GMAT - Verbal

Today’s GMAT Tip comes from our friends at Knewton.  In this article, they provide helpful information about the extent to which idioms are included on the GMAT.  Read on to see what they have to say! You may have heard that the GMAT is no longer testing idioms. You also may have heard that the first 10 questions on the GMAT are the most important. You also may have heard that Lindsey Lohan is great at Data Sufficiency. Why do you believe everything you hear? Dr. Lawrence Rudner is the Vice President of Research and Development at the Graduate Management Admission Council. In other words, he is The Man with regards to the GMAT. Here is what he has to say on the matter: “Some Sentence Correction items continue to pose reasoning tasks that incorporate English-language, NOT American, idioms. These are not intended to test specialized knowledge of colloquialisms and regionalisms.” Read more

Today’s GMAT tip comes from test prep firm ManhattanGMAT. In this article, they provide helpful tips for how to answer sentence correction questions involving partial underlines on the GMAT.  Read on to see what they have to say! It has been a while since we’ve done grammar, so let’s try out this GMATPrep Sentence Correction question. Set your timer for 1 minute and 15 seconds and go! “When the temperature of a gas is increased, it is either accompanied by an increase in pressure if the gas is enclosed in a container, or an increase in volume if the gas is able to expand. “(A) When the temperature of a gas is increased, it is either accompanied by an increase in pressure if the gas is enclosed in a container, or “(B) When the temperature of a gas is increased, it is accompanied either by an increase in pressure if it is enclosed in a container or “(C) When the temperature of a gas is increased, the increase is either accompanied by an increase in pressure if the gas is enclosed in a container or by “(D) Any increase in the temperature of a gas is either accompanied by an increase in pressure if it is enclosed in a container, or by “(E) Any increase in the temperature of a gas is accompanied either by an increase in pressure if the gas is enclosed in a container or by” Read more

Today’s GMAT tip comes to us from Veritas Prep.  In this article, they provide helpful strategies for answering critical reasoning questions on the GMAT. Read on to see what they have to say! There may not be a more aptly named question type on the GMAT than “Critical Reasoning,” a question type that rewards critical thinking in a major way.  Students are successful by reading critically and economically.  Those who buy into the critical way of processing arguments can “click” with critical reasoning quite readily, quickly organizing information into actionable components and anticipating correct answers before even reading them. We offer these three critical strategies for critical reasoning questions: 1) Know Your Role Each CR question contains a stimulus (usually one paragraph of 3-5 sentences), a question stem, and five answer choices (four incorrect, one correct).  For most questions, it is natural for the student to read by starting at the beginning. But the trick is this — each stimulus, necessarily, is about “something,” and that “something” tends to frame that you read about it.  The human brain processes information by building links between known information and new information, so as you read, say, a stimulus about a mining excavation project, your mind will involuntarily try to link it to something you know — the Chilean miners and their underground plight; the city of Pittsburgh and its turnaround through healthcare and education; the fact that you hated your college geology class…  Read more

Today’s GMAT Tip comes from our friends at Knewton.  In this article, they provide helpful tips for answering Reading Comprehension questions on the GMAT.  Read on to see what they have to say! Sometimes, even as a GMAT teacher, it can be easy to be cynical about Reading Comprehension. “Why bother spending much time teaching Reading Comprehension?” I ask myself in those moments of despair. After all, it’s just reading and answering questions about a passage. It doesn’t have the diverse question types of Critical Reasoning or the grammar rules and “tells” of Sentence Correction. Compared to CR and SC, it sometimes seems that there’s little a GMAT teacher can do to improve his students’ performance on RC. Of course, this isn’t actually true. The vast majority of my students do improve on Reading Comprehension, thanks in large part to strategies like making passage M.A.P.S. — that is, sketching out the the Main idea, Attitude of the author, Purpose of the passage, and Structure of the passage (try it if you haven’t!). Read more

