Articles published in How to Study

GMAT Sentence Correction: Where do I start? (Part 2)

by

GMAT-sentence-correctionLast time, we talked about how to find a starting point on a Sentence Correction problem when the starting point doesn’t leap out at you. If you haven’t read that article yet, go ahead and do so.

The first step of the SC process is a First Glance, something that didn’t help out a whole lot on last week’s problem. Let’s try out the First Glance again and see what happens!

This GMATPrep® problem is from the free exams.

* “Often incorrectly referred to as a tidal wave, a tsunami, a seismic sea wave that can reach up to 150 miles per hour in speed and 200 feet high, is caused by underwater earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

“(A) up to 150 miles per hour in speed and 200 feet high, is

“(B) up to 150 miles per hour in speed and heights of up to 200 feet, is

“(C) speeds of up to 150 miles per hour and 200 feet high, are

“(D) speeds of up to 150 miles per hour and heights of up to 200 feet, is

“(E) speeds of up to 150 miles per hour and as high as 200 feet, are”

What did you do for the First Glance? The glance is designed to give you an upfront hint about one issue that the sentence might be testing before you actually start reading the full sentence. Take a look at the beginning of the underline, including the beginning of all five answer choices.

The split is between up to and speeds of up to. There isn’t an obvious grammar rule here, so the issue is likely to revolve around meaning: do we need to say speeds of or is it enough to say just up to?

Think about this while reading the original sentence. What do you think?

The phrase reach up to could go in several different directions—is it going to say up to 150 miles in length? up to 150 feet high?—so it’s preferable to clarify right up front that the wave is reaching speeds of up to 150 miles per hour.

In addition, the sentence contains parallelism:

can reach up to X [150 miles per hour in speed] and Y [200 feet high]

The portion before the parallelism starts must apply to both the X and Y portions, so the original sentence says:

can reach up to 200 feet high

That might sound kind of clunky and it is: up to and high are redundant.

Okay, answer (A) is incorrect and answer (B) repeats both issues (it neglects to specify speeds of up to 150 and it contains faulty parallelism.).

Check the parallelism in the other choices:

“(C) speeds of up to [150 miles per hour] and [200 feet high]

“(D) [speeds of up to 150 miles per hour] and [heights of up to 200 feet]

“(E) speeds of [up to 150 miles per hour] and [as high as 200 feet]”

In answer (C), the Y portion is the measurement (200 feet), so the X portion should also be the measurement…but it’s nonsensical to say speeds of up to 200 feet high. Likewise, in (E), the Y portion is a prepositional phrase, so it matches the prepositional phrase in the X portion. Now, the sentence says speeds of as high as 200 feet—equally nonsensical.

The only one that makes sense is answer (D): speeds of up to 150 and heights of up to 200.

The correct answer is (D).

You might also have noticed, in the original sentence, that the last underlined word is the verb is. Sentence Correction problems always have at least one difference at the beginning of the underline and at the end, so glance down the end of the choices.

Interesting! Is vs. are. What subject goes with this verb? Here’s the original sentence again:

Often incorrectly referred to as a tidal wave, a tsunami, a seismic sea wave that can reach up to 150 miles per hour in speed and 200 feet high, is caused by underwater earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.”

The modifiers have been crossed out. The subject is tsunami, a singular noun, so the verb should be the singular is. Answers (C) and (E) are incorrect for this reason.

Key Takeaways: The First Glance in Sentence Correction

(1) Before reading the original sentence, make it a habit to glance at the word or couple of words at the start of the underline and each answer choice. Sometimes, the split will be obvious: an is vs. are split, for example, clearly indicates subject-verb agreement.

(2) Sometimes the split will be less obvious, as with up to vs. speeds of up to. In this case, if the split is fairly easy to remember, just keep the variations in mind as you read the original sentence, so that you can analyze the difference right away. You may see immediately that speeds of up to is more clear, and your knowledge that the sentence is testing this meaning might also alert you to some of the meaning issues introduced by the faulty parallelism.

(3) Making a subject-verb match in the midst of a bunch of modifiers can be tricky. Learn how to strip the modifiers out and take the sentence down to its basic core structure.

