This is probably the shortest—and most important—article I’ve written in a year. It’s just a little story, but it’s the story of a crucial epiphany one of my students (and I) just had.

Last night, at the end of a class I was teaching, one of my students began asking questions about timing and guessing on the GMAT. He’s really struggling with the idea that he has to let some questions go and that he’s going to get a decent number of questions wrong. I told him he’s not alone; most students have significant difficulty accepting this idea—and those who can’t accept it almost never reach their goal scores.

As we discussed the boring details of how the GMAT works, he acknowledged that he knew he had to do what I said (because I’m the expert ?), but he was having a tough time because, normally, he’s in it to win it.

(For those who aren’t familiar with that expression, it means that, if you’re playing a game, you’re always going for it and trying to win.)

When he said that, a light bulb went off in my head, and I then said something to him that made a light bulb go off in his head. I said:

Yes, but are you playing the right game?

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Patterns in Divisibility Problems

Today we’re going to tackle a couple of tough divisibility problems from GMATPrep. The two problems I’ve chosen share some interesting characteristics. Here’s your first one; set your timer for 2 minutes and go!

If n is a multiple of 5 and n = p ² q , where p and q are prime numbers, which of the following must be a multiple of 25?”
(A)  p ²

(B)  q ²

(C) p q

(D) p²q²

(E) p³q^“

Hmm. So p and q are primes. They could be 2, 3, 5, 7 or so on. It doesn’t say that p and q are different prime numbers, so they could also be the same number. And I’m going to use some theory here: if p²q equals n and n is a multiple of 5, then that 5 must be contained in either p or q. And since those two numbers are primes, either p or q is 5. (Or maybe both are!)

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This week marks the release of our Foundations of GMAT Math Strategy Guide Supplement! This book is one of the first of our Fifth Edition guides to be released, and we are excited for the updates and improvements it represents. Our instructors have been working overtime to make the book more comprehensive and accessible to students on every level, and at 10 chapters and over 500 pages, the new Foundations of GMAT Math is a significant upgrade from the previous edition.

Covering algebra, geometry, number properties, and more, Foundations of GMAT Math was revised to focus not only on foundational knowledge, but on computation in general.  The book now covers all of the basic computation that is tested on the GMAT, teaching students the material through easy-to-follow explanations and cementing understanding with over 700 practice problems.

One of our favorite additions to the book is a series of “If you… Then you…” tables that are designed to make understanding fundamental math principles a snap. We’ve included an example below:

Other improvements include an expanded section on word problems, a clearer problem solving process, and an emphasis on more focused questions.  Additionally, Foundations of GMAT Math now includes more difficult content, including a greater number of questions in the 500-600 range.

With a new cover, a new layout, and an abundance of new content, the Fifth Edition Foundations of GMAT Math is better than ever!  Check it out for yourself by visiting our store.

Also released today was the GMAT Roadmap! Read about it here.

We are excited to announce the release of our newest Strategy Guide, the GMAT Roadmap! Consisting of articles and essays written by our 99th percentile instructors, this book was created to help students navigate the complex and often frustrating waters of GMAT prep. Unlike our other strategy guides, the GMAT Roadmap is not designed to teach you content. Instead, we wrote it to address a need not often met.

Many a time we have seen students dive into their GMAT preparations headlong, without pausing to consider what and how they should study so as to best improve their scores. Yes, you can study everything from start to finish, but do you need to? Sure, you can review every day for ten hours a day, but will that improve your comprehension and retention? The GMAT Roadmap answers these questions by offering the guidance and structure you need to maximize your GMAT preparations.

Start with the first few chapters to learn about the GMAT, organize your study plan, and gauge your current skill level before diving into your preparations. Then, as you progress in your studies, dip back into the Roadmap when needed for strategy advice on the Quant and Verbal sections, tips on how to improve your time management, guidance on how to manage test anxiety, and a run-down on what to do before test day.

Success on the GMAT requires far more than content knowledge, and we want all GMAT students to achieve the score they’ve been working towards.  If you are looking for that extra boost to get you to the score you are looking for, or maybe just a little guidance along the way, the GMAT Roadmap is for you!

Interested in learning more? We’ve been posting samples of the GMAT Roadmap to our blog for the past few weeks, so check out the articles listed below for samples of the content covered in the GMAT Roadmap.

Determining Your Trajectory Up the GMAT Mountain: Developing a GMAT Study Plan
Determining Your Trajectory Up the GMAT Mountain: Working Within Your Timeline
How to Use Your Strategy Guides
Breaking Down Two Minutes: Time Management Within a GMAT Problem

Ready to dive right in? We are giving away the first two chapters of the book for free! Just click here.

Looking for a little extra? Sign up for our free GMAT Roadmap Webinar!

We invite you to test your GMAT knowledge for a chance to win! Each week, we will 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 a free Manhattan GMAT Prep item. Tell your friends to get out their scrap paper and start solving!

Here is this week’s problem:

Sides AB, BC, and CD of quadrilateral ABCD all have length 10. What is the area of quadrilateral ABCD?