Today’s GMAT tip comes to us from Veritas Prep.  In this article, they provide helpful advice on how to study for the Sentence Correction section of the GMAT. Read on to see what they have to say! You know that the GMAT tests Modifiers in Sentence Correction. But the unasked question that you may want to ask is: Why? Why Modifiers and not the fact that you’re not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition? Why Modifiers and not something more obscure like “when assigning a possessive to someone whose name ends in ‘s,’ what is the rule for when you just put the apostrophe right after the ‘s’ (Russ’) and when you put another ‘s’ after the apostrophe (Russ’s)?” Ultimately, Modifiers have one massive advantage to GMAT administrators and the business schools who use GMAT scores in admissions: Modifiers are either logical or illogical. It is patently illogical to say that “like Bob Dylan, the music of Talib Kweli…”. Music just won’t be like Bob Dylan; one is an art or a sound, while the other is a human being. It’s not a logical comparison or description. Instead, you’d have to say “Like that of Bob Dylan, the music of Talib Kweli…” or “Like Bob Dylan, Talib Kweli makes music that…”. Those are logical — Dylan’s music can be like Kweli’s music, or Dylan can be like Kweli. They’re at least in the same realm. Read more

Today’s GMAT tip comes from test prep firm ManhattanGMAT. In this article, they provide helpful tips for how to identify and answer "strengthen" questions in the Critical Reasoning section of the GMAT.  Read on to see what they have to say! This week, we’re going to tackle a harder GMATPrep critical reasoning question from the Strengthen category. Let’s start with the problem. Set your timer for 2 minutes! * "Sales of telephones have increased dramatically over the last year. In order to take advantage of this increase, Mammoth Industries plans to expand production of its own model of telephone, while continuing its already very extensive advertising of this product. “Which of the following, if true, provides most support for the view that Mammoth Industries cannot increase its sales of telephones by adopting the plan outlined above? “(A) Although it sells all of the telephones that it produces, Mammoth Industries’ share of all telephone sales has declined over the last year. “(B) Mammoth Industries’ average inventory of telephones awaiting shipment to retailers has declined slightly over the last year. “(C) Advertising has made the brand name of Mammoth Industries’ telephones widely known, but few customers know that Mammoth Industries owns this brand. “(D) Mammoth Industries’ telephone is one of three brands of telephone that have together accounted for the bulk of the last year’s increase in sales. “(E) Despite a slight decline in the retail price, sales of Mammoth Industries’ telephones have fallen in the last year.” Read more

Today’s GMAT tip comes to us from Veritas Prep.  In this article, they provide helpful tips on how to answer Critical Reasoning questions on the GMAT. Read on to see what they have to say! Admit it: you are a critical person. When you’re in a long line at a store or DMV, you criticize the way the establishment runs things.  When you drive, you criticize the others on the road. Like anything, being critical is a matter of interpretation as to whether it’s a good or bad thing. Critical person? Bad. Critical thinker? Harvard material. And on the GMAT, it pays to embrace your inner critic. One of the least-used but most-useful ways of doing so takes place on Critical Reasoning questions that ask you to identify an assumption that an author makes when constructing an argument. True, the correct answer will strengthen, and not weaken, the author’s conclusion, but we’re much better at criticizing than we are at defending, and when given the option we should probably choose the former. Consider this argument and question: When it rains for more than an hour immediately before or during a baseball game, the game is canceled. Therefore, tomorrow’s game is sure to be canceled. The author of the argument above assumes which of the following? (A) The manager of the home team has already begun planning his pitching rotation around the impending cancellation. (B) The ticket office has issued a statement to ticketholders regarding the rain check policy. (C) It will rain for an extended period of time leading up to tomorrow’s scheduled game time. Read more

Today’s GMAT tip comes from test prep firm ManhattanGMAT. In this article, they share helpful tips on how to solve critical reasoning problems that require you to evaluate a conclusion.  Read on to see what they have to say! This week, we’re going to tackle a harder GMATPrep critical reasoning question from the Evaluate A Conclusion category. Let’s start with the problem. Set your timer for 2 minutes! * ”Capuchin monkeys in Venezuela often rub a certain type of millipede into their fur. Secretions of these millipedes have been shown to contain two chemicals that are potent mosquito repellents, and mosquitoes carry parasites that debilitate the capuchins. The rubbing behavior is rare except during the rainy season, when mosquito populations are at their peak. Therefore, the monkeys probably rub the millipedes into their fur because doing so helps protect them against mosquitoes. “Which of the following would it be most useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument? “(A) Whether the two chemicals provide any protection for the millipedes against their own predators “(B) Whether the type of millipede used by the capuchin monkeys in Venezuela is found in other parts of the world “(C) Whether animals other than capuchins rub insects of any kind into their fur “(D) Whether the only time the millipedes are readily available to the capuchins is during the rainy season “(E) Whether secretions of any other insects accessible to the capuchins contain chemicals that repel mosquitoes” Read more