Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

In a world where we are often carrying at least one device, if not multiple devices, that can complete calculations, there is little need to do calculations manually. For this reason, the lack of a calculator on the GMAT Quantitative section is a significant point of concern—or perhaps even fear—to many test takers, even some with strong quantitative skills. That brings me to some good and some bad news for prospective GMAT takers. Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

A student recently asked me to show an example of how I read and take notes on a reading comprehension passage. In this older article, I discussed how to read through a RC passages in general, but I didn’t show an example. If you haven’t already read the older article, read that first; then come back here to see an example. Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

Have you been studying for a while now but having trouble getting to your goal score or making the kind of improvement that you want to make? If you’re getting frustrated with your progress (or lack thereof), let’s try to figure out what’s going on. It’s entirely possible that you have some problems of which you’re unaware, or that you’re studying in an inefficient or ineffective way.

There are a number of additional articles linked in this article. If you read something that applies to your situation, click on all the links you see in that section. Also, ask for advice! There are so many resources out there that it can be overwhelming, but most companies offer free advice and you can also benefit from talking to fellow students. Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

I’ve been in full-on writing mode lately as we update our Strategy Guides (look for the 5th edition in 2012, in time to start prepping for the Next Generation GMAT!). A couple of our teachers have been doing extensive research on every available official Critical Reasoning problem, and now we’re synthesizing everything. Although we’re still in development mode, I want to share some of our take-aways with you so that you can start to benefit from them right away! Read more

Students often ask for non-GMAT reading sources that they can use to improve their reading skills in general, for comprehension and for speed. Recently, some students have asked for more: how should they read such material? Is it the same as reading for work or for pleasure? (Not entirely, no.)

Reading Passages on the GMAT

Several circumstances separate GMAT reading from real-world reading (whether for business or pleasure). Read more

This article was written by our very own instructor, Stacey Koprince. If you’re looking for more great resources and advice, check out our free resources section.

A few weeks ago, we talked about how to make educated guesses on Quant (you can click here for that article). This article covers educated guesses on GMAT Verbal. Read more

This article was written by our very own instructor, Stacey Koprince. If you’re looking for more great resources and advice, check out our free resources section.

I’ve been getting lots of great article ideas from students lately, and this is one of them: how do we make educated guesses on GMAT Quant problems? (I wrote a separate article about Verbal here.)

Note: if you requested a different topic, don’t worry! I keep a list of all requests; I will get to your request eventually. I’m generally choosing the order based upon the number of requests I get from different people about the same topic. Read more

I’ve been speaking with students lately who aren’t entirely sure how to approach Critical Reasoning (CR) questions when a new one first pops up on the screen. In particular, a lot of students do one thing they shouldn’t be doing: they read the argument too soon.

How can someone read the argument too soon?

It may seem kind of strange to say that someone reads the argument too soon. After all, isn’t that the first thing we do on a CR question? Actually, reading the argument is not the first thing we should do. The first thing we should do is read the question stem.

Then, we’re ready to read the argument, right?

Not so fast.

Read more

Lately, as I’ve been discussing test questions with people on the forums, I’ve realized that a lot of students aren’t using the GMAT forums to discuss those test questions in the optimal way. I’m defining the optimal way to mean the way in which students will learn in order to boost their scores the most. I’ll go out on a limb and assume that most people do have a goal of learning in the way that boosts their scores the most. ?

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach in terms of the best way to learn; different things work best for different people. But there are certain principles that are universal—and we can use those principles to devise a best practice method for using the forums to maximize our learning.

Read more

The 12th Edition of the Official Guide for GMAT Review is an awesome resource, likely the best available, and we heartily recommend it to all of our students. Indeed, the Official Guide and its supplements are included with all of our courses and form the core of our curriculum.

However, if there is one weakness that students often cite, it is that the Official Guide’s explanations are sometimes confusing and/or unhelpful, particularly on some of the math problems.

To address this need, we are very proud to announce the imminent publication of the Official Guide Companion! This book includes thorough, step-by-step explanations to every math problem in the Official Guide, using the principles of our curriculum for consistency. Problems that customarily give students headaches are flagged as part of ‘Horacio’s Hotlist,’ named after ace Instructor Horacio Quiroga. There is also an online version of the OGC for easy reference.

Note that all of the referenced questions appear in the Official Guide itself, which is necessary to make use of the Official Guide Companion (hence the name).

All of our course students will begin receiving the book May 17th, as part of their course materials free of charge. The online version will be active one week earlier, on May 10th. It’s good to be one of our students!

Thanks to Chris, Dave, Carrie, Graham, and all of the other Instructors that worked so hard to make the Official Guide Companion possible! Many students are about to have a problem solved (pun intended). 🙂