* GMATPrep® questions courtesy of the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Usage of this question does not imply endorsement by GMAC.

Want to learn more? Read on to part 3.

Manhattan GMAT

Studying for the GMAT? Take our free GMAT practice exam or sign up for a free GMAT trial class running all the time near you, or online. And, be sure to find us on Facebook and Google+, LinkedIn, and follow us on Twitter!

GMAT Prep: Stop Wasting My Time

by

gmat-study-tipsHave you ever worked with someone who inevitably managed to come up with things to do that were a complete waste of time? Maybe it was an insecure boss who was never confident about what he was doing, so he went for the “everything and the kitchen sink” approach to generating deliverables in the last few days before the deadline. Or maybe it was a fellow student on a group project, someone so diligent (cough, cough) that she wanted to turn in a 20-page report when the teacher suggested 10 pages (and actually specified a 12-page limit).

You know who I’m talking about, right? We’ve all run across these situations in our academic or working lives. You want to be polite…but you also want to get your work done and not waste time on activities that don’t really help you reach the overall goal.

The GMAT is trying to waste your time

Okay, the test writers are not literally sitting there cackling and saying, “How can we get them to waste their lives?!?” But the overall sentiment still holds because of the way that the GMAT is constructed. You already know the classic “If you get something right, they give you something harder” pattern, right?

Well, at some point, that “something harder” is going to be something that isn’t worth your time. You’re probably not going to get it right no matter what you do. Even if you do, you’re going to use up valuable time that you could be using on other problems.

Most important of all, you’re going to be using up your finite brain energy on something that probably isn’t going to pay off. How many times in your life have you crashed towards the end of a test or a long day at work because your brain just couldn’t keep going any longer? The GMAT is a “where you end is what you get” test: if you crash before the end of the section, your score will suffer greatly.

This is basically no different than that co-worker who’s trying to get you to build a marketing presentation when the client has specifically requested that you analyze the pros and cons of acquiring a competitor. Tomorrow at the client meeting, it won’t matter how good your intentions were. Your client is going to be mad that you wasted time on something that doesn’t actually help them.

Read more

mbaMission: Harvard Business School Essay Analysis, 2014–2015

by

We’ve invited mbaMission to share their Business School Essays Analyses as they’re released for the 2014-2015 application season. Here is their analysis for Harvard Business School. 

Last year, Harvard Business School (HBS) took a new approach to its application essay questions, moving from multiple queries to one very open-ended prompt with no clear word limit. This year, HBS Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Dee Leopold seems to have surprised even herself, judging from a recent blog post, by announcing that the school will be keeping its questions… err, question… exactly the same.

With the benefit of a year of HBS acceptances under our belt using this specific question, we can at least offer some confident guidance on word limits, an issue that really perplexed last year’s candidates. Last season, we had many successful applicants to HBS, some of whom used as few as 750 words while others used as many as 1,250.  In general, we encouraged our clients to stick with 1,000 or fewer, but certain candidates who had plenty to say used more, expressed themselves well and ultimately succeeded. Although Leopold notes that the essay is actually optional, we report—and this will likely come as no shock to applicants—that we had no clients audacious enough to completely forgo submitting an essay. Every single one of our successful candidates did so, as expected.

Here is our analysis of tHarvard Business Schoolhe sole HBS essay question and the accompanying post-interview assessment…
Read more

GMAT Interact Available Now!

by

You’ve seen it. You’ve heard about it. And, today, we are excited to bring you what many are calling “the best self-study method out right now!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFoFP1TmqVI

Test Prep Reengineered

It took over 6,000 hours and countless instructors, developers, coders, and designers to bring you GMAT Interact. Designed around the student-teacher connection, a team of Manhattan Prep instructors will guide you through every topic tested on the GMAT, one section at a time. And, you won’t just sit back and hear them give some boring lecture about quant or verbal. GMAT Interact is designed to make you lean forward and engage.

