory works and the only thing you remember is the last sentence you read…not the idea of the passage.

How to CRITICALLY THINK in Reading Comprehension Passages

If you’ve been reading through RC passages without much critical thinking, you are going to do horribly on the actual test. You can’t JUST read the passage, you have to think critically as you go through it. A lot of RC guides out there will say not to read the whole passage – just read the first sentence of each paragraph and skip around. That’s the general gist, but it’s not JUST reading the first sentence. It’s combination of dissecting those first sentences in search of author’s opinion, then focusing on key transitive phrases that cue us into the direction the author is heading, then ignoring the rest of the sentences/paragraphs entirely to move onto the author’s next point. Painting this picture and how it evolves is key and the starting point is dissecting that first sentence.

The first best strategy after this general pattern of connecting the dots (ie connecting the author’s purpose from the first sentence of each paragraph), is to dissect those sentences by CUTTING THE FLUFF. Just like the same strategy we recommended in our well-received Sentence Correction Pill, cutting the fluff is going to help us focus more on SENTENCE STRUCTURE rather than DETAILS of the topic sentences in each paragraph.

When you adrenaline is running high on the exam, tell your brain to focus on CUTTING THE FLUFF – not reading the passage. Focus on sentence structure. Remove extraneous, descriptive, colorful phrases from convoluted, complex, and meaninglessly long sentences to get a simplified version that looks like this:

“Remove phrases from sentences to get a simplified version” [after cutting the fluff]

Related Resources:

• Reading Comprehension Tips

As always, we love receiving emails from students who express their gratitude for the GMAT Pill.

Of course, not all students experience dramatic results–but many do! Here’s what one has to say:

Some notable quotes:
“The GMAT Pill is really an excellent tutoring program”

“I studied 2 full months and I scored badly in the official exam…
…I purchased [GMAT Pill]…I remade all the 140 sample questions of the Official Guide yesterday and missed only 12″

GMAT Prep is not easy. It takes dedication and focus and also a willingness to change the way you think. Some students are rigid and not willing to listen to what others have to say. It is important to be open to new ideas and embrace them to your own learning style.

I am happy to see this student put full focus and energy into his experience with GMAT Pill and see dramatic improvements!

GMAT Pill Table of Contents – Watch Tons of Free Videos Organized By Category

The Last Minute GMAT Prep Study Plan

GMAT Scoring: The 4 GMAT Scores On Your Report

Due to tons of customer requests, the GMATPill Reading Comprehension Pill is finally RELEASED today! February 2011! We have 17 Reading Comprehension passages – all of them come with video tutoring explanations provided by Zeke Lee. Over the next few weeks we’ll add a few more as they are being processed still – but 17 RC passages with video explanations is plenty to work with.

These videos include well over 11 hours of reading thought process strategy, spoken out so you can process exactly how to comprehend and understand sections of these boring reading passages. If you’ve always had a tough time with reading comprehension, or always got stuck between several answer choices because for some reason they ALL seemed to be a good answer… then you’ve come to the right place. Check out this brand new RC Pill – the first video based approach in the GMAT Prep market to attacking reading comprehension, with a particular focus on thought process.

Free Preview for New Members

RC Passage: Genetic Mutations
RC Passage: Caffeine

GMATPill RC Pill Membership

General RC Passage Tips
RC Passage: Archaeology (from the Official Guide)
RC Passage: Austen
RC Passage: Avian Flu
RC Passage: Caffeine
RC Passage: Eatonville
RC Passage: Ecoefficiency
RC Passage: Farming
RC Passage: Federal
RC Passage: Free Market
RC Passage: Genetic Mutations
RC Passage: Industrial Revolution
RC Passage: Outsourcing
RC Passage: Oxygen
RC Passage: Predator (from the Official Guide)
RC Passage: Price-Reduction
RC Passage: Progressive Education
RC Passage: Portrait

Related Resources:
Reading Comprehension Tips
RC Cut the Fluff

So I received some questions regarding sentence structure clarifications.

These questions this student is asking are actually pretty important to understand so make sure you take a look at these responses.

GMAT Questions This is a history of selected GMAT Questions that GMATPill goes over with students.
GMAT Verbal – From 690 to 760 – This student improved from 690 to 760 ONLY with Verbal improvement (he already aced the Quant section the first time. Find out how he used GMAT Pill to achieve this score, get off the waitlist—AND get a $50,000 MBA scholarship!!!
GMAT Reading Comprehension – Perhaps the best video guide to the GMAT reading comprehension section ever created.

Getting into a top business school is as much about being a STELLAR candidate as it is about putting together a GREAT application. The GMATPill Study Method will help you get above that threshold to be “qualified” to apply. But just as scoring well on the GMAT exam requires you to *think* in a different way, applying to “top” business schools will require you to think about the process in a different way as well.

Part 1: Being a Stellar Candidate at a Top Business School

Being a stellar candidate. This is what you spend 4 years (median) of your life to develop. You start working, understanding how business works, how people work, and what it takes to get ahead. This is your real world work experience and business schools pride in their students’ ability to contribute to classroom discussions about real world problems that business executives face.

1. Diversity in Class Profile: MBA Programs will want representation from various types of applicants

By nature, certain industries play a big role in shaping the business landscape. Investment banking, private equity, management consulting. These fields deal with business at a very high level. Schools will want about just as many candidates from various business sectors of the economy – usually no real preference for any sector unless the industry is poised for significant growth. Then a handful of candidates will be in miscellaneous fields as noted below.

So as an MBA applicant yourself, think about where you fit in given such a target class profile. Take note of the size of the MBA class you are applying to. For example, NYU has about ~400 students in their MBA class. This means that if you are an investment banker, you are competing for one of 180 Finance/Consulting designated positions. More importantly, the number of applicants of this type tend to be extremely large.

On the other hand, if you are applying from a non-profit background, you are competing for one of 20 (or even less) such designated spots. But at the same time, the number of applicants in this field tend be extremely low.

So if you find yourself comparing yourself to someone else with different credentials who got into your school of choice – think twice. You should be looking at how you stand out in the overall class profile and judge whether you would be adding value or diversity to the business school.

The figures below are *approximate* but represent a good way to think of incoming MBA Class Profiles for some of the top schools.

2. Excelling in Your Role

– An advanced position where your role changed and you began handling underlings, interacting more frequently with clients, taking on a greater range of responsibilities. Whatever the case may be, it’s important to paint a picture of this *change* in your career. It is this change that is the foundation for your stories on tough challenges you faced, risks you engaged in, people management issues you confronted, etc.
– The technical and the managerial. Business requires technical competency. Above this standard is an industry built around people – networking, handling clients, managing below and above you, building rapport with colleagues, etc. Being a competent business professional who can work well with others is a key attribute for successful business executives.
– “Work well with others” is certainly a very fuzzy concept – but it involves communication skills that are extremely important on the job. Whether it’s oral communication, ability to build rapport with new strangers/clients, ability to hold conversation in politics, sports, business, family, travel, etc. —all of these soft skills are important and will be reflected in your recommendations and ultimately your career progression.

3. Globalization Perspective

– This largely applies to students at top business schools. The world’s future business leaders understand global dynamics, language / cultural differences, and the beauty of a global perspective. International experience for at least 6 months or more is a big plus. It is this international perspective that makes top business schools unique – and a notch ahead of other business schools.
– If you don’t have six months abroad, any experience that may help you paint yourself as culturally unique is helpful (growing up in a foreign country like Peru, Brazil; study abroad programs; internship/conferences abroad).
– If you really don’t have any of these experiences, try to seek out these opportunities if you can. But don’t sweat it. Not having an international experience that you can point to and show DOES NOT MEAN that you are a bad candidate. It just means that among the applicant pool, it’s harder for you to stand out and differentiate yourself. Think about the business of marketing products on supermarket shelves – there are a ton of great products. Sometimes consumers can’t tell the difference between two brands, but one that has a bell and whistle might just stand out as more attractive – even though its technical specifications might be lower. Just keep that in mind. For top schools, you’ll need to stand out in other ways.

Part 2: Putting together a GREAT application for Top Business Schools

1. Scoring high enough on the GMAT Exam (>700 for top business schools)

At top business schools, most admits are 700 and above with a some below. In this day and age with test prep resources available to so many students, don’t neglect this valuable resource to help you get ahead. The fact that there might be so many programs out there that might help you “beat the system”, the data continues to show that students with higher GMAT scores fare better in business schools. One important note is that scores tend to fall after the GMAT test itself changes, so watch out! In June 2012, the GMAT will add a new section (in addition to Verbal and Quant) called Integrated Reasoning. And from what I’ve seen, these questions are much more real world questions that may involve manipulating an excel-type table, looking at charts, and choosing multiple answer choices.

