When you’re ready for a prep break, we’ve served up another weekly roundup of GRE and grad school-related articles. Enjoy the weekend and, as always, happy reading!

GRE Program Unveils New Test Preparation Tools to Help Prospective Graduate and Business School Students (PR Newswire)

Educational Testing Service (ETS), the company that distributes the GRE, revealed its new test preparation tools for the GRE revised General Test. Have a look at the press release that came out this past Monday.

Can I Switch Fields and Go to Graduate School in a Different Area? (About.com Graduate School)

Suppose you enroll in college, do very well, love your major, but ultimately decide that a career in that area is not for you. Find out if it’s possible to apply to graduate school in a different area of if you are locked into your major field.

How Grad School Applicants Can Deal With Negative Recommendation Letters (U.S. News Education)

Though negative recommendation letters can be a major red flag for admissions officers, it does not necessarily mean the end of your admissions chances.
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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.

If , which of the following could be true about the reciprocals of a, b, c, and d?

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Here are the free GRE events we’re holding this week.

10/22/12 – Online – The GRE with Jen Study Hall – 8:30-10:00 PM

10/22/12 – New York, NY – Free Trial Class – 6:30-9:30 PM

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

It’s finally Friday! Celebrate the end of the week with today’s set of grad school-related articles:

Writing Your Statement of Purpose (Grad Hacker)

As you’re packaging your grad school applications, be sure to check out this piece from Grad Hacker for some detailed advice and quick tips for writing your statement of purpose.

The Pros and Cons of Writing Letters of Recommendation (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Find out what the recommendation letter process is like from someone who actually writes them. Associate professor of anthropology at GSU talks about what materials are most helpful when drafting letters of recommendation for her students.

Consider When to Contact the Graduate Admissions Office (US News Education)
According to US News Education, it’s may not be in your best interest to contact admissions officials on a regular basis to reinforce your strong interest. Here are four examples of legitimate reasons to contact the admissions office.
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In addition to the long, boring reading comprehension passages (that everyone hates!), we will also see quite short passages that are perhaps more appropriately called arguments. We might be asked to strengthen or weaken the conclusion, find the conclusion, articulate the role of a specific piece of information, and so on. Today we’re going to talk about Analyze the Argument Structure questions.

We’re going to use the analysis process that we discussed in a previous article; please take a look at that article first if you haven’t already.

We want to average about 1.5 to 2 minutes on RC questions in general, so set your timer for either 1.5 minutes (if RC is a strength) or 2 minutes (if RC is a weakness). (© ManhattanPrep)

(1) Local authorities are considering an amendment to the litter law that would raise the fine for littering in the community picnic area to $1,000. (2) Advocates say that raising the fine will make people take notice of the law. (3) They may be correct that higher fines get more attention. (4) Since the inception of the litter law, incremental increases in the littering fine have proven to be consistently effective at further reducing the amount of litter in the community picnic area. (5) However, raising the fine to $1,000 would actually have the unintended effect of increasing the amount of litter in the picnic area. (6) Picnic area users would perceive this fine to be unreasonable and unenforceable, and would disregard the litter law altogether.

Select the sentence, by clicking on the passage itself, that provides support for the author’s position in the passage.

Note: the real test will not number the sentences; we’ll just be able to click on a specific sentence to highlight it. We can’t do that in this article, though, and it’s a lot easier to talk about the sentences if we number them, so voila. I inserted numbers. : )

The first thing everybody does is check the answer “ so I’ll tell you that the answer is Sentence 6. Even if you answered correctly, though, you’re not done! You still need to analyze the problem.
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ETS distributed this press release last week with an update on how the GRE is being used as a GMAT alternative for business school applications.  There is not too much new information in this release but a few things caught our eye.

The big news is that more than 1,000 business schools now accept GRE scores.  This follows the pattern that we’ve seen over the past two years “ the relevance of the GRE as a business school test continues to grow.  The press release also includes a sampling of quotes from business school admission directors affirming the validity of the GRE as a GMAT alternative.  These quotes match up with what we have heard from admission officers.  There is ample evidence that the GRE can be used for most business school applications in place of the GMAT.  As always, check the list of schools accepting the GRE before choosing to take it for your b-school application.

The release also specifically notes the success of the new ScoreSelect option.  As we mentioned earlier this year, the ScoreSelect feature is a student friendly addition to the GRE score reporting policy that allows students to only report their best GRE score out of multiple attempts.  While most schools never frown upon multiple GRE attempts, we believe this feature to have a psychological benefit to students.  The idea that a GRE score isn’t on your permanent record helps to take a bit of test-day pressure off students.

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.

To serve as team coach, 1 person is to be selected from among the people in Set A.
The 9 team players are to be selected from among the people in Set B, which has at least that many people.
There are 5 times as many different teams possible as there are different coaches possible.

Quantity A

The number of people in Set A.

Quantity B

The number of people in Set B.

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Here are the free GRE events we’re holding this week.

10/15/12 – Online – The GRE with Jen Study Hall – 7:00-8:30 PM

10/15/12 – Boston, MA – Free Trial Class – 6:30-9:30 PM

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

It’s finally Friday, which means it’s time for your weekly dose of graduate school news and tips. Take a break from GRE prep and enjoy some of this week’s top links:

GRE Scores to be Accepted by 1000+ Schools Worldwide (Business Standard)

Educational Testing Service(ETS) recently announced that more than 1,000 business schools worldwide have now accepted GRE revised General Test scores for their MBA programs.

What to Do if Programs Aren’t Ranked (About. Com Graduate School)

Find out what to do if you can only seem to find national rankings for doctoral programs, but not master’s programs.

How to Successfully Handle Grad School Admissions Challenges (U.S. News Education)

Whether you mix up the day for your on-campus interview or receive a notification that your application is incomplete, U.S. News has shares advice for how to deal with grad school admissions mishaps.
Read more

Here are the free GRE events we’re holding this week.

10/8/12 – Online – Mondays with Jen Study Hall – 7:00-8:30 PM

10/14/12 – New York, NY – Free Trial Class – 2:00-5:00 PM

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