So how is GMAT Interact different? Our on-screen instructors will actually ask you questions, respond to your answers, and tailor your GMAT lessons based on the your answers and the information you input. Like the adaptive nature of the actual GMAT, at times, if you get something right, we’ll take you to a tougher problem. Other times, when you get something wrong, we’ll take you through a detailed lesson. Finally, if you ‘bail’ too quickly from a question, we may push you back to try it again.

Experience The Difference

We’ve spent the past three years pushing education technology to bring you a cutting-edge platform, but what makes GMAT Interact special isn’t just the tech. It’s that we’ve translated what a student experiences in one of our classrooms into a sophisticated suite of digital lessons you actually engage with. Our interactive lessons play out as if you were receiving private tutoring – right from your computer or mobile device, anywhere, anytime. The instructors you’ll learn from are veteran Manhattan Prep instructors – not actors – who have 100+ combined years of teaching experience, so you can prep with confidence.

Kick off your studies with the full version of GMAT Interact now, or try it for free, at: www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/interact

GMAT Interact: Meet the Creators

by

Go behind-the-scenes and meet the creators of GMAT Interact to learn why so many are calling it “the best GMAT self-study method out right now.” We’re just 3 days away from launching the full version of GMAT Interact, but you can try a FREE Geometry Lesson from it right now, for a limited-time only: //ow.ly/xNjBn.

How to Study for the GMAT On Your Own

by

gmat-self-study

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.


You’ve been thinking for a while now about going back to business school. You’ll go sometime in the future…but you haven’t started to do much about it yet.

Well, break out your pencils* and get ready to take advantage of your new membership in the GMAT Exercise Club! We’re going to set up a custom program for you to get the score you need by summer’s end—and then you can decide whether to apply this fall or to wait a year or two. Read more

How to Choose: GMAT Self-Study, Class or Tutor? (Part 2)

by

gmat-self-study-class

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.


Note: This is the old version of a series that has since been updated. You can find Stacey’s updated series here.

Last time, we talked about how to decide whether to study on your own, take a class, or work with a tutor. If you choose either of the latter two options, then you’ll want to make sure that you’re picking the best program and instructor for you—GMAT prep is too expensive to suffer through a bad program. Read more

How to Choose: GMAT Self-Study, Class or Tutor? (Part 1)

by

gmat-self-study-class

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.


Note: This is the old version of a post that has since been updated. Read Stacey’s new version here!

Summer is here again, along with the GMAT busy season. Application deadlines are just a few short months away! It’s time to get your GMAT study into gear. Read more

Sneak Peek: a Behind-the-Scenes Look at GMAT INTERACT

by

With GMAT INTERACT™ coming June 16th, we’d like to take you behind-the-scenes to explore some fun facts about GMAT INTERACT and the creation process that has made all of this possible. Here are a few fun facts we’d like to share.

1. GMAT INTERACT was years in the making.

gmat interact

 

It took over 6,000 hours of development to bring GMAT INTERACT to life. An expert team of Manhattan Prep designers, coders, developers, and instructors worked for over three years on the design and development of the platform to create a user experience that is unlike anything else in test prep.

2. This is the first GMAT learning platform that is truly interactive.

education technology

GMAT INTERACT is a comprehensive on demand, self-paced program that features 35+ lessons that are interactive, funny, and completely directed by you. No two people see the same thing. Designed around the student-teacher connection, an expert Manhattan Prep instructor will guide you through each section of the GMAT, asking you questions and prompting you to think about the content presented. What’s more: every response you give tailors the lesson you’ll receive.

3. We’ve made GMAT Fun!

gmat online course

Manhattan GMAT is known for our incredible instructors (just check out our Beat The GMAT Verified Reviews). Not only are our teachers top scoring GMAT experts, they’re also fun and engaging—and we’ve put them front and center in GMAT INTERACT. And, we may have also thrown in a sock puppet or two…

To give you a taste of the fun you can expect, here are some facts about GMAT INTERACT:

o Number of times you get to see Tommy dance: 3
o Number of times Whitney Garner laughs on camera: uncountable
o Most takes we needed for a clip: 16
o Number of times we cursed on camera and had to toss the clip: 11
o Number of dolphin drawings used: 1
o Number of dinosaur cat robots destroyed in production: 1
o Number of bubbles used in the Evil Grammar Lab: 521
o Number of cavemen used in production: 1

4. With GMAT INTERACT, you don’t get 1 Manhattan Prep instructor – you get 11!

best gmat online course

When we say that GMAT INTERACT is comprehensive – we mean it! We put eleven of our most accomplished instructors in front of the camera, take-after-take, and are delivering them to your computer and mobile devices wherever you are. Not just a video, our instructors will engage with you based on the responses and answers you input.