2. GMAT Exam >700 Even for NEAR top business schools?!

If I were to guess, I’d say more than 30% of applicants who scored 700 and above get rejected at top business schools. So where do they go? These remaining 70% of folks fill up all the other business schools that are just a notch below. And so that makes these “near top business schools” even more competitive, especially as more and more students score over 700 each year. When this happens, the scores realign and it becomes even harder to score the same score. To prevent this vicious cycle, GMAT needs applicants to score lower and so it is making a change to the exam and updating it to reflect more real world type problems. All that matters to you is getting a respectable solid score, so that the admissions committee will have interest to READ your essay.

Personally, I think scoring above a 700 requires a lot of thinking. A different way of thinking. And in my opinion the test prep companies out there were ineffective – based on everything I heard from my friends. Question after question with the assumption that practice makes perfect.

Well, smart people will realize that continual practice without guidance will NOT make you perfect because eventually you’ll reach a point where your score just won’t go any higher. It might take a movie like “Inception” to rewire your thinking, but my new assumption is that improving your score requires a different way of THINKING. And it is this thought process that I teach and that I feel is the most effective method to boosting your score. Empower yourself to THINK like a top test taker.

4. Application Essays

This is probably the most important part of your application. What is your story? Can you paint a picture for us of who you are? Do you fit the profile of somebody who has the mindset to make a big contribution in business? Everyone faces risks and problems, how have you dealt with yours in the past? What have you learned that you can take away for the future?

Storytelling skills are important here. This is vital, as admissions people are human after all, they want to get to know you and feel the emotions of what makes you a standout candidate. Let’s take, for example, a situation where you took on greater responsibilities with a client.

Story Telling Your Application
• A. Assume a framework and make a concerted effort to capture the emotions associated with that framework
  
  Take the position that you normally do analytical work and don’t interact with the client – capture your emotions of being eager, ambitious, and nervous at the same time.
• B. Introduce characters and challenges
  
  The “situation” – who are the characters and what are their roles? You can mention your boss, you, the client who might be a VP and his respective analyst. You might include descriptions like very aggressive or very lazy, maybe even unresponsive, etc. Do what you need to do to paint a picture of the “scene”.
• C. Development – tell the story with rising action
  
  This is where you talk about the project and how it progressed. You did the analysis, shared your work, got some feedback from the client and re-edited your work with those comments. Then as presentation went on to the next level, the analytical work was largely ignored and just became a discussion that went on for hours. Ultimately negotiation for the deal came down to making the other party feel comfortable – the deal was signed and you helped the firm earn a fee.
• Climax / Turning Point / Twist:
  So, basically the climax was just told before – the deal got signed. But more importantly for application essays, you’ll need to reinterpret this event in your eyes to capture the “aha” moment for you. This is where you talk about what you learned and how it changed you. What do you see differently now? As a result, what do you do differently now?

  As an analyst, you were always focused on number crunching. But through a series of meetings at the client level, you started seeing how business was not really just number crunching. Once you got beyond this level, business was business. In fact, it blew you away that the number crunching that took you hours to work on was not even mentioned in discussions with the client. You started seeing that business was much more people oriented than you had imagined before. As a result, you started lifting up your head and thinking about how discussions with the client would go. You would get through your number crunching as fast as possible, then immediately start thinking about higher level business questions on your own. You took more responsibility to think at a higher level before discussing with your boss – consequently you became more prepared to handle discussions with clients and began contributing more at this higher level.

  This is just one way to tell your story which paints you as someone gradually rising the ranks. This is a great attribute. At the same time, be careful of how you tell your story because that is how the admissions committee will brand you and perceive you. Remember, they are going to want a diverse student body with diverse perspectives. If you have a unique story that can be told using the same storytelling elements described above, then you’ll have an edge.

5. Recommendations

Hot Shot Recommendation: In the business world, recommendations are social proof. Getting one from a big name guy in the industry who is widely recognized is a huge plus. If your boss is a hot shot or your client is a hot shot (CEO, CFO, Founder, etc) etc, then fantastic! All of these guys can give great recommendations. While it’s a great leg up, it’s still important for them to convey how you were a business success for the firm. When it comes down to it – how did you bring in money for the firm or save money for the firm? What about people skills – did you facilitate business moving forward thru your ability to work well with others? Did the CEO/CFO like you? Or did conflicts ultimately get in the way of business achievement?

How likely are you to get a hot shot recommendation? This largely depends on where you work – it’s rare to get this type of recommendation.

Boss Recommendation: Typically a candidate may have several bosses. As you’ve worked for them, typically they can gauge how well they work with you, how smart they think you are, and how capable of success in the business they think you are. If your boss loves you, he’ll write a genuinely positive recommendation for you – emphasizing certain character traits that stand out. Hopefully there’s one meaningful/impactful project that he can point to and show how you stepped up and contributed. Top business schools stress an assessment on communication skills – both oral and written – this is a fuzzy concept as I described above. But generally, companies with reviews will mention this. In general, make sure you’re on your boss’s good side. Express your opinions. Find common ground with your boss on topics that are interesting to the both of you. Building rapport is important as it creates a lasting impression of you.

Busy Boss Recommendation: In a lot of cases, your boss will be busy and will have to go out of his way to write your recommendation. To make his task easier, jot down key accomplishments you would like him to note in bullet format. Ideally, a recommendation is most meaningful when the recommender can write about a particular instance that allows certain positive character traits to stand out.

Ultimately, applying to business school is a complex process that is long-term (your 4+ years of work experience), challenging (GMAT Exam Score), and self-reflective (application essays).

-Zeke Lee
The GMATPill Study Method
www.gmatpill.com

Take the GMAT Exam

GMAT Reading Comprehension Videos from GMATPill

GMAT Test Dates

It’s always great to speak with another fellow Stanford guy and here we are today with Andy Juang!

Listen to my interview with Andy, a hedge fund guy who will be starting Stanford business school in the fall. We’ll be talking about the MBA admissions process, life after getting in, and some GMAT advice. Why would a hedge fund guy go to business school? What happens after you get in? What about Stanford’s notoriously dreaded essay question? Listen and find out!

Intro Transcript

GMATPill: And here we are at GMATPill.com – today we have with us someone who got into Stanford Business School – Andy Juang. Andy will be sharing with us a little bit about his experience applying and getting into business school, taking the GMATs, writing those essays. So before we get into Q&A–Andy, why don’t you introduce yourself. Talk a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you do, where you come from.

Andy: Thanks for having me on this call here. Happy to be here. So a little bit about my background. I grew up in Tennessee. I went to Michigan for a couple years, transferred, graduated undergrad at Wharton back in 07 and spent a year in investment banking and then 3 years working at a hedge fund doing healthcare investing. And now I will be heading to Stanford in the fall.

GMATPill: Very, very good. So you mentioned you’ve been in the hedge fund space for 3 years. Typically we hear about people in the investment banking route or management consulting route who apply to get their MBA. I’m just curious–what is the rationale for a hedge fund analyst like yourself to go for his MBA? What made you decide to take the GMAT and apply for business school?

Andy: I think taking the GMAT versus actually applying to business school—were definitely easier decisions. In terms of the GMATs, really it gives you optionality in terms of applying so that was a no-brainer for me. But in terms of applying to business school, there are really quite a few reasons for me and a lot of them were some atypical reasons. Some of the typical ones that people apply for is–they’re trying to get into better industry or better company. Maybe they aren’t satisfied with their undergraduate credential. Like you said, management consulting or private equity–maybe the industry requires it. Or they need a break or something like that. All those things kind of—I felt like it didn’t really apply to me. Because the hedge fund industry–you don’t really need an MBA necessarily. But for me, I did want to meet a lot of great, smart people. So expanding the network–broadening it. I wanted to move out to California on a permanent basis so Stanford’s a great segue to build that network. I thought it would be great to brush up on more qualitative skills, my management, my leadership, communication–things like that. And I wanted to dip my toes in the entrepreneurial field. Stanford has a great entrepreneurial program. And worst case scenario–I figure I will always be able to get back into the investment management industry if I like to. Maybe it’ll cost me a couple of years, but in the long run it might not be that bad.