(1) BC is parallel to AD.
(2) Diagonal AC, which lies inside the quadrilateral, has length 10√3.

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On such an auspiciously numbered day, it was disturbing to find an error in this week’s Challenge Problem, XYZ Building. The numbers have now been fixed, so if you’ve already put in an answer, check it out again. We apologize sincerely for goofing up here. Have a great weekend!

We invite you to test your GMAT knowledge for a chance to win! Each week, we will 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 a free Manhattan GMAT Prep item. Tell your friends to get out their scrap paper and start solving!

Here is this week’s problem:

In XYZ Building, a flight of stairs connects each floor to the next, and each flight of stairs is separated from the next flight by a landing. Josie takes twice as long to climb a flight of stairs at a constant rate as she does to cross a landing at another constant rate. If it takes Josie 13.3 minutes to climb 7 flights of stairs and cross the landings between flights, not counting the landings at either end, how long will it take her to climb 10 flights and cross the intervening landings (again not counting landings at either end) at the same rate of travel?

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This article, written by Abby Pelcyger and Stacey Koprince, was adapted from our upcoming book, The GMAT Roadmap: Expert Advice Through Test Day. The full book will be available mid-November.

You won’t correctly answer every Quant problem on the GMAT in the allotted time. Even 99th per-centile performers typically don’t do this. Through a 700, GMAT-takers are getting about 60% of the problems correct: that’s only three out of five! Even individuals who score a 750 are only getting about four out of five questions correct. That’s why time management is essential on the GMAT. Why spend time on a problem that you won’t get correct anyway, when you could invest that time on a problem where the time will make a difference?

As you are working through a GMAT problem, you also need to evaluate whether you are using your time efficiently. For instance, if you are attempting to solve a problem that you know you wouldn’t get right in ten minutes, let alone two, you are not using your time effectively. Likewise, if you are working on a problem and you know that you can get right, but that it will take five minutes, you are also not using your time effectively. Any time that you spend on a problem over two minutes is time that you are tak¬ing away from a problem that you have not even seen yet.

So how should you use your time? While no two problems will take you exactly the same amount of time to work through each step, using this timeline to structure your time working on GMAT practice problems will help you to make wise (but difficult) decisions on test day.

Note: While having a plan for a problem may mean an algebraic method to solve, it doesn’t have to. Back-up strategies such as plugging in numbers and picking smart numbers are just as valid approaches” and sometimes quicker!

Once you have used this strategy to work through a practice GMAT question, write down (or better yet, input into the GMAT Navigator) your best guess. Then, draw a line under your scrap paper notes and continue to work on the problem until you have exhausted every potential line of your thinking. Providing your brain with the opportunity to think through new material most often takes more than two minutes. The trick is to do the heavy thinking now, during practice, so that on test day there’s very little new: all you will have to do is recognize, remember, adapt, and solve!

This article, written by Abby Pelcyger and Stacey Koprince, was adapted from our upcoming book, The GMAT Roadmap: Expert Advice Through Test Day. The full book will be available mid-November.

If you wanted to meet every neighbor on your block, you wouldn’t re-introduce yourself to your best friends who live a few doors down, or to the guy who has you over for a barbeque every fourth Sunday. Rather, you would identify which neighbors you don’t know, and go knock on their doors. The same is true for learning GMAT content. If you are already solid on a bunch of content, reading a whole book on stuff you already know and doing practice problems you could do blindfolded with your hands tied behind your back won’t improve your score. You need to identify the content that you do not yet know, or are still shaky on, and concentrate your efforts there.

The Strategy Guides are written to provide comprehensive coverage of GMAT-level content. It is your job to ascertain how to most effectively use the guides. Here’s what we recommend:

• If you know that you don’t know the content covered in a Strategy Guide chapter, are shaky and/or rusty on the material, or feel that there must be a faster way than how you currently approach the subject, read the chapter. Create a cheat sheet for the chapter by taking notes on key points that you want to remember, but don’t yet have memorized. Then, test your learning by completing all of the In Action problems at the end of the chapter. Make sure to check your answer and review the solution after completing each problem”not after completing the whole set. There is no better way to internalize how not to do something correctly than to repeat an incorrect method fifteen times in a row!

• If you know that you know the content covered in a Strategy Guide chapter, quiz yourself to prove it! Turn to the In Action problems at the end of the chap¬ter. They are listed from easiest to hardest, so try numbers 3 and 8. If you do not get those problems right, read the chapter. If you do get those problems right, complete numbers 11“15. Make sure to check the answers after completing each problem. If you get them all right, move on to the next chapter. If you get them mostly right, skim the chapter and focus in on the pieces of information that you need to fill the holes in your knowledge.

• If the Strategy Guide leaves you confused, it is likely that you have holes in the foundational knowledge on which the GMAT content is built. While reading the Strategy Guide, refer back to the appropriate chapters of the Foundations books, as needed, to fill in these gaps.

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