5. You don’t have to wait until June 16th to try GMAT INTERACT!

best online education platform

While the full version of GMAT INTERACT won’t be available until June 16th for purchase, you can try a FREE GMAT INTERACT Geometry Lesson right now, for free. So what are you waiting for? Jump in and have some fun! Test prep doesn’t have to be boring ever again!

When is it Time to Guess on Verbal?

by

gmat-quant-strategyAs dedicated readers of this blog may have guessed, this is a follow up to my earlier post When is it Time to Guess on Quant? Timing troubles are not, however, exclusive to the Quant section, so in this piece I’ll talk about some common scenarios that bedevil students on the Verbal section.

As with Quant, not all guesses are created equal. The earlier you decide to guess, the more likely that you will make a random guess. If, on the other hand, you’re far enough into the question that you’ve eliminated 2-3 answer choices, then you’ll be making an educated guess.

One immediate difference between guessing on Quant and Verbal is that guessing strategy is essentially identical for both Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency questions. Each of the Verbal question types, on the other hand, has less in common. That being said, there are a lot of parallels in guessing strategy among the three types.

No matter the question, there are really three distinct stages at which it becomes a better idea to guess than to keep going. I’ll briefly describe each stage, then show how it connects to each of the Verbal question types.

Stage 1: No Clear Starting Point

As a general rule, if you haven’t really made progress on a question after 30 seconds or so, it’s usually a good idea to just make a random guess and save your energy for a question you’re more comfortable with.

Reading Comprehension Stage 1: I don’t know where in the passage to look.

The great thing about Reading Comprehension (or at least its saving grace) is that the correct answer has to have support in the passage. With the vast majority of RC questions, as long as you can find and reread the relevant portion of the passage, you can find an answer choice that will match what you read. In fact, you should be able to answer to come up with your own answer to most RC questions before you even look at the answer choices.

Many questions provide good clues as to where in the passage to look for the answer (seriously – a surprising amount of questions are very helpful in that regard). Things get much tougher when they don’t. So here’s your first big clue that it may be time to guess. If you’ve read the question, and you’ve skimmed through the passage looking for an answer, and you still don’t feel like you found what the question was asking about, it’s time to guess.

At this point, you could guess randomly, but I would recommend taking one quick pass through the answer choices. If any choice contradicts your understanding of the passage, eliminate it. After you’ve each answer once, pick from the remaining.

Sentence Correction Stage 1: I don’t understand the sentence and the underline is long.

On the Verbal section, you have to answer 41 questions in 75 minutes, which is less than 2 minutes per question. Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension are naturally time-consuming, so that time is going to have be saved largely on Sentence Correction. Remember that you only have an average of 1 minute and 20 seconds to answer these things.

If you’re struggling to even understand what the sentence is saying, then it will almost certainly take too long to properly analyze the answer choices, especially if the underline is long. No need to fight through the pain. Just take a quick scan through the answer choices and pick one that doesn’t sound immediately wrong.

Critical Reasoning Stage 1: I don’t understand what the argument is saying.

To my mind, good process on Critical Reasoning questions means being in control the whole way through the process. The worst situation to be in is one in which you’re hoping that the answer choices will help you make sense of the argument. Four out of the five answer choices are actively trying to trick you, and the GMAT has gotten pretty good at tricking people over the years. By the time you get to the answer choices, you need to understand the argument well enough to effectively evaluate each choice.

Consequently, if you’ve read the argument two or three times, and still can’t articulate to yourself the link between the premises and the conclusion, you shouldn’t waste time with the answer choices.

  Read more