The Master Resource List for Critical Reasoning

Stacey Koprince —  June 19, 2013 — Leave a comment

gmat critical reasoningWhich CR question type drives you crazy? Boldface? Find the Assumption? Inference?

I’ve put together what I’m calling the Master Resource List for this question type. A couple of disclaimers. First, this list includes only free resources, no paid ones. There are a lot of good resources out there that cost some money—they’re just not on this list!

Second, this list is limited to my own articles. I’m not trying to claim that only my articles are good enough to make such a list—far from it. I’m most familiar with my own articles, so that’s what I’m using. (And, okay, I will admit that I think the ManhattanGMAT CR process is the best one out there. But I’m biased. : ) )

The CR Process

Before you dive into individual question types, it’s critical to know the overall CR process. A few key notes:

  • There 4 major and 5 minor question sub-types* and each one has its own particular technique details.
  • Your job is to learn the overall process / strategy for CR as well as the techniques specific to each question sub-type.

* Every now and then, a question pops up that doesn’t quite fit one of the 9 main categories. There are exceptions to every rule in the universe.

In order to master CR, you should be able to answer the following questions about each question type:

  1. How do I recognize this question type?
  2. What kind of information should I expect to find in the argument, based on this question type? What kind of information is going to be the most important?
  3. What is the goal for this question type? What characteristics must the correct answer have?
  4. What kinds of traps will be set for me? What are the common wrong answer types for this question type?
In Critical Reasoning, How To Study ,
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mbaMission: New York University (Stern) Essay Analysis, 2013–2014

LaurenGolin —  June 18, 2013 — 1 Comment

New York University’s (NYU’s) Stern School of Business jumps on the “less is more” bandwagon this application season by reducing its essay count from three to two. However, that is the only change—Stern’s essay questions are actually the same as last year’s, but for Essay 2, candidates can now choose between two prompts that were previously both mandatory.

For Essay 2, it will be interesting to see whether candidates favor Option A, taking the rather straightforward path and exploring their envisioned careers in greater depth, or the challenging creative essay in Option B, hoping to provide a far deeper personal picture for the admissions committee. Our guess is that most applicants will choose the latter—doing so will allow the candidates to differentiate themselves from many “careerists” in the applicant pool. We also suspect that some candidates will worry that if they choose Option A, they will be inadvertently revealing themselves to be “uncreative” and will therefore feel compelled to choose Option B. But do not try to guess what the admissions committee “wants”! If the school wanted everyone to respond to one option in particular, they would not have offered two! Let us reassure you that this is not some sort of test. Take the time to consider how you would respond to both questions,  and then select the one that you believe would offer the admissions committee the more compelling picture of you.

NYU Stern Essay 1:  Professional Aspirations

(750 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)

  • Why pursue an MBA (or dual degree) at this point in your life?
  • What actions have you taken to determine that Stern is the best fit for your MBA experience?
  • What do you see yourself doing professionally upon graduation?

The three points that make up Stern’s Essay 1 question this year basically constitute a Personal Statement, and because Personal Statements are similar from one application to the next, we have produced the mbaMission Personal Statement Guide, which helps applicants write this style of essay for any school. We offer this guide to candidates free of charge. Please feel free to download your copy today.

And for a thorough exploration of NYU Stern’s academic program/merits, defining characteristics, important statistics, social life, academic environment and more, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guide to New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business.

Essay 2: Choose Option A or Option B

Option A: Your Two Paths

(500 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)

The mission of the Stern School of Business is to develop people and ideas that transform the challenges of the 21st century into opportunities to create value for business and society. Given today’s ever-changing global landscape, Stern seeks and develops leaders who thrive in ambiguity, embrace a broad perspective and think creatively about the range of ways they can have impact.

  • Describe two different and distinct paths you could see your career taking long term. How do you see your two paths unfolding?
  • How do your paths tie to the mission of NYU Stern?
  • What factors will most determine which path you will take?