GMATPill: And right now you’re in between stages–you’re about to enter business school in the fall. How are you spending your time right now? How are you spending your summer before your adventurous ride to Stanford?

Andy: So I’m just personally trying to take it easy and travel as much as I can. I’m looking at going to Greece for a week–Europe for another 2 weeks–Hawaii–maybe go to Colombia or China. Really just trying to spend as much time…

For the rest of this interview–listen to the audio interview above

More topics:

• What Andy’s doing with classmates BEFORE school starts.
• Tips on Stanford’s notorious essay topic.

Andy’s thoughts on GMAT Prep

Andy: I was studying for about two months straight. On my weekends–really devoting 12 hours a day on Saturday and Sunday to just focus on GMAT preparation. And then sprinkle in a few hours on the weekdays. Plus I also took a week off right before I took the test. And really after all that I didn’t feel like I had enough preparation. I felt like I could have used a few more weeks–maybe a month or two more to prepare. Secondly, I would say just go ahead and set a date. You’re really just not going to be motivated unless you have a date in front of you. For me, I personally studied off and on for a few months and then when I finally got a date set I really lit the fire and it really forced me to sacrifice my social life to actually do the preparation. I also checked out a few different services like Princeton, ManhattanGMAT and I wish I knew more about the GMATPill before I took it–but I actually found that GMATPill has a very unique approach. Zeke’s actually taking you through each question and giving you his thought process behind it. I don’t think any of the other guys do that. It’s really a unique way to prepare. It’s also great if you’re in finance or you have an intense job and you really need to be able to watch his videos on your own schedule. I think you have a great program there.

More Interviews with Top MBAs and GMAT Prep Advice

Interview with Goldman Sachs Analyst on GMAT Prep Experience with GMAT Pill Versus Others
Interview with Stanford MBA (Marquis)
Interview with Harvard MBA and GMAT Pill
Interview with Kellogg MBA and GMAT Pill

GMATPill is always happy to hear about the success of our students. Here’s an honest testimonial from Edi done by himself.

African engineer improves his GMAT score with GMATPill. With this GMAT preparation, Edi was able to boost his verbal score from V28 to V35 in just 2 weeks!

He studied for several months but wasn’t able to improve much before. His quant score was very high to begin with–but his verbal was weak in the upper 20s.

He was unable to improve with a class from ManhattanGMAT. As a result, he decided to enroll with GMATPill after a friend recommended the course to him.

GMAT Preparation Course Reviews

Goldman Analyst Compares GMATPill With ManhattanGMAT (Audio Interview)
Non-Native English Speaker Improves from 690 to 760 + $50,000 MBA Scholarship
Interview With Yet Another Stanford MBA (Andy) – Hedge Fund

During an interview today with with Farooq Kathwari, the CEO of Ethan Allen, we at GMAT Pill had a chance to discuss a few topics about leadership with a true business expert. And two GMATPill students even got a chance to personally meet the CEO and get a picture with him!

Two GMATPill Students Meet the CEO of Ethan Allen

You see, Farooq is a great example of the American dream. He was an immigrant entrepreneur who became CEO of one of his customer firms. The immigrant to CEO story is a glorious one that GMATPill just had to learn more about.

Farooq stayed on as CEO of Ethan Allen not just for a few years—-but for DECADES–something that isn’t that common.

Remember Bob Nardelli? Well, he was CEO of Home Depot who took home a big paycheck when the company lost tons of money and fired a bunch of employees? He was only there for a few years but cashed out well for himself.

Farooq is the opposite. He stayed on CEO for what seems like forever—he brought the company public in the early 90s—and even today in 2011, he’s still CEO. Talk about commitment!

For those of you who don’t know, Ethan Allen is a globally recognized brand for luxurious custom home furnishings.

So how did Farooq get to be CEO of Ethan Allen and grow it to be what it is today? Looking at what he majored in during college certainly doesn’t tell the story: he majored in English and Political Science.

For all you English and Political Science majors who aspire to be successful in business—–there’s plenty of hope!

Farooq didn’t study like crazy for English and Poli Sci either. In fact, he attributes much of his success to something else: his involvement in cricket sports.

It was through playing cricket that Farooq had the opportunity to be passionately involved in team building and leadership. The reason he majored in English and Poli Sci was because he wanted to minimize the amount of time he spent studying academics and maximize the amount of time and dedication he put towards cricket.

Cricket taught Farooq elements about leadership that no class can ever teach. He was always captain of the team and was put in a position to lead and motivate other members of his team for a common goal.

“Leadership is not about being great yourself,” says Farooq. “It’s about helping others become the best they can be because of you.”

Very true words.

Never underestimate the importance of your extracurricular endeavors. When drafting up your application for MBA admissions, worry less about your school GPA or what you majored in—-and focus more on great stories and examples of team leadership and team building that you did outside of the workplace.

After college, Farooq attended NYU Stern School of Business for his MBA.

When we spoke with him, we pointed out that life often boils down to just a few key moments. The same is true in business. We asked him what are some examples of those key moments that were most critical in his career.

His examples were simple. One was when he decided to come to America and live the American dream.

The other was when one of his contacts at Ethan Allen (who was then a customer of his) offered him a job at Ethan Allen–to which he responded, “A job? How about a partnership instead?”

Notice how he quickly reframes the situation so he is on top. Now, THAT’s business-savvy.

Today, Farooq actually considers running his apple farm his top job. Running Ethan Allen? No big deal. Just a second or third job.

Now THAT’s the lifestyle of a CEO!

GMAT Prep Resources

GMAT Pill Interview with Stanford MBA (Andy)

