whizteen123

I got the same question for my issue essay on the GMAT. When I first saw the question, my mind went blank. The template I had was for two conflicting views and wouldnt work this. I basically picked two well known politicians(Rudy Guiliani, George W. Bush) and business men(Donald Trump and Warren Buffet). I said that during 9/11 Rudy G. played a pivotal role in changed the mindset of America from being scared to brave.... I said imagine if Donald Trump would have given the same speech. Also I compared George Bush vs. Warren Buffet on economic policy. I picked Goverment officials as they are elected by the people and less likely to be biased. I thought I screwed up big time on the issue essay but I got a 5.5 overall on AWA

I took the test on Monday and I was able to view the official score report online on Saturday

Thank you, I bought all the 7 guides(5 Quant and 2 Verbal) that they offer but you can choose to buy only a select few based on your strengths and weaknesses. You can buy them on Amazon.com for way cheaper than what they cost on Manahattangmat.com.

Hi everyone, I didn't write a debriefing as I thought no one would be interested but I guess I was wrong. As far as my background is concerned, I am 21, male and I got my Bachelors in 2005. I have been working for Verizon for the past one year. I kind of decided to take the GMAT on a whim. I just woke up one day and felt that my job sucked and needed to do something about it. When I first thought about taking the GMAT, I had no idea about the format, question types, etc. I asked one of my friends, who was thinking about taking the test for the longest time, about the test and materials needed. He recommended that I purchase the Manhattan GMAT guides and the OG's. I got the OG 11th edition first and I decided to familiarize myself with the format and questions. I then took the diagnostic quiz in the book, I had to literally struggle with these questions. According to their scoring guidelines, I placed in the average range. I said to myself, the hell with GMAT, there is no way I am going to be able to do well on this. I was kinda bummed for a few days but then decided to give it another shot. I went to the local bookstore and picked up a copy of GMAT Premier 2006 Edition. I went through this book over a week and learnt some tips/tricks in quantitative section. I was doing ok in the critical reasoning part but not so good in RC's and SC's. I did learn some new stuff but I still wasn’t able to answer a few questions in the OG diagnostic. Kaplan is helpful if you are looking to score in the 550-650 range but for anything over that you need additional material. The reason is that the Kaplan book does not go in depth into the basics (ex: they don’t really discuss all types of quadrilaterals). I took a sample test on Princeton review.com after completing the Kaplan book; I believe I scored somewhere between 600-650. Needless to say, I was disappointed. There are quite a few math strategies that you need to learn, if you want to score in the 700+ range but the Kaplan book doesn't cover those. I finally got the Manhattan GMAT guides and I tried to complete a few chapters a day. I tried to complete one or two chapters each on the weekday and say 4-5 on weekends. At the end of each chapter, there are about 15 problems based on that section. I would highly recommend solving those even though they aren't multiple choice and not in the GMAT format. The problems are designed to test your understanding of the concepts. Once you complete those problems, you are then asked to solve the actual questions in OG. For example, if you just completed a section on rectangles, they will list all the questions which are based on rectangles. I started reviewing the Manhattan GMAT guides in January, 2006 and I was done with them by first week of February. Since, the guides cover all the questions in the OG, I had essentially completed the OG as well. However, I was still having problems with some of the questions especially in verbal. I did not take any practice tests in those 5-6 weeks as I didn’t want to hurt my morale. I figured that it wouldn’t hurt if I took a GMAT course with Kaplan or Princeton review. I chose Kaplan because I initially used their book and I was told that both companies use different formats. If you started preparing with the Princeton book, then take a class with Princeton otherwise you will have to learn completely different strategies. I scored 670 on the diagnostic, I thought I should have done better especially since I just completed the OG and Manhattan GMAT guides. I was later informed by the instructor that I had the highest score in the class. The Kaplan course is good not because of their curriculum but because of repetition. You have 4 sessions of Quantitative and 4 sessions of Verbal, during which you cover about 15-20 problems as a group. However, none of these problems are from the OG. Kaplan picks the most common types of questions from the OG and uses them as a template. That is the reason for some inflated scores on Kaplan tests, I will tell you more about that later. Also after each class, Kaplan has some assignments that need to be completed on their website. The assignments are organized into two categories "required" and "strongly recommended". If you are looking to score 700+ and decide to take the course, PLEASE COMPLETE EVERYTHING. You do not get your monies worth if you don’t. The "required" assignments are the bare minimum that need to be done and most people only complete those. The reason is that Kaplan has so many assignments that by the time you complete them, you have the concepts memorized. As I said, Kaplan is all about repetition. Even the Kaplan classroom course doesn’t cover as much information as the Manhattan guides do but they do include several questions for the concepts they cover. Around the same time, I was able to get my hands on a copy of OG 10th edition. After I completed the Kaplan course work, I would try to solve a few problems each day from the OG. My scores on the Problem solving, data sufficiency and critical reasoning sections improved significantly but SC's and RC's still remained a problem. I took the Kaplan CAT 1 after the 5th session and scored 630. If you are taking this class currently or plan on taking it, dont be worried. The test is purposefully designed to be hard and you will be forced to guess on quite a few questions. My Kaplan scores were as follows: Cat 1: 630 Cat 2: 680 Cat 3: 730 Cat 4: 700 Cat 5: 750 The main reason for the improvement in Cat 3 was Sentence Correction. I never really paid much attention in the few English classes that I took while in college or