I’ve been speaking with a lot of students recently who are really struggling with translation problems “ even when they can figure out how to translate, they end up taking way too much time on the problem.

So let’s try this GMATPrep problem; set your timer for 2 minutes and GO!

If Bob produces 36 or fewer items in a week, he is paid x dollars per item. If Bob produces more than 36 items in a week, he is paid x dollars per item for the first 36 items and [latex]1frac{1}{2}[/latex] times that amount for each additional item. How many items did Bob produce last week?

(1) Last week Bob was paid a total of $480 for the items that he produced that week.

(2) This week Bob produced 2 more items than last week and was paid a total of $510 for the items that he produced this week.

Ugh. Okay, obviously we’re going to have to translate, because we’ve got a story going on here. It also looks like there’s going to be some algebra involved. Let’s dig in.

I’m now Bob. (Put yourself in the story; that’ll make things a little bit easier.) I can make either 36 or fewer items in one week or more than 36 items. How am I going to get paid? For the first scenario, I can figure out my pay by multiplying the number of items by x. If I make exactly 36 items, I’ll get paid 36x. If I make 33 items, I’ll get paid 33x. Hmm. I guess I should assign a variable for the number of items I make; let’s call that N.

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Try to solve the following question, and time yourself:

If the volume of a big cube is 64 times that of a small cube, how many times bigger is the surface area of the big cube than that of the small cube?

If you cannot answer the above (classic GMAT) question in under 20 seconds, continue reading and you will learn a concept that will be super useful in your quest to crush the GMAT!

I was watching Austin Powers the other day and it suddenly hit me: Dr. Evil and Mini-Me are similar shapes! You know, like similar triangles, where the proportion between any two matching sides is always maintained “ if Mini-Me’s fingers are exactly half the length of Dr. Evil’s fingers, then Mini-Me’s eyes, ears, nose, and feet must also be exactly half their counterparts in Dr. Evil’s body. It got me thinking “ what other kinds of similar shapes could be out there? I will investigate that thought further in the second half of this post, but first let’s see why that might be useful

We know triangles are similar whenever they have the same three angles. If the base of the bigger triangle is exactly twice that of the smaller triangle, then each side in the bigger triangle will also be twice as big as its matching side in the smaller triangle.
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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:

Different breeds of dogs get older at different rates in dog years. Livonian wolfhounds age 7 times as fast as humans, whereas Khazarian terriers age 5 times as fast and Akkadian retrievers age 4 times as fast. If Dan bought a newborn Akkadian on January 1, 2010, a newborn Khazarian 1 year later, and a newborn Livonian 1 year after that, in what year will the sum of the dog-year ages of the Akkadian and the Khazarian first be exceeded by twice the age of the Livonian in dog years, rounding all ages down to the nearest integer?

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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 was hanging out with a friend of mine the other day. She is a graduate student, and she asked me a question that she had come across during her research: Read more

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:

On January 1, 2010, Dave invests 70% of his retirement savings in Antarctic largecap stocks, 20% in Antarctic midcaps, and 10% in Antarctic smallcaps. In 2010, largecaps rise 5%, midcaps rise 10%, and smallcaps rise 15% in the Antarctic stock market; however, in 2011, largecaps fall 10% and midcaps fall 20%, while smallcaps rise x% in Antarctica. If, on January 1, 2012, Dave has the same total amount of retirement savings as he did two years before, then x is between

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There was a lot of confusion and anxiety regarding last week’s Challenge Problem Showdown. And for good reason; it was a difficult problem! In fact, only 15% of submitted answers were correct, making this the most difficult Challenge Problem Showdown in several years (by the way, you can purchase our complete Challenge Problem Showdown Archive here).

With this in mind, here is the solution to the Challenge Problem.

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After seeing quite a few Integrated Reasoning problems floating around out there, I’ve found that one of the toughest situations to deal with is when instead of providing a single solution, the GMAT constructs a world with multiple possible solutions and then asks you to pick something that works within those parameters. Let me show you an example:

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x, y and z are positive integers. The sum of x and y is 40. The positive difference between y and z is 20.

In the table below, identify values for x and z that are together consistent with the information. Make only one selection in each column.

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Found the answer yet? If not, I think I might know why: You’re trying to solve for y. The problem is, y could be almost any integer from 1 to 39, as long as you pick values for x and z that work. You could figure out x and z for every single value of y, but that’s a very time-consuming strategy! Without the answer choices, there are more than 50 different solutions to this problem. So what is a better strategy than trying to solve for y?

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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:

Given that a, b, c, and d all lie between 0 and “1 on the number line, and |a “ d| > |a “ c| > |a “ b|, does c lie between b and d on the number line?

(1) ab < ad < cd
(2) ac < bc < bd

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September is the greatest month of the year. At some point in the not-so-distant future, my AC-unit will be able to finally power off after five straight months of keeping me inside, away from the Texas heat and the West Nile carrying mosquitos that the heat brought with it. But more importantly, September means that football is finally back. So with that in mind, here’s four lessons from the college football season for those of you who need help rationalizing your Saturday afternoon absence from your GMAT study place.

1)  Schedule the Cupcake Sections Early

Oregon hasn’t been spending the last three months preparing to face Arkansas State. And when September 1 rolls around, Oregon would prefer to pull its starters sometime early in the second half. A loss to an early season opponents would definitely hurt their BCS chances, but if the Ducks play half-decent football at the start of the season, they can focus on playing their best once Pac-12 teams start traveling to Eugene in late September.

For you, walking away from the test with a 2 on your AWA or IR section could be a bad thing when it comes time to apply to business school. But running up the score on your AWA won’t help your 200-800 score and you don’t want to exhaust your brain during the first hour of your test. But if you’ve thoroughly prepared for the quant and verbal sections of the test, and have watched some tape (such as our IR recordings or AWA labs) on what you need to do for the two warmup sections, you’ll do just fine early and can focus on playing your best once the quant section shows up on your screen.

2) Focus on One Question at a Time

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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 quadrilateral ABCD, sides AB and BC each have length √2, while side CD has length 2. What is the area of quadrilateral ABCD?

(1) The length of side AD is 2.
(2) The angle between side AB and side BC is 90°.

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