Mnemonics or mnemonic devices are memory tricks to help us remember things like vocabulary words. However, many mnemonics are pretty cheesy — often involving the kind of jokes some people call “groaners.” For instance…
Tantamount means, “equivalent, as in value, force, effect, or signification.”
The word is often used to say that something is 99.9% as bad as something really bad, as in, “The dictator’s call to action is tantamount to a declaration of war.”
Here’s the mnemonic:
(more…)
.png)
Each week, we 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 two free Manhattan Prep GRE Strategy Guides.
The perimeter of an equilateral triangle is 1.25 times the circumference of a circle.
Quantity A
The area of the equilateral triangle
Quantity B
The area of the circle
Did you know that our acclaimed GRE Strategy Guides are also available in the eBook format? You can now enjoy the full weight of the knowledge contained within our strategy guides without having to lug around the full weight of the books! It’s win-win!
To celebrate digital GRE prep, we’re giving away a complete set of our 8 Manhattan GRE Strategy Guides in the eBook format and, so you have something to read them with, we’re also giving away a brand new iPad along with them!
To enter to win, all you need to do is go to our Facebook page and “Like” our status about this giveaway. We’ll pick a winner at random from the list of people who “liked” that staus on May 15th at noon, EST.
Good luck!
Take a sneak peek into Manhattan Prep’s 500 Essential Words and 500 Advanced Words GRE flashcard sets.
Countenance is both a noun and a verb, and means something pretty different in each case. Check it out:
Want to adopt 1,000 new flashcards? Visit our store here.
By Stacey Koprince
When I make an error, I get excited. Seriously – you should be excited when you make errors, too. I know that I’m about to learn something and get better, and that’s definitely worth getting excited!
Errors can come in several different forms: careless errors, content errors, and technique errors. We’re going to discuss something critical today: how to learn from your errors so that you don’t continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. First, let’s define these different error types.
Remember those times when you were sure you got the answer right, only to find out that you got it wrong? For a moment, you even think that there must be a mistake in the answer key. Then, you take a look at the problem again, you check your work, and you want to slap yourself on the side of the head. You knew exactly how to do this problem and you should have gotten it right, but you made a careless mistake!
By definition, a careless mistake occurs when we did actually know all of the necessary info and we did actually possess all of the necessary skills, but we made a mistake anyway. We all make careless mistakes (yes, even the experts!); over 3+ hours, it’s not reasonable to assume that we can completely avoid making careless mistakes. Our goal is to learn how to minimize careless mistakes as much as possible.
“Content” is the actual knowledge we need to know in order to answer a question. What’s the formula for the area of a circle? What does the word “serendipity” mean? Content errors typically come in two forms: knowledge you did know but forgot, and knowledge that you didn’t know, or didn’t know well enough, in the first place.
Beyond the content itself, we can typically work through any quant, text completion, or sentence equivalence problem in multiple ways; the particular solution method we choose to use is what we call the technique. For reading comprehension, of course, all we have is technique; no actual facts (that aren’t given in the passage) are being tested on reading comp. We also need to employ timing strategies, in terms of both individual questions and the overall section.
Your first step is to create an error log. You can do this in a notebook or an electronic file, but have one consistent place where you can record your errors. I typically record careless mistakes separately from all other mistakes, but you can organize things however you want, as long as the organization is consistent. Then, you can use the error log to learn from your errors!
For each problem, keep track of this data:
1) The basics: where the problem can be found again in your materials, the question type to which the problem belongs (as specifically as possible), the content category being tested (if applicable), the time you spent, and the current date.
2) The error: describe the error in specific detail; if applicable, actually copy into your file the part of the work where you made the error. (Note: one problem could have multiple mistakes; include them all.)
3) The reason: figure out WHY you made this error and write that down; if there are multiple reasons, note them all. The next step hinges on this step, so make sure you really dig deep to figure out why! If you can’t figure out why, then you can’t figure out how to fix the problem. (See more on this, below.)
4) To Do: figure out what habits you need to make or break in order to minimize the chances of making that particular mistake again. For example, you might:
Whatever it is, do the necessary work to create good habits and jettison bad ones. (There’s a GRE word for you!)
5) Review and reinforce: at least once a week, review your log. Are there certain types of mistakes you tend to make repeatedly? Are you continuing to make mistakes that you’ve made in the past and already tried to fix? Go back to steps 3 and 4 again.
The simple fact that you’re now aware of your tendencies will allow you to notice when those kinds of problems pop up on the test. When you’re already aware, then it’s easier for you to double-check the parts of your work where you’re most likely to make a mistake – or, if necessary, to let the problem go.
Let’s talk more about figuring out why you made a mistake. Careless mistakes will usually be pretty obvious. When you’re looking through your work, something will jump right out at you. You added when you should have subtracted. You thought something out in your head instead of writing it down, or you didn’t check the proof in the passage. You calculated area instead of circumference. You missed the word “not,” which totally changed the entire problem or answer choice.
Quant content errors tend to be more straightforward, but quant technique errors can sometimes be tricky to fix. Don’t assume that the first technique you tried is the one you have to use. Read the explanation, talk to your teacher or fellow students, check out some online forums, and try to find different, better ways of tackling the problem.
Verbal errors can be even trickier to understand. Whenever you pick a wrong answer (or you guessed and got lucky), ask yourself several things:
(more…)