high school. I decided to attack the basics and purchased a college textbook intended for intro English classes. I went through a few chapters but got really bored. I realized that the basics strategy wasn't working and focused on learning only the concepts that would be tested on GMAT. You would be quite surprised at how few concepts are tested. On the GMAT 80% of the questions come from these 6 categories: Subject/verb agreement, modifiers, pronouns, parallelism, comparisons, and idioms. I first started with Spidey's guide; it covers most of the basics without going in depth. I wrote down everything I learnt on flash cards as it helps me remember. Every day after I got home from work, I would solve 20 sentence correction questions. For the first few days, I would use the flash cards in case I forgot something. Once I was done, I would write down my mistakes on the flash cards for future reference. I would also go through Manhattan GMAT SC guide for some concepts not covered in Spidey's. When I first solved the OG, I would get 50-60% right but now I would get about 90%. I can honestly say that I was able to prepare for SC with the minimum effort. Now regarding the Problem Solving, I was able to solve 95/100 problems in the OG without any problem unless I made a stupid addition or multiplication mistake. However, I wasn’t achieving that same level of accuracy on Data Sufficiency. I approached my Kaplan instructor and he said the problem with most people is that they focus on trying to prove that it’s sufficient rather than insufficient. It is much easier to prove that something is insufficient than to prove that it’s always sufficient. I changed my strategy accordingly and noticed immediate improvements. What I didn’t know was that most of the questions in the OG were average level and that very few questions are from the 700+ level. I don’t know if anyone else agrees with me but I felt that the questions in the OG diagnostic were the toughest. They were similar in difficulty level to the questions that I saw on the GMAT. In all my practice tests with Kaplan, I was averaging only 50-60% on Reading Comp and it wouldn’t improve no matter what. So, I decided to ignore what I can’t improve and focus on what I can improve. Normally on Critical Reasoning question, I would read the question stem first and then answer the question. I took twinsplitter's advice and decided not to read the question stem first and I also decided to follow the Kaplan method of mapping the question. The Kaplan method takes up an extra 15-20 seconds but it also improves your accuracy quite a bit. When I mapped out the question, I was be able to visualize the logic behind the question. I was done with the Kaplan course on March 26, I scheduled my GMAT for April 3rd. I took a week and half off from work for some intensive prep. Although, in retrospect it wasn't that intensive. I was half way done with the OG 10th edition and decided to complete it before I took the GMAT prep test. I completed all the sections except for RC's. I took the GMAT prep and scored a 760 but felt that the score wasn’t accurate as some of the questions were from the OG 10th edition. Since I remembered the questions from the OG, I was able to answer them without actually working on it. The quant was much harder than I expected, I freaked out. Out of the 7 questions that I did incorrectly, 6 were Data Sufficiency. As usual I only got about 60% on the RC's but did well on the CR's and SC's. I had scheduled my Ultimate Practice Test (UPT) a few days before my actual test. For those of you who dont know what UPT is, Kaplan has an agreement with Pearson to let their students take a Kaplan CAT in the actual testing center.I scheduled my UPT at 1.15 PM to simulate the real test and tried to think of it as the real deal. I woke up a few hours before the test, made some breakfast, and then reviewed 5 questions from each of the 5 topics. Make sure you take something to drink and something to eat with you. I got there at 12.30, the lobby was almost empty and I was asked to take a seat. The guy at the front desk asked me if the place was easy to find and if I had any questions, etc... They take your picture and then a fingerprint of your index finger. I was asked to place all my belongings in a locker and if I had any GMAT books or notes. Try not to take any notes or books with you to the testing center. The reason is that if you have any GMAT books or notes in the backpack, you aren’t allowed to touch the bag even during breaks. Besides there is no point in bringing books as you cant really study in the lobby. I was under the impression that you could choose your spot but that wasn't the case They assign you a position and you have no choice but to sit there. As soon as I started the test, I realized that the backspace button on the keyboard was not working properly. It would delete two characters instead on one and it proved to be hassle. I was very pissed but there was little I could do at that point. As soon as I was done with the AWA, I took a 10 minute break. Inside the testing center, you have to raise your hand when you want to take a break or have a question. Our proctor was this old guy who would take a good 3-4 minutes to get to you. I have nothing against old people but 3-4 minutes can make or break you on the GMAT. Also you cant eat inside the lobby, so try to eat on the way to the bathroom or near the elevators or something. Time flew by pretty quick and I didn’t start feeling tired until the last 30 minutes. I reminded myself that its almost over and that the Chipotle is right around the corner :) I got a 750 on the test but the test was too predictable. As I said Kaplan only has a few templates and they use these over and over again, with time you can just predict the answers as they all follow the same logic. This is especially true in CR and Data sufficiency. I told the person at the front desk that the keyboard wasn’t working properly and he said he will look into it. I wanted to send an angry letter to Pearson but refrained myself as I had more important things to do. I receive these newsletters from Manhattan GMAT and I remember them saying not to take any test in the last two days. So I took the GMAT Prep 2 the very next day after the UPT, I scored 750. However this time I got all the problem solving questions right. I still took the results with a grain of salt as some of the questions were from the 10th edition. I hadn’t really paid attention to the AWA until now and was worried. I made a template for the Argument AWA and memorized it. I didn’t really study the next day as my school was in the Final Four (Go Mason!) and there was no way