GMAT Pill Interview with Harvard MBA

GMAT Psychology

GMAT Scoring

[10:04:57 PM] gmatpill: Hi
[10:05:00 PM] student: hi Zeke
[10:05:04 PM] gmatpill: How are your GMAT studies going?
[10:05:12 PM] student: good…
[10:05:39 PM] student: are you going to host some conference call at skype?
[10:06:35 PM] gmatpill: we decided to make this a more personal experience with one-on-one chatting tonight
[10:06:47 PM] gmatpill: Some topics we’ve been talking about include time allocation
[10:06:55 PM] gmatpill: on the verbal portion
[10:07:12 PM] student: yes.. that’s where I’m most interested.
[10:07:13 PM] gmatpill: How is your performance breakdown between SC/CR/RC?
[10:09:58 PM] student: I gave two GMATPrep tests. Both the time I attempted only verbal portions. V 29 and V35 were my scores.
[10:10:51 PM] gmatpill: v29 and v35 is a decent difference
[10:11:00 PM] gmatpill: Between the 3 sections, where are you weakest
[10:11:25 PM] gmatpill: We generally recommend making your SC section extremely time efficient.
[10:11:39 PM] gmatpill: So you can free up more time for the more time-intensive RC and CR that require more thinking.
[10:12:04 PM] gmatpill: Did you review your GMATPrep tests – mark down all the ones you got wrong
[10:12:08 PM] gmatpill: And revisit them the next day
[10:12:09 PM] student: Although there were repeats, some of the repeats I got wrong. But, I couldn’t manage to finish the test on time and had to guess last 5-6 questions.
[10:12:11 PM] gmatpill: and again the next day
[10:12:55 PM] gmatpill: Ask yourself – why did you get it wrong again?
[10:13:06 PM] gmatpill: What about your thought process – you went down the same thinking path as last time?
[10:13:09 PM] gmatpill: and got the same answer?
[10:13:16 PM] gmatpill: or you went down a different path and still got the same answer?
[10:13:45 PM] gmatpill: Ask yourself: what if I focused on another part of the question? would I arrive at the same conclusion?
[10:14:14 PM] gmatpill: Every question has that SMALL point that can ultimately determine if you are on the right/or wrong track
[10:14:30 PM] gmatpill: Since you know the answers to the ones you got wrong, figure out what that SMALL point is
[10:14:44 PM] gmatpill: THe difference between a good score and a great score is an accumulation of these SMALL details
[10:14:55 PM] student: got it.
[10:14:58 PM] gmatpill: You need to identify and spot that small details in these practice GMAT questions
[10:14:59 PM] student: Yes. I made note of all the questions and did full review and re-attempted questions next day. I got most of the questions correct next day with no test pressure while reviewing.
[10:15:03 PM] gmatpill: make a note in your memory
[10:15:26 PM] gmatpill: that’s good..keep doing the same for the next test
[10:15:29 PM] gmatpill: then set aside one day
[10:15:43 PM] gmatpill: to redo questions you got wrong from both tests at the same time
[10:15:49 PM] student: ok
[10:15:54 PM] gmatpill: hold yourself to a HIGH standard
[10:16:03 PM] gmatpill: since you’ve already seen the answers and questions
[10:16:11 PM] gmatpill: there’s no reason for you to get them wrong again
[10:16:19 PM] gmatpill: in fact, focus on minimizing time
[10:16:36 PM] gmatpill: were there certain answer choices that you didn’t necessarily have to read and still could arrive at the right answer?
[10:16:54 PM] gmatpill: if so, train yourself to develop that confidence to answer the question
[10:16:56 PM] gmatpill: because you’ve seen that pattern before
[10:17:02 PM] student: ok
[10:17:08 PM] gmatpill: and can confidently choose (B)..and not bother with (d) or (E)
[10:17:19 PM] gmatpill: ( d )
[10:17:28 PM] gmatpill: I guess skype turns answer choice d into a drink
[10:17:40 PM] student: i like that
[10:17:47 PM] student: This was my split.
V29
12 incorrect of 41.
5 CR, 5 RC and 2 SC were incorrect.
V35
13 incorrect of 41. 
2 CR, 4 RC and 7 SC were incorrect.
[10:18:23 PM] gmatpill: what?! 7 SC wrong?
[10:18:46 PM] gmatpill: The SC questions come in the beginning and can set you off bad for the rest of the exam if you get the easy ones wrong
[10:19:02 PM] gmatpill: START OFF STRONG
[10:19:06 PM] gmatpill: You’re doing decent in CR and RC
[10:19:16 PM] gmatpill: were you mostly narrowing the SC to 2 choices?
[10:19:29 PM] gmatpill: Or blindly guessing?
[10:20:08 PM] student: 2-3 were blind guessing in the end. but for most of them i come to last two options.
[10:20:42 PM] student: I think i’m getting stuck between question from 21-31. I was on track till 20 but after that tests threw my timing off.
[10:21:14 PM] student: I’m trying to follow this timing plan.
[10:21:26 PM] student: 75 0
56 10
38 20
20 30
1 40
0 41
[10:21:30 PM] gmatpill: Are you identifying the question correctly?
[10:21:45 PM] gmatpill: When you are down between 2 – are you confident you know what the question is testing you on?
[10:21:51 PM] gmatpill: descriptive phrase, main sentence
[10:21:51 PM] gmatpill: vs
[10:21:52 PM] gmatpill: idioms
[10:21:55 PM] gmatpill: vs long lists
[10:22:10 PM] gmatpill: it’s critical that you know what they are testing you on
[10:22:29 PM] gmatpill: otherwise you can waste a lot of time THINKING they are testing you on subject-verb agreement, but relaly they’re testing you on X&Y consistency
[10:22:33 PM] student: generally there are two concepts tested in most of the questions.
[10:22:55 PM] gmatpill: yes..by the time you narrow it down to 2 choices, ther’es usually just 1 concept left
[10:23:01 PM] gmatpill: what are the numbers you sent?
[10:23:44 PM] student: Second column represents time left when I’m on a question in column One.
[10:24:33 PM] student: I copied from word.. so I lost the formatting and the headings
[10:24:45 PM] gmatpill: on question 38, you had 20 extra seconds
[10:25:27 PM] student: yes. I know but didn’t want to remember time in decimals
[10:26:07 PM] student: One thing I’m trying to make sure is that I don’t solve any question in the test without applying some process.
[10:26:16 PM] gmatpill: ok
[10:26:17 PM] gmatpill: one thing to note
[10:26:36 PM] gmatpill: you need to develop a sense of timing without looking at the clock
[10:26:49 PM] gmatpill: on the actual exam, if you keep looking at the clock, you’re going to psych yourself out
[10:26:54 PM] gmatpill: and raise your stress levels
[10:27:06 PM] gmatpill: you need to have a sense of time…roughly when it’s time to move on to the next question
[10:27:16 PM] gmatpill: and roughly how much time you can afford to spend on this question
[10:27:35 PM] gmatpill: sure a little practice with the timer is good in the beginning
[10:27:43 PM] gmatpill: but you’ll need to internalize that timing
[10:27:49 PM] gmatpill: every second counts on the exam
[10:27:55 PM] gmatpill: you don’t want to waste it looking up and down at the timer
[10:28:58 PM] student: how can I do that? Some questions may take up more than regular time and some of the easier ones would be knocked off quickly enough.
[10:29:21 PM] gmatpill: exactly
[10:29:25 PM] gmatpill: bust out the easy ones as much as possible
[10:29:34 PM] gmatpill: you’ll be fed another harder one
[10:30:02 PM] gmatpill: knowing that you got some easy ones earlier that took less time, you know can afford to spend a little bit more time on a hard one
[10:30:13 PM] student: ok.
[10:30:16 PM] gmatpill: it’s a fine art
[10:31:14 PM] student: do you recommend some tip for questions from 21 to 31?
[10:31:34 PM] student: are there more experimental questions in this range?
[10:32:43 PM] gmatpill: Possibly, though no one knows for sure
[10:32:56 PM] gmatpill: Probably would be lower for the first few questions of the actual exam, I would guess
[10:33:07 PM] gmatpill: So that leaves greater probability in the 21-31 range
[10:33:22 PM] student: ok.
[10:33:31 PM] gmatpill: By the time you get to 21-31
[10:33:37 PM] gmatpill: you’ll be a little tired mentally
[10:33:46 PM] gmatpill: So really it’s about maintaining your focus for a long period of time
[10:33:50 PM] gmatpill: a mental marathon of sorts
[10:34:01 PM] gmatpill: that’s what your study sessions are – mental marathon practice sessions
[10:34:23 PM] gmatpill: not only do questions get harder, but your mental capacity gets lower as the test wears you down
[10:34:27 PM] gmatpill: don’t let that happen
[10:34:33 PM] gmatpill: it’s a battle between you and the GMAT
[10:34:36 PM] gmatpill: maintain your focus even after 20 questions
[10:35:12 PM] student: oh yes. I definitely try my best, but I guess it isn’t enough.
[10:35:31 PM] gmatpill: If you watch tennis at the US Open
[10:35:35 PM] gmatpill: You’ll notice all the professionals are highly skilled
[10:35:50 PM] gmatpill: They’re all pretty much very good
[10:36:00 PM] gmatpill: The difference between the very best and the best is not skill
[10:36:13 PM] gmatpill: it’s mental capacity and psychology
[10:36:18 PM] gmatpill: The same is true for the GMAT
[10:36:19 PM] student: true
[10:36:31 PM] gmatpill: THe person with 700 is not necessarily smarter than the person with 610
[10:37:04 PM] gmatpill: He just had the mental capacity swivvel his way through the test and system
[10:41:34 PM] student: how many time full GMAT tests should I give now before my real one?
[10:42:33 PM] student: How many times can I repeat GMATprep tests? I think after a while I’ll see more repeats in GMATPrep.
[10:43:04 PM] gmatpill: Usually 2 or 3 should be fine
[10:43:27 PM] gmatpill: Repeat GMAT Prep tests as many times as you can.
[10:43:43 PM] gmatpill: You can even aim to keep doing them until you get every single question right
[10:43:50 PM] gmatpill: which is extremely difficult–but hey why not
[10:43:55 PM] gmatpill: you’ve already seen teh question before and the answer
[10:44:23 PM] student: i have subscriptions of mgmat,grockit etc… but don’t want to overwhelm myself again.
[10:45:01 PM] gmatpill: I see
[10:45:05 PM] gmatpill: treat GMATPrep and OG as primary sources
[10:45:13 PM] gmatpill: for better quality practice
[10:45:14 PM] gmatpill: use the others as additional practice.
[10:46:00 PM] gmatpill: student – I hope this chat session was helpful for you
[10:46:12 PM] gmatpill: I do need to direct my attention somewhere now
[10:46:18 PM] student: yes it was.
[10:46:19 PM] gmatpill: But as always, I’m here to help.
[10:46:24 PM] student: thank you Zeke.
[10:46:38 PM] student: have a good night.
[10:46:47 PM] gmatpill: Have a good night. Sleep well, and focus tomorrow ;]
[10:46:51 PM] student: hope to cross you on wall st some day
[10:47:03 PM] gmatpill: ;] hopefully we’ll be on teh same side of the trade
[10:47:20 PM] student: later.
[10:47:29 PM] student: thank you for your help.

