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.

For every five hours of studying combinatorics-type questions, the average GMAT student increases their chances of being able to correctly answer a question type that is found only on the very difficult end of the GMAT spectrum. Meanwhile, the same student will have to compute hundreds of basic computations without the aid of a calculator. For students who know how to quickly do these computations, they are rewarded with extra minutes that can be spent double-checking their work and critically thinking about whether their answers make sense. As BenGMAT Franklin might say, a second saved is a second earned on the GMAT, but it doesn’t matter if those extra seconds come from being faster at doing combinatorics questions or quicker at computations. So check out these five math tricks, learn the ones that you like, and practice them daily to give yourself some extra time to finish off that 37th and final Quant question.

Note: like everything else on the GMAT, being able to do something and being able to do something QUICKLY are two different tasks. If you like any of the following math tricks, make sure you know it inside and out before you try using it during your test. Read more

I’ve spoken with multiple students lately who received a disappointing (lower than they were expecting) score on the Quant section and who all said that the Quant felt relatively easy or straightforward. How is that possible?

First of all, thinking that a test like the GMAT is easy is actually a warning sign: things probably are not going very well. If the test was going very well, then you’d be seeing some seriously hard—next to impossible—problems.

Second, the test writers are phenomenal at writing questions that don’t seem all that complicated but are in fact your worst nightmare. My worst nightmare is not an impossible question—I know I can’t do it, so I just pick and move on. My worst nightmare is a question that I think I can do, and I spend a decent chunk of time doing it, and then I get it wrong anyway—even though I’m sure I got it right! 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.

How do you study? More importantly, how do you know that the way in which you’re studying is effective—that is, that you’re learning what you need to learn to improve your GMAT score? Read on!

In the first part of this series, we discussed how to get started with your GMAT study plan: setting up your timeframe, picking out your materials, and so on. (If you haven’t read it yet, please do so before you continue here!) In today’s installment, we’ll talk about how to study and make progress over the actual length of your study timeframe. 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.

Just starting out? Or maybe you’ve been studying for weeks already? Perhaps you’ve already taken the official test once but want another crack at it? Whatever stage you’re at, you need a GMAT study plan, so that’s what we’re going to talk about this week: how to develop your own personalized GMAT study plan. (Note: this is an update from the original article about 2.5 years ago. If you run across the older version, ignore it; use this newer one instead!) 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.

Take a look at the following problems.

Data Sufficiency: What was Company X’s percentage profit in 2011?

1) The ratio of costs to profits for Company X was 3 to 1 in 2011.

2) Company X’s costs in 2011 were $360,000.

A recipe for punch calls for 4 parts seltzer to one part juice. If John wants to make 5 gallons of punch, how many 8 ounce cans of juice does he need (1 gallon = 128 ounces)?

A) 32

B) 20

C) 16

D) 10

E) 8

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.

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