in hell I was missing that. On Sunday, I mainly focused on the Issue Essay and tried to focus on the problems that I got incorrect in the OG and GMAT prep. By the time I was done, it was 10.45 PM; I watched TV for an hour or two and then called it a night. I know that everyone says not to study the day before but I put myself in that position by not focusing on the AWA earlier. Fortunately, I had some sleep medication handy; otherwise I would have never been able to fall asleep. I woke up and was feeling pretty good, followed the same schedule as I did for the UPT. However this time I tried doing some tough data sufficiency problems but I stopped when I got 1 or 2 wrong. I would recommend anyone taking the test to not solve new problems or difficult problems right before the test. If you get them right great but otherwise you will be disappointed. I picked the first 5 problems from each section in the OG and solved them, I didn’t bother to look at the answers as I didn’t care if I got them right or wrong. I went to the test center at 12.30, this time there were a few people in the lobby. I was glad to see that the proctor was someone else and he seemed to be pretty attentive. I was seated in a different spot this time and away from the door. I went through the Argument essay and had almost 5 minutes left. I checked for any grammatical errors and made some minor changes. The template that I prepared for the issue essay would only work for a issue with two conflicting views. The issue that I got only had one view ("Ex: Teamwork is the most important thing in a company"), I just told myself to remain calm and made a mental note of few important points and then started typing. I came up with some random examples, which I thought were horrible but they were the best I could do, to address both sides of the issue. I barely had a few seconds left by the time I was done typing and couldn’t do much editing. I decided to take a break and this time the proctor got to me in less than 10 seconds. As soon as I left the room, I thought that I screwed up the issue essay. I didn’t encounter any tricky questions on the Quantitative part but I was forced to guess on a few data sufficiency problems. I honestly didn’t know if I was doing good or bad, I just went with the flow. I was done with a few minutes to spare. Also there was a question that I could have sworn that I have seen it on GMAT prep. I know that those questions are supposed to be retired but I am pretty sure I have seen it before as I was able to choose the answer without even solving the problem I took a break, ate a bar of candy and then dreamt about the Tuck campus for a minute or two :) I was surprised to see a Critical Reason question with highlighted parts, this was either the 3rd or 4th question. I read on this forum that you get those questions only if you are doing really well but that doesn’t seem to be the case. IMO, the computer doesn’t know your ability that early. I got hit with RC questions early and I tried to not waste too much time on these. However, I got hit with another RC passage almost immediately. Now I was running behind, I was forced to play catch up by guessing on a few questions. I got hit with another RC at around question number 21-22 and was again running behind. I almost gave up when I was around question number 26-27 as I thought I was screwing up big time and kept getting frustrated. I got a few SC's next and felt like I got them right. I was around question number 32, when I saw the 4th RC. At this point I was in horrible shape mentally, I just spent 5 minutes on the RC and guessed on 2 of the 4 questions. I made up time on that passage and now had about 2 minutes per question. Most of them were SC's, so I didn’t really have to think or draw them out. I was finally done with the questions, I filled out the stupid questionnaire. It finally asked me if I wanted to view my scores or cancel them. Canceling my scores wasn’t really an option for me as I was only going to take the GMAT once. I was hoping that I either did really well or really bad. I didn’t want a score in between as it would give me false hope during admissions. I think I was the last person in the room and when I saw those scores, I almost fell out of the chair. I breathed a sigh of relief and did a couple fist pumps and then the proctor came over. I went outside and the lady at the front desk congratulated me and said that these were Harvard scores. I said I don’t know about Harvard but I would be delighted if I get into Tuck. It took a few minutes to hit me that I just scored a 750 and was almost in tears when it finally did. I hadn’t told anyone including my parents that I was taking the test that particular day as I didn’t want any added pressure. Went to my parents house and I told my mom that I got a 750. lol, my mom doesn’t know much about the GMAT scores. So she asked me if 750 is considered a good score, I gave her this weird look. I got back my AWA scores within 6 days of taking the test. I was happy to see a 5.5 as I thought that I screwed up the issue essay big time. Also the RC passages on the actual test were much smaller and not as hard as the ones in OG or Kaplan As far as test prep goes I spent 3 months studying, which I feel is more than adequate. I would spend an hour or two during weekdays if I was in the mood and 5-6 hours on weekends. I started preparing from Jan 1st until April 3rd, which was my test date. The following are all the materials that I used in my preparation: Manhattan guides ==========> Very Important OG 11th edition ===========> Very Important OG 10th edition ===========> Strongly Recommended if you can find one. Kaplan Premier ============> Optional, a decent book to start with. Answers to the Real GMAT Essay Questions (ARCO)====> Recommended, decent templates. Kaplan 800 ================> Useless, Quantitative section is a joke. Spidey's Notes ============> Strongly Recommended Kaplan Course =============> Optional, useful only if you plan on completing all the material. Kaplan CAT's ==============> Recommended, try to take as if they were a real test. The content isn’t that great but they help you prepare for the real test in terms of time management. GMAT Prep =================> Very important, the quant will be almost similar in terms of difficulty. Try not to take them until a week or two before the actual exam. Manhattan GMAT Challenge Problems ============> Optional, good questions but it is unlikely that you will see many of them on the test. Please forgive me if I have any grammatical errors but I was typing this on the metro. Please let me know if you have any questions, I would be glad to answer them.