For more GMAT Prep help, try GMAT Pill videos. We even have RC Videos for maximum impact on your GMAT Verbal score.

4 people have exactly 1 sibling in the room
Translate: #1 is siblings with #2. #3 is siblings with #4. Or you could mix the numbers around, but however way you arrange them, there are TWO pairs of siblings in this group.

3 people have exactly 2 siblings in the room
Translate: #1 is siblings with #2 and #3 – they’re all siblings with each other. So this is ONE triplet of siblings.

So in total, you have one pair, one pair, and then one triplet.

You see the word “NOT” in the question – so you can consider doing the popular (1-prob that they ARE siblings) method.

prob (2 picked people are siblings) = ?

Well, 2 people picked can only siblings if they belong in the same pair or same triplet. We already divided up the people in the the pair, pair, and triplet.

So prob (2 picked people are siblings) = (2 choose 2) + (2 choose 2) + (3 choose 2)
Total # of possibilities = (7 choose 2)

In each case you are choosing 2 people. But your broke down the problem from a large set of 7 people to smaller groups of size 4 and size 3.

So 2nCr2 + 2nCr2 + 3nCr2 = 1 + 1 + 3 = 5 ways to pick siblings

Total # of possibilities = 7nCr2 =

7*6* (5!)
———- = 42/2 = 21 possibilities
2 * (5!)

So # of ways to pick siblings is 5 out of a total of 21.

We want the opposite of this so we do 1 – (5/21) =16/21

Having gone through this, note that of all the answer choices – (D) is the last one I would have picked. Usually, with a question like this, if (5/21) is the correct answer, then whatever 1 – (5/21) is will surely also be an answer choice to trick people who forgot to do the 1 – operation.

Looking at the answer choices, I see that (b) 3/7 and (c) 4/7 add up to 1. So those two can potentially be correct.

(A) 5/21 and (e) 16/21 add up to 1, so they can potentially be correct.

Then (d) just comes out of nowhere as 5/7 by itself.

If I were to guess, I’d probably guess between A, B, C, and E and would eliminate D from guessing.

Just our 2 cents. Hope that helps!

Update: This student was awarded a $50,000 MBA scholarship as a result of retaking his GMAT with GMATPill!

Incredible GMAT Prep Story

Incredible story that illustrates yet another happy GMAT Pill Student. In this case, the student was able to score at the 99th percentile of the rigorous GMAT exam. Below is a screenshot of the actual email this student sent—unsolicited!

The student felt the GMAT Pill method really changed his way of thinking and felt we deserved credit for helping him reach his goal. This is just an initial email. A more comprehensive testimonial will follow.

Related GMAT Prep Resources:

• Why Goldman Sachs Analyst Prefers GMAT Pill over ManhattanGMAT
• This Student Loves GMAT Pill After Taking Private Tutoring and Prep Courses
• Retaking the GMAT – is it worth it? From 690 to 760
• GMATPill Student’s $179 investment yields $50,000

There’s going to be a big online fair hosted by The Economist in early February–and it’s free to check it out!

Mark your calendars. You’ll get a chance to meet MBA admissions officers from programs around the world. Listen in on webinars, videos, and alumni chats. There’ll be plenty of resources as well.

Bonus: If you sign up now, you’ll get a chance to win a free iPad 2 when you visit 5 or more school booths on February 6-7.

Economist “Which MBA”:What to expect?

So you’ve decided to pursue your MBA, or maybe you’re still thinking about it. Either way, do you know which one is right for you?

That’s what this online fair is all about.

Helping you learn more about what the different schools offer, what the culture is like, and where you’ll fit best.

Yes, you’ll get to meet business school representatives, compare programs, etc. The best part? You can do it all from your home computer.

Business school “virtual booths”

Check out schools’ virtual booths
• Download brochures, visit their website, their Facebook page, and read testimonials from students who have already been through the process.
• Chat room: Chat with admissions officers, alumni,
professors and current students in a group or one-on-one discussion. View a list of
scheduled chats by visiting the “Schedule” once you log in.
• Multimedia: In the multimedia area, you can watch videos and browse photos to get a better
idea of what the school looks and feels like.

Interactive webinars

Several live webinars will also take place throughout the two-day fair. Visitors can see a schedule
of webinars by clicking on “Schedule” once you log in.

These webinars are hosted by MBA admissions officers, deans, professors and Economist
editors, offering you an inside look at specific programs and the MBA experience. Type in your
questions and they will be answered live by the webinar host.

Live global sessions

You can visit the fair at any time on February 6th and 7th, but it’s best to log in during one of the
live sessions when business schools will be online and ready to meet you:

• February 6th: 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM EST
• February 6th: 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM EST

• February 7th: 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM EST
• February 7th: 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM EST

Special features:

• Submit your resume: You may upload your resume upon logging in. It will be visible to all
business school representatives at the fair.
• Access additional resources: At the Information Desk, you can access a list of MBA resources
including scholarship organizations, admissions and test prep consultants, MBA blogs and
more.
• Take the compatibility profile: Answer a few questions to find the exhibiting schools that most
closely match your preferences.

Wow, this GMATPill student improved 110 points AND had 25 minutes leftover on his exam. For those of you who haven’t taken the GMAT exam yet, let me tell you that finishing the exam in time is one of the more difficult elements of the exam. It’s a mental marathon and a lot of these questions require to think a lot. Moreover, with so many answer choices, it’s easy to get caught up on the wrong answer choices and waste valuable time.

We’re glad to see John (last name undisclosed just in case) was able to benefit from our program and make such a dramatic score improvement. He references an article we wrote about how important the verbal section is and his score exemplifies what our theory said.

Although his quant score was in the 85th percentile, his verbal score was so high (99th percentile) that his overall score was also calculated at 99th percentile.

If you flipped it around and got a 99th percentile quant score but an 85th percentile verbal score, your overall score would not be nearly as high.

In any case, congratulations, John. We’re glad to be helpful for your GMAT preparation!

Here’s a copy of his email with appropriate links to articles that he mentioned were helpful:

—————————————————————————-

Hey Zeke,

I just wanted to let you know about my success story. I have always been good at logical reasoning and reading comp, however the sentence correction questions on the GMAT were really holding back my verbal score. Originally I had planned to ignore this shortcoming and concentrate instead on improving my quant, which is where I traditionally struggle. However after reading your post about the value of a high verbal score I bought your verbal pill and your explanations of the sentence correction concepts were so clear. More importantly though your lessons got me into the correct mindset to attack the questions. Before I would read through all the aswers and just get lost within the question and answer choices, but after doing your course I learned to immediately recognize the common mistakes and finish sentence correction problems in literally seconds. I just took the GMAT this week and scored a 46V the 99% and I finished the section with 25 minutes left. I was able to get my quant score up to 49Q 85% and just like your blog post said the 99% in verbal brought my overal score up to 760 and the 99%. The first practice test I took, before using your program and before improving my quant, I scored a 650.

110 points!! and it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t read your post about the importance of a strong verbal score and done your sentence correction pill. I’m am now one of your biggest disciples, let me know if you need anything or want a testimonial.

Thanks,

John

Q: How did you prepare for GMAT on your way to Oxford’s Saïd Business School? How did you decide what program to use?

Great question! I had asked friends, and looked around various websites to look for great GMAT programs. I decided to fork out quite a bit for Manhattan GMAT’s two week intensive course, where they pound you for two weeks with GMAT material that’s normally reserved for a course taught over several months. I chose it because I had heard great things about Manhattan GMAT, and I didn’t want to go to those regular Princeton Review or Kaplan programs, and I wanted a programthat specifically focused on the GMAT that I could do in a couple weeks rather than months (little did I know how long it would take…). Interestingly enough I heard later that Manhattan GMAT was bought by one of these firms!

I took the course, thought it was good, and took the GMAT right after the course. I bombed the test, as probably the nerves just got to me, and I hadn’t really digested the material. I rescheduled to take the test again a couple months later, and scored an acceptable (650) but not a great score. I decided to take a break and try again next year. During the month in-between the two tests I had went through the material again, and had additional help, paying for private lessons from Manhattan GMAT.

