Update on the GMAT Changes: From Larry Rudner
This article is an update from Stacey Koprince’s Monday article.
I received a reply from Larry (Dr. Rudner – whom I quote in the article). He’s traveling right now, so can’t check specific details of problems and what is or isn’t included idiom-wise, but he did have this to say (quotes from him):
“I had no idea that students were studying idioms in preparation for the GMAT and that this is a big deal.”
–>So it’s good that we told him! I think this is a to-be-expected disconnect between the publicly-released – and by definition older – materials that we all see, such as the OG, and the new materials – but super-secret and not released – that he works with now. We have to go by the older stuff, of course, but he and his team are working exclusively with the newer stuff and don’t necessarily realize what we don’t know.
“We have been phasing them [idioms] out ever since our transition to truly managing the test ourselves in 2006. Idioms of all forms, as well as anything that is unnecessarily US centric, do not belong on any test that is used globally, and certainly not on a test designed to measure reasoning skills as opposed to basic skills.”
–> So, yes, they really are trying to minimize bias against non-native speakers / international testers.
Larry writes a column once every – I forget, either every month or every 2 months – and he’s going to put idioms on his topic list. He may not be able to address this topic in his very next article, but he does want to address idioms when he can. Once he does, I’ll get a copy and tell you what I think of what he says (much as I did for the conference).
I also suggested to him that a great theme in general for an article or ongoing series would be “Don’t stress about X” where X = things that either aren’t tested or aren’t very commonly tested. He does like that idea and hopes to do something like that in future as well. If he does, I’ll make sure to distribute a link so you can all read it! (And maybe there should be another one called “DO stress about Y!”)
Okay, so what does this mean? First, on the idiom issue, put these much lower on your priority list. They should be at the level of “if I want a REALLY high score or if I have extra time, I’ll look at this stuff, although I may not actually see any of it on test day.” Other things on this list: super-convoluted combinatorics problems, 3-D geometry, coordinate geometry that goes beyond lines, some of the very minor / uncommon CR question types, etc.
IF, though, you are a non-native speaker who really struggles with idioms and you plan to go to an English-speaking business school, then you may want to study that stuff (over a longer period of time and even while in business school) in order to improve your English language skills in general.
On the meaning issue, you should already – hopefully – have been studying meaning anyway. It was always a significant test component; it has just been increasing in prominence over the last few years. Also, just be aware that some things you may currently think of as grammar alone are also meaning issues – for example, misplaced modifiers. Why are they misplaced? How do you know? Because, for example, they refer to the wrong thing – that is, they mess up the meaning. You could argue that modifiers in general are really all about meaning, and you’ve already been studying those, right? (I hope so!)
So for the meaning stuff, this isn’t a totally bizarre, radical change. It’s mostly more of the same. Do make sure that you are thinking about these sentences from the point of view of both grammar and meaning. Many students will zero in so much on grammar / construction that they try to make it very mechanical, almost like math… and then meaning will trip you up. You might be able to get away with that on a lot of current OG problems, but you’ll get tripped up on others – and those others are the ones that are becoming more common today.