I took the test on April 3rd and I just got my official score report from GMAC. I thought it usually takes two weeks but I got it back in less than a week. I was very happy to see a 5.5 on the AWA as I thought that I screwed up the issue essay big time! I know I havent posted much on the forum but its primarily because I came across this site during the final stages of my preparation. However, I have to say this site helped me immensely, especially Spideys notes on sentence correction. When I started preparing for GMAT, I used to dread Sentence Correction but by the time I was done with Spideys notes and Manhattan GMAT, it became my favorite topic. I would like to thank the creators of this site and more so the people who take time to answer the numerous questions posted here. I have to say that the debriefing posted by twinsplitter helped me immensely. I followed his strategy of not reading the question stem first on critical reasoning questions. I know that everyone else says otherwise but this proved to improve my accuracy quite a bit.

Hi, I took the Kaplan Ultimate Practice test today at an actual GMAT testing center. In between the sessions, when you are allowed to take a 5 minute break, does the clock stop or is it still running. I noticed that when you want to take a break, the test administrator enters his password and selects the "unscheduled break" option.The reason I am asking is that by the time I raise my hand and get the administrator to help me, 3-4 minutes have already passed by. The 1-2 minutes remaining would hardly be adequate to go the restroom or grab a bite to eat. Also you have to provide a fingerprint each time you enter or exit the room. I asked the test administrator about this and he stated that while I was allowed to take a 10 minute break, the clock would still be running. I will be taking my actual GMAT pretty soon and am kinda bummed about this. Has anyone else, who recently took the test, experienced this problem? Thanks!

The following is one of the examples provided in the 'Comparisions' section of the Sentence Correction workshop: The article questioned the popularity of Jazz compared to Classical music. The correct version is as follows: The article questioned the popularity of Jazz compared to that of Classical music. My questions is why are they using "Compared to" ? Aren't they supposed to use "Compared with"? Aren't Jazz and Classical are both types of Music? According to Spidey's notes on Sentence Correction, "Compare usually takes the preposition 'to' when it refers to the activity of describing the resemblances between unlike things" "Compare takes 'with' when it refers to the act of examining two like things in order to discern their similarities or differences" Thanks!