I was still trying to figure out how to score higher, and the teacher had said that I could probably do better, but probably studying on and off hurt me more than it helped. I decided to try another (and more expensive) program at another local New York elite test prep firm, where they basically went overkill- more material, and even better teachers. I mean I thought Manhattan GMAT had great teachers, but this program at this new firm had two teachers for me—with one specifically focused on each part. Case in point– I had a PH.D in Linguistics teaching me the verbal- and she could basically tell me every root of every word, and what all those fancy terms like gerund were… really things I didn’t need to know. It was amazing what they did (they had a CD that you could listen to for motivation and studying, and also helped prep you on the other mental parts of the test as well).

Again it was probably the nerves, but after spending so much time studying on and off over two years, it was really getting very frustrating.

What Zeke was asking was substantially cheaper than all the programs I had been using (basically the same price as 1-2 private tutor sessions), and with the refund policy I decided to give it ago.

The so called past perfect, present perfect terms that Manhattan GMAT taught me were not really needed, and the rules were made simple. (To be fair the Manhattan GMAT sentence correction guide is amazing, but it adds a lot of unnecessary terms that you don’t really need to know) The best part about GMATpill is that you have a tutor anytime and anywhere, so while it was hard to get a tutor to come in on 9pm on a weekend, you could do a session going through the videos. If you are a morning person, you could get up early and spend an hour going through the videos before work. If there was anything that was not clear, you can email Zeke and he responds within 24 hours- I even sent him questions that were from the MBA website, where Zeke would quickly answer. I supplemented the GMAT pill with a phone app from Veritas, where I could do verbal questions while waiting in queues (or lines in the USA) or whenever I had a spare moment. Hoping to get that elusive 700 score, I took a week off and this time really focused by locking myself in a library for 12 hours each day.

My schedule went like this:
11AM: Wake up and go to grocery store and back home to pack dinner.
12PM: Eat at one of my favourite restaurants
1PM: Head to Library, find a place, put on earphones listening to soundwaves and study.
6PM: Eat dinner (they had a food section in the library), and catch up on emails/news
7PM- Continue studying on a new section, checking questions, etc.
1AM: Leave library, head home, spend an hour or two reviewing progress, catch up on emails/news and then off to bed.

I probably went through the entire Official Guide, and probably the Official supplementary verbal and math too. I pretty much had all the frameworks from Zeke and all the previous knowledge. I think the key for me was actually spending the time to study- before I was just relying on tutors to help me (they do help), but the biggest help is you struggling many times through the problems first, and not the tutors explaining how to do each problem after just trying it once). In the end you need to know how to solve all the problems, and without applying all the techniques I was taught on enough problems, it was difficult to do well. By doing the problems over and over, I began to see some unique patterns in the test questions, and dare I say it- they became a lot easier and even quite fun. Contrast to two years ago, where I thought the GMAT was absolutely terrifying.

With that, I was able to rapidly bring up my verbal score, and while I was writing my essays for business school (no easy feat) I was able to study and hit the 700 mark that I wanted. My math just needed brushing up, so I did quite well on that, but I don’t think I could have done it on the verbal without GMAT pill.

Because it’s online, you can study from anywhere at any time, which really helps if you have an odd schedule. It’s obviously not as good as a private tutor (and even then there are some good and great tutors), but with Zeke its always consistent and you can do it at your own pace. I know a lot of students feel silly stopping a teacher during a class, when really everyone has the same question in their head. Or perhaps with the classes there is always someone lagging behind, which is annoying because he/she is holding up the entire class. With GMAT pill, if you don’t get it, you can just rewind and replay a couple of times until you do without feeling annoyed or embarrassed by others- and if you still don’t you can email him. I think it combines the closest thing with a personal tutor without the high expense of a tutor.

Zeke’s GMAT Pill walks you through it in a way where he goes through it quickly like he’s doing the problem, then slowly breaks it down into its individual parts, where every detail is explained. The big yellow cursor he uses to show what he’s looking at also helps as you know what he’s exactly focusing on and it’s easy to follow along.

Obviously if you have bucket loads of cash and want the best, a great tutor is hard to beat, but if you’re looking for the most cost effective way to study (and are short on time) GMATpill is the way to go. I only wish he had the reading comprehension and math parts out when I took the test, but thankfully if you’re reading this now you can get the whole package!

As for studying in general, here are some of my tips:

1.) Study smarter, not harder. Spending endless hours on and off reviewing questions won’t really help unless you know how to do it better next time. Knowing what I know now, I could have probably used Zeke’s GMATpill, the Official Guides, the program on the MBA website and maybe just one of the other programs, study really hard for a month (with maybe 1 or 2 intense weeks), and easily score a lot higher than I did.

2.) I’d say it depends on the person, but 1 month, 3, or 6 months is probably what you should spend studying for the GMAT. Spending a year studying on and off is not only demoralizing (you have a limited social life) but also a big waste of time (not to mention you start forgetting material at this point). Putting in the time (but not wasting it like I did) to study for it is by far the most effective way to study.

3.) During the test, plan your time accordingly. I believe #1 reason people score poorly is because they run of time. Pacing yourself through the test is very important- when I did well I had plenty of time toward the end, and had 3-10 minutes (verbal and math) for my last question. Contrast to when I took it the first time I had 8 questions left and 2 minutes remaining-trying to get every question right can actually be a weakness. This means making the tough decisions in the beginning- during my last test the second question given looked impossible for me, and rather than trying to crack it I spent 8 seconds realizing it was hopeless, and 2 seconds guessing and move on. That gave me almost 2 extra minutes to solve problems that I knew how to solve.

“So I guess GMAT Pill worked for me…”

You guess????

Congratulations, Kelvin! This is incredible. And you’re still in school! Good for you!

I asked Kelvin to write a little bit more details about his experience, and here’s what he wrote about his solid GMAT prep experience with GMAT Pill.

I do have to note that although Kelvin watched GMAT Pill while playing video games, you should NOT do the same. Of course, everybody’s learning style is different so do what suits you best. But for the vast majority of people, you’ll need to actually budget time with no distractions so that you can nail it out.

In case you don’t already know, a score of Q51 means a perfect quant score. All the questions were completed and they were done correctly. A verbal score of 46 is also unheard of and is quite unusual. The Q51 equates to 98th percentile. It’s not 99th percentile because every year there are a handful of people who do score perfect on quant. However, scoring perfect on verbal is much, much harder. A Verbal score of 46 is well inside of the 99th percentile category.

The fact that this student finished the exam with so much time left absolutely blows us away. 25 minutes on Quant is pretty amazing. And 40 minutes left on verbal is absolutely incredible. Add that to the fact that this American student is studying overseas – this will surely be a great demographic differentiator for the purposes of MBA admissions.

I’d like to also take a moment here to tell you that the Integrated Reasoning section on the new GMAT will be coming out in June 5, 2012.

There are essentially 4 types of integrated reasoning questions. GMAT Pill has put together some video solutions for the sample problems that GMAC has released. You can view them in the above link.

GMAT Score From 650 to 760 + 25 Minutes left on the exam! Wow!
Learn about GMAT Scores and how they are scaled.

Student: Could you please help me understand how C is correct as opposed to (A) in the following question?

The success of the program to eradicate smallpox has stimulated experts to pursue what they had not previously considered possible – better control, if not eradication, of the other infections such as measles and yaws.

(A) what they had not previously considered possible – better control, if not eradication, of the other infections such as

(B) what they had not previously considered a possibility – better control, if not eradication, of such infections like

(C) something they had not previously considered possible – better control, if not eradication, of such infections as

(D) something not considered a previous possibility – better control and perhaps eradication, of other infections such as

(E) the possibility of what they had not previously considered – better control and possibly eradication of infections like

The word “the other” in (A) is unnecessary since the sentence actually lists out what those other infections are: measles and yaws. In this case, you’re better off just leaving out “the other.”

If these specific infections were NOT mentioned, then we would need the word “other” to make it clear that we are not talking about smallpox. In any case, the word “the” doesn’t belong there.

I don’t think there’s a big difference between the first parts of (A) and (C) – something vs what…but if you focus on the second half of the answer choices, you would be able to eliminate (A) and arrive at (C).

Note this as an example where initially you might look at the question and start freaking out about grammar rules that actually don’t matter. You might be wondering: “what they had not previously considered” vs “something they had not previously considered”

Even if there were one right way and one wrong way, most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. But that’s exactly the point. GMAT doesn’t test you on this even though you might think that’s what you’re being tested on. What really matters is the second half of the sentence. If you focus on cutting out extraneous words liek “the other” in (A) and you on GMAT Pill frameworks including “such as” vs “like” – you’ll be able to eliminate most of the answer choices.

