Here’s a fairly straightforward GMATPrep® question that I’ve seen many-a-student answer incorrectly. See if you can answer the question without writing anything down:

Of the 3,600 employees of Company X, 1/3 are clerical. If the clerical staff were to be reduced by 1/3, what percent of the total number of the remaining employees would then be clerical?

 

A)  25%

B)  22.2%

C) 20%

D) 12.5%

E)  11.1%

Classic GMAT question. Straightforward. Easy to understand. Simple to equate— 1/3 of 3,600 is 1,200 and 1/3 of that is 400. So we’d only have 800 remaining clerical staff and 800/3600 = 2/9, answer B. And like so(oooooooo) many other GMAT questions, we’d have answered incorrectly.

If have some paper in front of you, try to solve the question again by writing down each step along the way. Maybe even include what each of those numbers that you write down mean in the context of the question. Don’t cheat- see if you answer the question differently when you’re forced to write down more than just a simple computation or two.

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Here’s what I wrote down first on my scrap paper:
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September is the greatest month of the year. At some point in the not-so-distant future, my AC-unit will be able to finally power off after five straight months of keeping me inside, away from the Texas heat and the West Nile carrying mosquitos that the heat brought with it. But more importantly, September means that football is finally back. So with that in mind, here’s four lessons from the college football season for those of you who need help rationalizing your Saturday afternoon absence from your GMAT study place.

1)  Schedule the Cupcake Sections Early

Oregon hasn’t been spending the last three months preparing to face Arkansas State. And when September 1 rolls around, Oregon would prefer to pull its starters sometime early in the second half. A loss to an early season opponents would definitely hurt their BCS chances, but if the Ducks play half-decent football at the start of the season, they can focus on playing their best once Pac-12 teams start traveling to Eugene in late September.

For you, walking away from the test with a 2 on your AWA or IR section could be a bad thing when it comes time to apply to business school. But running up the score on your AWA won’t help your 200-800 score and you don’t want to exhaust your brain during the first hour of your test. But if you’ve thoroughly prepared for the quant and verbal sections of the test, and have watched some tape (such as our IR recordings or AWA labs) on what you need to do for the two warmup sections, you’ll do just fine early and can focus on playing your best once the quant section shows up on your screen.

2) Focus on One Question at a Time

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When not providing insight into the fascinating world of the GMAT, I enjoy watching detective shows on television.  In many episodes, one of the detectives must delve into the mind of the perpetrator – actually try to think as the perpetrator does.   In so doing, the seemingly random clues come together (often via a slow motion or black and white flashback scene) leading to an insight that breaks the case.

I am going to advocate taking on this television detective mentality in approaching GMAT problems.  Perhaps there is a further parallel as the mind of the GMAT question writer may seem to be just as scary a place as the mind of a criminal. But the ability to think like a GMAT test writer can provide multiple benefits including enabling you to get more questions right and allowing you to have more confidence in your answers.

So let’s try think about three lessons we can take from our favorite crime dramas and apply to the GMAT.

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When do you leave the house without directions? Or perhaps the more modern reference, is when do you start on your way without plugging in your destination into a GPS device? I expect the answer for most of you is “when I know where I am going.”

Conversely, when you have no idea when you are going, your solution is most likely not to get in your car (or on your bike or public transit) and just start randomly driving around hoping you run into your desired destination. Ideally, you probably look up where you are going and plan out a route. Alternatively, you might know a nearby destination and start heading there (e.g. I know the bike store is near that place I get coffee). Finally, on occasion you may just head to an area where you expect to find a type of business (e.g. Gas stations are usually close to freeway entrances).

Now, all this talk about directions has been fun, but let’s bring the analogy around to GMAT quant problems. Sometimes when you see a GMAT problem, you may understand what the question is asking and see the path to the solution. In these cases, dive right in. Start driving and you are likely to reach your destination because you know – or at least have a good sense – of where you are going. Continue Reading…