The following is one of the examples provided in the 'Comparisions' section of the Sentence Correction workshop: The article questioned the popularity of Jazz compared to that of Classical music. The correct version is as follows: The article questioned the popularity of Jazz compared to that of Classical music. My questions is why are they using "Compared to" ? Aren't they supposed to use "Compared with"? Aren't Jazz and Classical are both types of Music? According to Spidey's notes on Sentence Correction, "Compare usually takes the preposition 'to' when it refers to the activity of describing the resemblances between unlike things" "Compare takes 'with' when it refers to the act of examining two like things in order to discern their similarities or differences" Thanks!

Jhanauer, How did you come up with this equation( 1 - (2/3)^(2min / 30s) )? I tried doing algebraically, X - X/3 -(1/3(x -(x/3).... but it got too complicated. Your seems to be much more simple and straightforward. Thanks!

Same here, IMO A has to be the answer. Statement 2 says If it rains tomorrow, then it will rain today. That doesnt necessarily mean that if it doesnt rain tomorrow then it won't rain today. It just means that if it rains tomorrow then IT WILL rain today. Since we dont know anything about tomorrow it has to be insufficient.

Also since statement 1 says that 1/y > 1/x and since from statement two x > 0, y has to be positive. If Y isnt positive when x is positive then statement 1 has to be incorrect and from what I have learnt the statements are always true. So combining the two statements should give us the answer.

Mastermind, Thanks for the answer. I think I got it now. This is the explanation with numbers. Since the question stem says that the units digit of K is nonzero. We know that it can be a value between 1-9. So lets pick 121, if you add 9 to it, it becomes 130. For any units digit between 1-9, adding nine to it will make 1 carry over to the tens place. So if the tens place is 3 after we add 1 to it, then it had to be 2 before!

I found this question on TestMagic in a document labelled Hard Questions. Question number 1 is as follows: 1. The sum of the even numbers between 1 and n is 79*80, where n is an odd number, then n=? Sol: First term a=2, common difference d=2 since even number therefore sum to first n numbers of Arithmetic progression would be n/2(2a+(n-1)d) = n/2(2*2+(n-1)*2)=n(n+1) and this is equal to 79*80 therefore n=79 which is odd... I don't agree with the answer as if the sum of all numbers between 1-79 is 79 * 40, how can just the sum of even numbers be more? Any thoughts?

I found this question on TestMagic in a document labelled Hard Questions. Question number 1 is as follows: 1. The sum of the even numbers between 1 and n is 79*80, where n is an odd number, then n=? Sol: First term a=2, common difference d=2 since even number therefore sum to first n numbers of Arithmetic progression would be n/2(2a+(n-1)d) = n/2(2*2+(n-1)*2)=n(n+1) and this is equal to 79*80 therefore n=79 which is odd... I don't agree with the answer as if the sum of all numbers between 1-79 is 79 * 40, how can just the sum of even numbers be more? Any thoughts?

a2 = b(2-1) - a(2-1) i.e. a2 = b1 - a1. Since we know b1 = k and a1 =1 a2 = k -1 b2 = b(2-1) + a(2-1) i.e b2 = b1 + a1. Since we know b1 = k and a1 =1 b2 = k + 1

Yes, the answer choice would have to be B as all we care about is whether Chris has the most money. If Chris only has 40 cents, then the other two folks can have 41 and 39 cents respectively or 40 cents each. But we dont need to go into the possibilities of how the money will be divided among the other two as the question isnt asking for that.

That is the thing about quadratic equations, you cant just cancel both sides as it will provide only 1 possible solution. When in fact there are always (almost) two possible answer choices.

Hi guys, I came across the following problem in one of the sample GMAT tests and kinda stumbled on it. If the units digit of the three-digit positive integer k is nonzero, what is the tens digit of k? (1) The tens digit of k + 9 is 3. (2) The tens digit of k + 4 is 2. I figured the answer had to be C as if adding 9 to K makes the tens digit become 3 but adding 4 only makes it 2. If the tens digit was 2 and when 9 was added to the units digit, 1 gets carried over to make it 3 but adding 4 to the units digit doesnt change the tens digit as the units digit might be less than 6. However the answer is A. Can someone please explain? Thanks in advance!

Hi Guys, I am kinda new to the forum, so I apologize in advance if I am posting incorrectly or something. I found this problem in one of the sample GMAT tests. If the sequence x1, x2, x3, …, xn, … is such that x1 = 3 and Xn+1 = 2X(n) – 1 for n ? 1, then x20 – x19 = A. 2^19 B. 2^20 C. 2^21 D. 2^20 - 1 E. 2^21 - 1 I cant get the Xn+1 = 2X(n) -1 part to format correctly. What that means is the 2nd digit in the sequence is twice the 1st digit minus 1 and so on.... I know the right answer to the question is A but can someone please explain why? Thanks in advance!