The one you’ll be left with is (C). So focus on common frameworks that are known to be tested on the GMAT rather than esoteric ones like “what vs something” – that actually don’t matter for your GMAT score.

Thank you for your reply. I did some analysis on what types of questions trouble me the most. For now it seems rhetorical construction, for example:

OG SC 131
Over 75 percent of the energy produced in France derives from nuclear power, while in Germany it it just over 33 percent.
(C)whereas nuclear power accounts for just over 33 percent of the energy produced in Germany
(D)whereas just over 33 percent of the energy comes from nuclear power in Germany
The answer is C. But I chose D because I thought the first part of the sentence is saying some kind of energy derives from nuclear power, so the second part should look like the same to remain parallel.

This is a tricky one. You need to pay extra attention to MEANING.

We are talking about what PERCENT of energy comes from source X for France, and then the same thing for Germany.

So the beginning of the sentence correctly says “over 75% of energy in France comes from nuclear”.

Now look at (D): “33% of the energy comes from [nuclear power in Germany]”

Is this really what we’re trying to say?

What we really want to say is “33% of the energy in Germany comes from nuclear power”

Note, this is different from what (D) says. It’s close, but the shuffling of the words changes the meaning. They purposely do that to trick you. So structurally it looks like it runs parallel, but MEANING-wise it’s not correct. (C) doesn’t look parallel, but it matches exactly what we are trying to say.

In addition, I’m often puzzled by long sentences, especially the ones with multiple modifiers, for example:

OG SC 107
Originally developed for detecting air pollutants, a technique called proton-induced X-ray emission, which can quickly analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance without destroying it, is finding uses in medicine, archeology, and criminology.
With so many modifiers, I don’t know how to arrange them to express the meaning correctly, clearly, and concisely. Could you help me to understand the rules on how to arrange modifiers and other principles of rhetorical construction?

You’re using some fancy words in your question.

To keep it simple, here’s how we look at it:

Originally developed for [X], [a particular technique]…is finding uses in x, y, and z.

This is a lot easier to comprehend and work with. Thinking like this will cut down the potential for stupid, overlooked mistakes.

We are so proud of this IT-oriented mother for making such a marked improvement of a whopping 100 points on her GMAT exam. And that’s 100 points solely on verbal score improvement.

As we have mentioned before, the GMAT verbal score is critical for your overall score from 200-800.

For IT candidates – it’s ALL about the Verbal scre.

Notice her quant score of 49 stayed the same but it is her verbal score that improved from V25 to V40. That’s a huge 15 point raw score improvement in the GMAT score.

This 15 point verbal score improvement translated to a 100 point improvement from 610 to 710 on the 200-800 score scale.

With a strong score like this, this applicant can convey a strong message to the admissions committee: Not only am I proficient in IT skills, but I also have a strong verbal score to complement the strong quantitative abilities.

This is a HUGE differentiating aspect. Why? Because so many applicants with IT skills are weak in verbal. You don’t want to be yet another IT candidate with a weak verbal score. You want to be one of those select few who were able to improve your verbal.

It’s OK if you screwed up your first time. Just make sure you can show demonstrated improvement – which is what this applicant was able to do.

This exam was before the new Integrated Reasoning section

Now, note that once the new exam comes out on June 5, 2012, there will be an integrated reasoning section. This section will be a 30 minute section that replaces the 2nd essay. So you will no longer have an “Analysis of an Issue” essay in the beginning of your exam.

Instead, you will have an integrated reasoning section – which is definitely more difficult and requires more brain power. This IR section score will be independent of your 200-800 score. In other words, it WILL NOT affect your 200-800 score. Rather, you will have an additional score – similar to the way you have an additional AWA writing score that is scored out of 6.0.

In other words, you will come out of the exam with your usual 200-800 score (which consists of a breakdown between verbal and quant). You’ll also get your usual AWA score rated out of 6.0. But now you’ll also get an Integrated Reasoning score.

The mother above took the exam before this update and therefore did not have an integrated reasoning score.

Her score of a 710 puts her within good striking distance all the top MBA programs.

Beyond GMAT: Your story, resume, and essays

Yes, there’s a pill for that too!

Perhaps the only thing that may be holding her back is her multi-year career absence from a paid employer. Some of the super top tier MBA programs want people with super clean resume. They want 4-year Ivy-League + 2-4 yr management consulting/investment banking + awesome extracurriculars + great essays + great recommendations.

But does a mother handle something like this? After all, you have something that’s even more difficult to handle – a baby.

Well, for all the mothers out there and anybody else who has not followed the “perfect” resume path, there’s hope.

You can always “spin” your story. Don’t think of it as a couple of years of a career gap. Just because you didn’t work for an employer does not mean you could not have worked for yourself.

Perhaps you tried to start your own business venture. Perhaps you partnered with a friend to work on a business and you went at it. You learned about a lot of different techniques in a new industry that you previously had not considered. If you’re used to programming, maybe this venture pushed you out of your comfort zone and gave you the opportunity to learn something new like marketing.

After all, if you are a tech person going for your MBA, it’d be nice to have some demonstrated interest in business, right? Well, here’s your perfect opportunity. So don’t be afraid to explain the gap in your resume with a good learning experience. In fact, you can even add this learning experience to your resume. Remember, what’s on your resume does not necessarily have to pay you income. It’s just a one piece of paper that describes what your experiences have been. A failed venture is always a good way to address this problem on your MBA application.

If you’re not sure exactly how to put this together, try our Resume/Essay Editing Pill service. We’ve been getting more and more students interested in our essay editing services—including the student above. You can be assured the quality we provide is quite exceptional and can help you better tell your story on your MBA application.

As usual, don’t take this student’s word for it. We have had Oxford MBA students struggling with GMAT for 24 months–and it wasn’t until they discovered GMAT Pill that they finally got onto the right track.
We’ve also had students who focused heavily on verbal and were able to improve from 650 to 760 with an incredible 25 minutes left on the exam.

And of course, we have the famous Singaporean college senior who smartly took the GMAT while he was still in school. His results are not to be expected, but you can read about his story here where he scored a GMAT 780 (Q51, V46).

You may also be interested in this student who was waitlisted with a GMAT 690. He ended up retaking the GMAT – only this time with the help of GMATPill. His results? He scored a 760 AND a $50,000 scholarship from that very same college that waitlisted him. You can read about that story here.

Here’s a screenshot of what we received:

Remember – the GMAT exam will be changed on June 5, 2012. Pay attention to when you register for your GMAT test date. This could very well determine whether you need to take the new integrated reasoning section or not.

In early April of 2012, the GMAC folks who administer the GMAT exam updated their practice exam book.

In the past 3 years, everyone’s been using OG12 (12th edition) to study for their GMATs. Certainly, every few years there’s a few updates. This update is bigger for a variety reasons.

There’s a new section called integrated reasoning, and a slight change in mix of questions for SC and for CR.

And… it’s 839 pages. O_O!!

There is no place to get practice questions for Integrated Reasoning (at least for the first few months) without getting them from the Official Guide or the GMATPrep 2.0 software. (You can get the IR separately, see link below)

83% of the OG13 questions are the same as the OG12 questions. They basically removed 17% of the old questions and replaced them with new questions – so you’re not getting *more* questions – you’re simply getting questions that are most reflective of the latest version of the exam.

There are 907 questions – 158 of them are NEW. There is an additional 50 Integrated Reasoning questions but these questions are not in the book. You have to access them with a username/password on a companion website to the book (see below)

VERBAL

Sentence Correction – Similar concepts. You’ll find a few more questions that might lead you to two answer choices – one of them accurately captures the meaning of the question while the other won’t.

Critical Reasoning – same, some of them wordy and you’ll have to think through.  There are more wordy ones now that ask you to fill in the blank, basically complete the logical argument and fill in the missing piece.

Reading Comprehension – as with almost all tests, there’s a reading component. This is largely the same – passages in the same areas such as humanities, science, art, history. Staying awake is the challenge so you’ll need a strategy.

QUANT

Problem Solving – GMAC swaps in 45 new questions here. They vary in difficulty – but don’t be fooled. If you’re going for a 600+ and 700+ score, you won’t even see many of these easier questions. Don’t be fooled that 45 new questions here can let you “up” your game to above your scoring range – naturally on the exam if you’re doing well, you’re only going to keep getting more difficult questions and the easy ones from this book won’t really come up.

