Enjoy your Winter Break!

Need a break from finals, applications, and the holiday madness? Take a moment to sit back and enjoy our weekly roundup of grad school tips and news:

My Professor is Awesome! Is it OK to Give My Professor a Gift? (About.com Graduate School)

With the holidays quickly approaching, many students wonder whether it’s a good idea to get their favorite professor a gift. Here’s some advice from About.com.

5 Procrastination-proof Programs for Studying (USA Today College)

Having trouble staying focused this holiday season? Check out these five applications and programs that can help to keep you on task.

JustStartApplications.com Releases a Top 10 Graduate School Application Checklist (PR Web)

Here is a detailed checklist to help you organize and keep track of the various components of your graduate school applications.
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Each week, we 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 two free Manhattan Prep GRE Strategy Guides.

In the figure above, an unshaded circle with diameter x is surrounded by a shaded region with uniform width of 2.  For what values of x is the area of the unshaded circle greater than the area of the shaded region?

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We hope everyone is surviving finals week and working to finish up those grad school applications! When you catch a break, have a look at some top news stories and application tips from the week.

12 Don’ts for Getting Letters of Recommendation (About.com Grad School)

Good relationships with professors usually lead to helpful letters of recommendation. If you want to ensure that faculty members see you in a positive light, don’t engage in any of the behaviors listed in this article.

Benefits of Multinational Labs (Inside Higher ED)

A new study finds that science and engineering departments with foreign students from a variety of countries tend to produce more publications and to get more citations.

Grad School Application Checklist: 8 Months Out (U.S. News Education)

Here is the fifth installment of U.S. News’ series on what you should be doing eight months in advance of submitting your graduate school applications.
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Each week, we 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 two free Manhattan Prep GRE Strategy Guides.

Set A consists of four distinct numbers; set B consists of five distinct numbers, including all four numbers that are in set A.  The average (arithmetic mean) of set A is equal to the average (arithmetic mean) of set B.

Quantity A

The standard deviation of set A

Quantity B

The standard deviation of set B

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Happy Friday everyone! Take a break from your GRE prep or grad school applications and have a look at some of our favorite articles from the week:

What Kinds of Work Experiences Do Grad Programs Prefer? (About.com Graduate School)

This week About.com discusses what graduate school admissions committees look for when it comes to past work experience.

Applying to Graduate School (Society of Women Engineers)

If you’re considering grad school, be sure to have a look at this presentation from the Society of Women Engineers. It provides a step-by-step guide and timeline for choosing a graduate school and an advisor as well as an overview of the application process, including campus visits.

Grad School Application Checklist: 9 Months Out (U.S. News Education)

Here’s U.S. News’ fourth installment of the Grad School Application Checklist. With nine months until you submit your applications, it’s time to think about visiting campuses.
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Each week, we 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 two free Manhattan Prep GRE Strategy Guides.

Two cards are drawn consecutively, without replacement, from a deck originally consisting of 4 red and 6 black cards.

Quantity A

The probability that the first card is red

Quantity B

The probability that the second card is red

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Most people dislike absolute value, and inequalities can tie us up into knots. Put them together, and we can have some major headaches! Let’s test one out.

Set your timer for 1 minute 15 seconds for this Quantitative Comparison problem and GO! (© ManhattanPrep)

* |x “ 2| > 3

 

Quantity A                                                                 Quantity B

The minimum possible                                              The minimum possible

value of |x “ 3.5|                                                        |x “ 1.5|

 

What did you get? (Do you remember the 4 QC answer choices? I didn’t list them above! If you don’t know what they are, go look them up. I’ll wait. And the pain of having to look them up will help convince you that you need to memorize these.)

We have a given:

|x “ 2| > 3

So, first, let’s figure out what this actually means. For what values of x is this inequality true?
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Here are the free GRE events we’re holding this week.

12/5/12 – New York, NY – Free Trial Class – 6:30-9:30 PM

12/5/12 – Washington, D.C. – Free Trial Class – 6:30-9:30 PM

Looking for more free events? Check out our Free Events Listings Page.

Need a break from writing your grad school applications? Take a moment to catch up on some recent stories circulating around the grad school community.

Happy Friday!

Should You Ask a Teaching Assistant for a Recommendation Letter? (About.com Graduate School)

Trying to decide who to ask to write your grad school recommendation letters? Here’s why it’s probably not the best idea to turn to your undergraduate TAs.

Grad School Application Checklist: 10 Months Out (US News Education)

It’s never a good idea to wait until the last minute to get your graduate school applications together. Here is US New Education’s third installment of advice for completing your applications in a timely manner.

What I know now: Grad School (Jeremy Yoder) (The Molecular Ecologist)

Planning to attend grad school for science? Check out what one postdoctoral associate wishes he’d known to do (and what he’s glad he did) in graduate school.
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Many word problems seem to require us to write formulas in order to solve. Certain problems, though, qualify for a neat technique: Smart Numbers. We can actually pick our own real numbers and use them to solve!

Set your timer for 2 minutes for this Fill-In problem and GO! (© ManhattanPrep)

* Lisa spends 3/8 of her monthly paycheck on rent and 5/12 on food. Her roommate, Carrie, who earns twice as much as Lisa, spends ¼ of her monthly paycheck on rent and ½ on food. If the two women decide to donate the remainder of their money to charity each month, what fraction of their combined monthly income will they donate? (Assume all income in question is after taxes.)

 

(No answer choices given; this is a fill-in-the-blank)

 

We’ve got two women, Lisa and Carrie, and they each spend a certain proportion of income on rent and on food. Annoyingly, the fractions don’t have the same denominators; even more annoyingly, the two women don’t make the same amount of money. All of that will make an algebraic solution challenging.

Here’s what an algebraic solution would look like. Let’s call Lisa’s income x. She spends (3/8)x on rent and (5/12)x on food. Add these together:

(3x/8) + (5x/12) = (9x/24) + (10x/24) = 19x/24

Subtract from 100%, or x:

24x/24 “ 19x/24 = 5x/24

Lisa donates 5/24 of x, her income, to charity. What about Carrie?

Carrie’s income is equal to 2x (because she makes twice as much as Lisa). How much does she spend on rent and food?
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