Andrew Yang (NY) and Tom Rose (Boston) commemorate the passing of Big Orange

Among the many topics of discussion at the Manhattan GMAT Instructor Convocation was what happens to the 11th Edition of the Official Guide now that it’s about to leave print.  Here at Manhattan GMAT, we have something of a library of the various editions of the OG, starting with the 4th Edition or so (our copy of that one is pretty tattered).

Most students automatically gravitate toward the 12th Edition of the Official Guide for GMAT Review as soon as they hear about it, because, well, the newer the better.

But the fact that the 12th Edition is one-third new questions also means that the 11th Edition has several hundred other fairly representative problems of recent vintage for the thorough student to pore through.  So if you’ve got Big Orange lying around, don’t punish yourself for having an earlier edition.  Instead, praise yourself for picking up what could soon be a Collector’s Item.

Application season is starting to heat up again! For those of you just getting started, here’s an overview of “what’s what” with the GMAT.

What Is The GMAT?

The Graduate Management Admissions Test is a standardized test that many English-speaking business schools require applicants to take. The test is called a CAT, or Computer Adaptive Test, both because it is administered on a computer and because the test actually changes based upon how we answer the questions. The computer chooses what test questions to give us based upon our performance up until that point in the test. In a sense, we all take a different test, because the specific mix of questions any one person sees is based on that person’s performance during the test.

To register for the test or learn more information straight from the testwriters, go to www.mba.com.

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GMAC has publicly released the long awaited 12th Edition of the Official Guide for GMAT Review! The beloved big orange 11th Edition is being replaced by the same-size maroon 12th Edition.

Here at Manhattan GMAT, we heartily recommend all GMAC materials for students. Indeed, students receive all of the Official Guides when they sign up for any course. So the relevant question for most students is really, “If I already own the 11th Edition, should I run out (or go online) and get a new copy of the 12th Edition?”

And the answer is a decided “Yes, with reservations.”

First of all, if you own the 11th Edition, you already own 67% of the 12th Edition. Of the 907 problems, 607 are repeated from the 11th Edition. Indeed, the entire Diagnostic Text is identical. So you’re looking at 300 new problems.

Second, it is not the case that these 300 new problems break any substantial new ground in terms of question formats or tested material. They don’t. Often, they actually are substituted in place of VERY similar problems in the 11th edition that tested the exact same concepts.

Third, you might even have seen some of these 300 problems before, as some of them were already public via GMAC’s GMAT Focus tests.

All of that said, we always advocate that there’s nothing like the real thing. So if you don’t own the 11th edition, we’d say without hesitation that you should order the 12th edition ASAP (Note: All GMAC materials can be applied for book credit for any MGMAT course). The 12th edition does have a body of new data sufficiency questions (as DS questions are included in a higher proportion than was the case in the 11th). And even if you do own the 11th edition, 300 real GMAT problems for $36.95 (or less) is a pretty outstanding value.

For those of you of a statistical bent, we have posted a VERY thorough analysis of the differences between the 11th and 12th Editions here, right down to the granular problem level. We are very particular about our GMAT prep materials here at MGMAT. 🙂

On our forums, there’s been a recent spate of posts in which well-meaning users have posted official problems from GMATPrep—usually sentence correction problems—and then questioned or decried the construction of the correct answer choices.

“Is X really allowed? Isn’t it supposed to be Y?”

Some of these posters have actually gone to the trouble of looking up the disputed constructions in sundry reference works, including dictionaries and style guides, to try to find ammunition with which to attack the officially correct answer.

Never forget the following iron law:
On official problems, CORRECT ANSWERS ARE CORRECT, in every possible way.

This fact may sound obvious, but many students don’t realize its full consequences: namely, that every grammatical construction found in a correct answer to an official SC problem is officially valid, that every idiomatic expression in such an answer is correct, and that every word choice in such an answer is appropriate.
ALL of them.

This is an inviolable fact. Remember that the GMAT is a dictatorship, a consensus of one: only GMAC ultimately makes the decisions about which grammatical and idiomatic constructions are acceptable and which aren’t. We’re all playing on GMAC’s playground, and GMAC makes the rules.

What this means for you, the student, is that it’s a complete waste of time for you to question any official answer to a problem published by GMAC. Indeed, the only appropriate response to a correct answer that you find surprising, illogical, or “ugly” is this:
“Wow, that’s unusual. I guess I’ll have to recalibrate the way I think about that, because now I know I can do _____.”
Again, this is the ONLY way to respond to surprising constructions, solutions, and so on in officially correct answers. If you respond by questioning or doubting the validity of such answers, or, worse yet, actively trying to dispute that validity, then you are at best sidelining your studies with needless detours, and at worst confusing yourself.

On official problems, correct answers are correct.
That’s it.

There may be answers that you don’t like—I, for one, have been positively disgusted by a few of the officially correct SC answers I’ve seen—but you’ve got to learn to play by GMAC’s rules.

Hi, all, and welcome to my inaugural post on the MGMAT blog. I’m really excited to join Andrew in talking about All Things GMAT. 🙂

As we gear up for the fall 2009 admissions frenzy (for admission in 2010), a lot of people have been asking how they should plan their GMAT prep. So I thought I’d post some ideas about how to get started. People prep in a variety of ways but there are three big categories in general: self study, private tutoring, and classes.

There is no one right way to prep, but there are some things to keep in mind while you decide which path is the best one for you.

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Effective March 1st, 2009, Manhattan GMAT Course Prices are going to increase $50 – $100 to $1,490 in all locations (with a couple of exceptions that will be explained below). Our online course will also increase in price, to $1,090.

This is not a move we make lightly. At MGMAT, we always try to provide the best value possible to our students; this is the 1st price increase we’ve had in over two years for much the same reason.

In those same two years, we have dedicated ourselves to providing the best, most complete GMAT prep course possible. We’ve added many things to our course during this period, including:

1. Updated 3rd Edition Strategy Guides and Curriculum. We spent hundreds of hours improving and updating our curricular materials to reflect lessons from the classroom as well as recent developments with the GMAT itself.
2. Improved Post-Exam Assessment. Students now can consult with a senior Instructor after they take their GMAT to debrief and plan next steps. Hopefully, this isn’t necessary! But we know that sometimes it’s exceedingly helpful to students to have guidance for a second shot; the average increase for a 2nd-time test-taker is 31 points (from GMAC data, not just among our students) for a reason.
3. Our Test Simulation Booklet. We added this to make sure that our students could practice using the same sort of laminated booklet and marker that they’ll have to use on test day. It’s been a hit with students.
4. Manual Stopwatches. We’ve provided an online stopwatch for practice for years. However, some of our students reported that they sometimes found themselves practicing away from a computer, so we’ve now added stopwatches with lap functions to the set of materials that each student receives.
5. Essay Rating Software. We now provide our course students access to the same essay-grading software that GMAC itself uses.

We have made many other improvements large and small during this same period (e.g. we revised our online labs, etc.). We have internalized the cost of these improvements over the past 2 years, and are only now modifying our pricing to reflect some of our increased costs.

Again, this isn’t something we like to do. Still, we do take some comfort in the fact that we are yet providing what we feel is the best GMAT prep course available at a price that remains competitive with the market rate (e.g. Kaplan) while still maintaining our industry-leading Instructor compensation ($100+/hour).

If you’re reading this and were considering signing up for a course in the next few months, try to get in before March 1st. 🙂

(Our pricing is somewhat lower in Los Angeles and Austin due to pre-existing commitments we’ve made. So if you’re in one of these two areas, you not only get sunshine, you get a bargain on your GMAT course!)