Data Sufficiency – GMAC swaps in 36 new questions here. They appear to be more difficult (the thought process is the same, just the wordiness can be annoying). But again, on the exam if you’re getting them correct, you’re just going to keep getting more and more difficult questions.

INTEGRATED

Integrated Reasoning – THIS SECTION IS NOT IN THE BOOK – it’s an online component with 50 questions which you can access with an account. The book has 11 pages dedicated to introducing you to the Integrated Reasoning section – it covers the 4 types of questions which takes up the bulk of it:

Multi-source Reasoning
Table Analysis
Graphics Interpretation
Two Part Analysis

See the IR post for more detail

If you are only interested in the IR section you can purchase it here for $10 (cheaper than $28 for the book):
http://www.mba.com/store/product-info.aspx?ProductID=5032

The companion guide login site is here:

http://www.wiley.com/go/officialgmatir

Key Takeaways

1) There will never be better questions to use than the ones from the Official Guide – they are after all, THE questions that have shown up in GMAT exam. In this sense, OG12 and/or OG13 are essential

2) Should you buy OG13? If you want the most accurate reflection of types of questions in the exam and are the 700+ type (meaning you’ll actually notice the type of question you’re getting wrong and that it’s “newer” than what was out there before), then yes, get the OG13.

3) Use the OG for practice – not for training. Critical reasoning question for thought: Buying OG13 will get me a 700+ score.

There is a flaw in this statement. Getting access to prior exam questions does not imply that you can answer that type of question in another form and in the amount of time that you’re alloted. OG provides practice questions – not exam strategy.

4) OG is the standard. There really is no reason to rate this book 3 star or 5 star – it’s the standard. GMAC is not here to train how your brain thinks – it’s here to give you sample questions from past exams.

GMATPill Course

We know. Studying consumes time. And what’s worse – studying with no improvement. Time wasted + no improvement.

What you’ll discover is that practice DOESN’T make perfect.

In GMATPill videos, Zeke (creator) communicates the thinking process to help you attack GMAT questions. Thinking process is the core component that will affect your overall score - and you can hear the commentary from students who have gotten into Wharton (’14, ’12), Stanford, Oxford, Darden;  Goldman Sachs and McKinsey and countless 700+ stories from Africa, Pennsylvania, India, and improvement stories.

For the New GMAT Exam coming out in June 2012, the new Integrated Reasoning Section (30min, 12 questions) will be scored from 1-8.

Now you ask, “Wait! Doesn’t each question have multiple answers? Like 3 Yes/No questions per actual question?”

That’s right!

In order to get that question right, you have to get ALL of the subquestions correct. One little mistake (due to not fully understanding what was “meant” in the question) is going to COST you! There is NO PARTIAL CREDIT!

Are you scared yet?!

GMAT Score Reporting

For all GMAT exams taken June 5, 2012 and later, the 5 scores reported are as follows:

Key points for Integrated Reasoning

So, what does this mean?
If there are 12 questions and I get full credit for 10, what is my score?

Well, it’s going to be scaled – GMAC hasn’t figured out exactly what a 10/12 will translate into. They will base it off how the rest of the test takers do.
It may be the case that raw scores of 11, and 12 out of 12 questions will receive a full score of “8″.
Then, if you get 9 or 10 correct, it might be a “7″.
If you get 7 or 8 correct, it might be a “6″.
And if you get 6 correct, it might be “5″.
Then, 4-5 correct might get you a “4″.
3 for “3″.
2 for “2″.
And 1 for “1″.

The exact “scale” has not been determined yet. But you can make a good guess as to what your score might be out of the full 8 points.

Extra Section on the GMAT?

Now the big question is, are the questions hard? I went through a bunch – some of the graphics, data tables are straightforward – maybe a few booby traps but nothing crazy that can’t be handled with good practice.

But when you get to multi-source reasoning which is basically like critical reasoning / reading comprehension and data sufficiency combined (thus, “integrated” reasoning), then there’s room for getting confused or not catching some small detail here or there.

So, is the IR section going to help you or be against you? Well, for business schools, it’s definitely going to help them.

The GMAT was originally created to have a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100. A score of 600 would be one standard deviation above the mean. However, over the years with more GMAT prep available and students using smart strategies and thinking processes like those offered by GMATPill, the average score has trended up and the number of students scoring 700+ is much more common these days. And if you’re applying to top schools where nearly everybody has a 700+ score, well, how else can business schools screen?

The application and background of the candidate is very important. But there are plenty of students who make it to the waitlist – and it’s really a tough spot to be in. Candidates are in agony waiting to find out if they get into their dream school. Meanwhile, there is not much they can do. Sometimes getting an improved GMAT score can get them off the waitlist – but this is not guaranteed. The addition of the IR score can help a school make some screens at this point. The IR section uses more real world business questions -and may become increasingly important in admission decisions. But for the time being, the traditional GMAT score out of 800 is going to be most important while the IR score is going to be supplemental and will come in handy in helping business schools screen through hundreds of candidates in agony on the waiting list.

Percentile Ranking

In addition to the IR score reported out of 8, the percentile ranking will be sent to schools. At first, the percentile will be based on only a small sample size of sample test scores done privately before June 5, 2012. Every month thereafter, all test takers’ data will be inputted into the cumulative score data and percentile rankings will be recalculated every month. So while a 7 out of 8 on the exam might get an 83%ile (for exaxmple) in June, the same score in July may turn out to be 93% if everyone does well – OR it may fall to a 76% if everyone has a tough time.

These percentiles will help business schools in their admission selections.

Getting Practice

Here at GMATPill, we have you covered. The IR Pill (available May/June 2012) will bring forth thinking processes and strategies that have made the existing pills a giant success – SC Pill, CR Pill, RC Pill, DS Pill and PS Pill.

The IR Pill will launch and prepare students for the increasing important IR section of the exam. There are sample practice questions and explanations that we created that you can look at to help you get a feel. Stay tuned.

One of the more daring dreams of many GMAT aspirants is to achieve the best possible GMAT score. However, all these students should know that they cannot achieve the best score, without becoming good at specific subjects and afterwards, better than before. This thing indirectly means that getting a truly high GMAT score highlights a very long process, which pretty much depends on finding the most appropriate preparation programs. Obviously, some of the best GMAT programs that a student is able to locate these days are those that include a gmat tutor.

Achieving a Good GMAT Score with the Help of a Tutoring Program 

Undoubtedly, a good GMAT score is actually a tricking entity. The reason for this is that as soon as a student reaches a specific GMAT level, he starts thinking that maybe that level cannot help him to get a high GMAT score. The only thing that a student can do in order to make sure that a specific preparation level allows him to get a particular GMAT score is to choose one of the available tutoring programs. The reason for this is that the tutor literally knows whether a specific preparation level is suitable for achieving a good GMAT score or not.

Therefore, none can deny the fact that although most tutoring programs are quire expensive, they represent some necessary tools that can literally help students to accurately assess their levels of knowledge and abilities before the actual exam. Another important thing that a tutor can help a student to comprehend relate to the differences that exist between the GMAT and GRE. Some students consider that the GMAT and GRE are pretty much similar. But the truth is that with the help of a tutor a student can complete a comprehensive gmat vs gre analysis, which is able to show him or the significant differences between these two tests.

Getting the Best GMAT Score

Although many students consider that getting the best possible GMAT score, such as 770 points or even the maximum 800 points, is an unachievable objective, previous test takers have already proven that this is an achievable goal. The only thing that can literally help you to achieve such a score is to study very hard until you can get such scores for various practice tests. If you complete numerous and various GMAT mock tests and you get over 770 points for all of them, you can be sure of the fact that you will also get a truly high score for the actual exam.

Additionally, you should be aware of the fact that even though the tutor is very important for guiding you towards the best study materials and even for helping you to implement specific strategies, obtaining a high GMAT score is something that mainly depends on your own determination. If you really want to get the best GMAT results, there are a few essential aspects that you should take into account such as:

• Retake the exam if you know that you can get a better score
• Complete a new preparation process if your overall GMAT score is unbalanced
• Try to complete the application process as soon as possible after finishing the previous education program
• You should never retake the GMAT if your score is high enough to enter a good business program

All these aspects are very important especially if you intend to enter specific business programs, such as Stanford or harvard mba and want additional help besides .