Given that the school is asking about two possible paths for your long-term career, you may be wondering whether you can be vague or uncertain about your goals in this essay. Quite simply, “No.” In fact, you will instead need to present two feasible career options and relate your skills and experiences to them very clearly to create an effective, coherent statement and show both that you are versatile and that you know yourself well.
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In Essay Analysis, MBA/B-School , , ,
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Giveaway Data Sufficiency Statements

Andrea Pawliczek —  June 18, 2013 — Leave a comment

gmat unicornData sufficiency question are a strange animal that exists only in GMAT land.  The newness of this question type creates high levels of anxiety because we don’t know how to react when we see something new (How do you think you would react if you were standing face to face with a unicorn?).   Once we get over this newness, data sufficiency questions all follow a specific morphology, and in my opinion actually contain less diversity than problem solving questions.  There is always either a yes/no question (is ab even?) or value question (how many boys are in the class?), followed by two statements, and the five answer choice are always the same and in the same order. (If you are completely unfamiliar with data sufficiency questions take a look at an example here)

Because of this very confined structure, there are actually cases where the structure of question and statements can give you information regardless of the specifics of the problem. There are at least four instances where a specific form of the statement(s) will allow you to eliminate several responses without evaluating the full content of the problem.

1) A value statement for a yes/no question

If a statement provides a value for the sole variable in the question, it is definitely sufficient to answer any yes or no question.

For example:

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In Data Sufficiency, Quant
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GMAT Challenge Problem Showdown: June 17, 2013

LaurenGolin —  June 17, 2013 — Leave a comment

challenge problem
We invite you to test your GMAT knowledge for a chance to win! Each week, we will post a new Challenge Problem for you to attempt. If you submit the correct answer, you will be entered into that week’s drawing for a free Manhattan GMAT Prep item. Tell your friends to get out their scrap paper and start solving!
Here is this week’s problem:

Triangle ABC is cut by a line DE parallel to side AC, as shown in the diagram. If side AC has length 1, and the area and perimeter of triangle ABC are both twice the corresponding values for trapezoid ADEC, what is the perimeter of triangle DBE?

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Free GMAT Events This Week: June 17 – June 23

LaurenGolin —  June 16, 2013 — Leave a comment

Here are the free GMAT events we’re holding this week. All times are local unless otherwise specified.

6/17/13- Santa Monica, CA - Free Trial Class- 6:30PM- 9:30PM (EDT)

6/17/13- Boston, MA - Free Trial Class -  6:30PM- 9:30PM

6/17/13- Atlanta, GA  - Free Trial Class -  6:30PM- 9:30PM

6/17/13- Evanston, IL - Free Trial Class-  6:30PM-9:30PM

6/18/13- Berkeley, CA - Free Trial Class - 6:30PM- 9:30PM

6/18/13- Online- Writing a Standout HBS Application Essay presented by mbaMission- 9:00PM-10:30PM (EDT)

6/19/13- Glendale, CA- Free Trial Class- 6:30PM-9:30PM
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Friday Links: Non-US Business Schools, Social Media MBA Application, & More

LaurenGolin —  June 14, 2013 — Leave a comment

 

GMAT NewsCatch up on some business school news and tips with a few of this week’s top stories:

Best Non-US Business Schools (About.com Business School)

Here is a list of the best non-US business schools. Each school offers at least one high-quality program for business students.

Tweets, Slideshows and Social Media—The New MBA App (Poets & Quants)

The University of Iowa’s Tippie School of Management revamped their application to connect with candidates in their own space – social media.

14 Simple Ways to Get Considerably More Done (Inc.)

Don’t think it’s possible because you’re already working in overdrive? Here’s a new way to look at your to-do list.

Applicants Invest 90 to 140 Hours to Apply (Poets and Quants)

Find out just how well b-schools get to know you through the admissions process.

Did we miss your favorite article from the week? Let us know what you have been reading in the comments below or tweet @ManhattanGMAT

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Dead Man’s Hand — A Holistic Guide To GMAT Scoring, Part Duh

Chris Berman —  June 13, 2013 — Leave a comment

“Many a true word is said in jest.”—I don’t know, but I heard it from my mother.

 

When I was a little boy, I didn’t want to be a fireman when I grew up.  I wanted to be a riverboat gambler.  Unfortunately, I didn’t because of a bad upbringing—utility stocks were too risky for my father. . .I do play poker and blackjack some though.  gmat card gameAnd I don’t try to fill inside straights.  On the other hand, I don’t play baccarat because I don’t understand the rules well enough.  The same principles apply to the GMAT.  The first part of this series—-“Heart of Darkness—A Holistic Guide to GMAT Scoring” —- highlights why test takers don’t score as well as they should because they don’t understand the rules of the game and thus often try to fill inside straights.  And, like a Greek tragedy, that post ends by lamenting how even test takers who know how to play baccarat are corrupted by the siren song of the ticking clock.  Yes, the clock.

Folks fail to understand that all their good work will be undone if they do not finish the sections in good order.  Leaving the last five blank will lower your score by as much as sixty points.  Roughly speaking, doing so in both sections will magically turn a 660 into a 550.  And you must not only finish, but also finish in good order.  If you blind guess the last five in each section, with average karma, your score will still drop sixty points.   Run the assessment reports on your practice exams—if your score is lower than the average difficulty of the questions that you missed, you have timing problems, even if you are finishing the sections.

How can you avoid this penalty?  Well, the easiest way is to have an angel on your shoulder and always guess right.  However, if you can’t count on that angel full time, you have to control the clock. In the first half of a section, the CAT computer is roughly approximating your ability level.  Thus, what is unforgiveable there is missing questions that you know how to do.  But test takers misunderstand—that is NOT the same as getting them ALL right.  If I take a GMAT, I’ll get ten of the first fifteen quants correct.  Maybe eleven.  Or maybe nine.  It doesn’t matter.  For me, after about the fourth one, they are all 800 level questions and, as part one discussed, you only need to be about 50% accurate at the score level that you want.  Trying to get them all right is a trap.  First off, as I implied a second ago, even if you are scoring 790, the computer will give you problems that you don’t know how to do.  So it’s hopeless on the face of it.  Equally importantly, attempting to do so uses up too much time.  The Catch-22 here is that you must answer those that you know correctly without disproportionally using the time.  Or you’ll turn your 660 into a 550.  What is the solution to this dialectic?  The envelope, please. . .

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4 Kinds of Questions to Review

Joe Lucero —  June 12, 2013 — Leave a comment

What’s the difference between a real GMAT and a practice one? On the real GMAT, you’re finished after three and a half hours, give or take. But while you are preparing for the GMAT, finishing a practice test is much different than being finished with it. As I’ve written about before, practice tests are great assessment tools but not necessarily great learning tools. Practice tests tell you what you would likely score on the real GMAT if you answered 37 quant and 41 verbal questions with the same level of aptitude that you had on the questions you just saw. But if you want to see your GMAT score improve, you’re going to have to spend some time reviewing what you did, how you did it, and how you could do it better. To help you on that quest to get better, here are four kinds of questions that you can use to help improve your score.

1)  Questions You Got Wrong

gmat mistakeThis one is the obvious one- if you want to get better at the GMAT, you need to find questions that you got wrong and learn how to get them right. But this isn’t as simple as finding an explanation online and memorizing it (although our forums are a great place to get many of your hardest questions answered). Studying for the GMAT is more than just trying to read and memorize a bunch of facts- it’s about changing the way that your brain thinks about how to manipulate an equation or dissect an argument. And what better way for your brain to learn how to tackle a challenge than to give your brain more time to do so. In the middle of a test, your brain is rushed. You might have had to give up on the question halfway through or guessed on it immediately to save yourself time. But when you give your brain more time to discover that “A-HA! moment”, your brain is much more likely to recognize what to do the next time you see a similar hurdle. After you spend some time trying to solve it on your own, feel free to search for an explanation or a better way of solving a problem. However, you have to make sure that the explanation you read is something that you can do in your own head or your own paper come test day.

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