IlliniEngineer

I must say... I can't believe this problem has been such a brainteaser! 3 years and running and it's still getting posts/replies! [clap][clap] I will tell you all out there that I studied this problem before I took the GRE and now, I'm 2 signatures away from depositing my MS thesis. Good Luck to the rest of you!

http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/1724/circlecenteraa1.jpg Column A = AB Column B = "The average (arithmetic mean) of CB and DB" OA is A I reason that the answer is D if points C, D and A are the same point. The way I wrote my original post (in quotes at the bottom) was to see if someone could give me a clear, logical explanation of the "correct" interpretation of the given diagram. To be more explicit about what I really want to know: Is it wrong to assume that lines CB and DB can possibly contain point O? In other words, is it wrong to assume that CB=DB=AB in the way that the diagram is drawn? Or in even other words, is it wrong to assume that points C, D, and A are the same point? (this is a confusion I'm having that's similar to http://www.www.urch.com/forums/gre-math/105531-smaller-number-divided-larger-number-always-gives-noninteger.html ...when can you assume things like variables, points, etc are the same and when they aren't?) Thanks guys.

The question: "m, p, and x are positive integers and mp=x" Column A .................... Column B m ................................... x OA is D, cannot be determined. Why is this? I thought it would B. My reasoning would be that If mp=x is true, then p=x/m is also true. So if p is an integer then x > m is true. Aren't the basic inequality rules like this? If you divide both sides by m, which is positive x>m then x/m > 1 x So if x/m The only way it could be undetermined is if 0 is considered a "positive integer" (i know 0 is neither negative nor positive, but is it considered an integer?) or if two or more of them are the same number. But doesn't making the variables different imply that they are different numbers? Or am I wrong? The answer key says that 58% of test takers got this question correct.

Rephrasing the title: If I get a "long" passage (50+ lines), does that mean I will get more questions about the passage than if it were a short passage? Basically, is there a correlation between the number of lines in a passage and the number or questions asked about that passage? i.e. 50 or more lines means atleast 3 questions or less than 50 lines means 2 questions or something like that. It almost seems unfair if they gave you like a 50+ line passage and only had you answer one question about it. The psychological distress that would come from ETS doing something like that would drive me crazy for the rest of the exam and I probably wouldn't do as well. Just wondering about this. Thanks guys.

lol i love how much controversy this problem has. i'm going to take it to my non euclidian geometry prof. even though this is pretty basic, i'm sure he'll know what's up. and i'll post a full proof.

the outer shape is a square. thus the diagonals of the inner shape are equal proving that it indeed is a square. further inspection would prove that the angles are 90 degrees, but that is not needed to prove it is a square since all sides are equal and the diagonals are equal to each other.

this is a pretty crazy problem, i dont' think i could do this problem under the stress of testing conditions. (took me about 10 minutes to figure it out) where'd you find this problem? anyways there are 3 parts to this problem first third so pretty much 7242/x = whole number where 2400 since 72.42 is about 72 and 72/24=3 you know 3 will be the most likely integer then 7242/3=x=2414 so k+n = 3+14=17 the brute force method: 72.42/24=3.0175 and 72.42/25=2.8968 so what is the whole number between 3.0175 and 2.8968.

yeah, i took about 2 practice tests everyday to make sure i built up the proper stamina. on the gre paper tests from that ETS GRE book you recommended, i only missed 1 or 2 in each quantitative section. i knew i could easily score an 800, but i just had some crazy panic attack where i couldnt' remember how to do math. the only tip i can give you is KNOW HOW TO REDUCE FRACTIONS. if you know all of your times tables backwards and forwards and can reduce fractions, find common denom, least common multiples etc you will ace 80% of the problems. many of the problems i got stuck on involved simple fraction reduction. that's really the only thing they test. i mean, triangles are fractions, probability is fractions, those comparisons are almost always fractions, most of those data interp questions are just fractions. yep, the quant. section is just one big fraction. know how to reduce fractions efficiently and you'll be good to go. i say that because i've always been the lazy person that can't do mental math. (have always used a calculator since 8th grade) i can always set up the problems, but i'm just too lazy to do the dang math and that has really hurt me. so if there are any 8th graders out there...DO MENTAL MATH! DON'T RELY ON CALCULATORS. another useful thing is knowing the squares of the first 20 numbers, and the cubes of the first 15. fractions and exponents were definitely the toughest part in my opinion. i got a couple questions like 3^x * 4^y * 5^z = xyz what is the greatest possible value of the remainder if xyz is divided by 20. and then it'll list some possibilities. i didn't even know how to start. knowing what a remainder is might also be helpful but those usually aren't too numerous on the test. the test prep material that you can get is, in my opinion no where near the level of difficulty of the actual GRE quant section. i heard though that there is a GRE book available in china that has a collection of the most difficult questions actually used on the GRE. i figure china doesn't really give a flip about US regulations or copyright and somehow they broke into the ETS question pool and pulled out all the hard questions and put them into a book. so pretty much just know how to do fractions and exponents. everything else is just being clever.

if you meant there is a group of n women, then you should simply think about how these value would be distributed. if there were the same amount of men and women then the average would be (70+64)/2 = 67 inches since they tell you the average is 66 that means the lower value holds more "weight" and there are more women if you wanted to calculate it out (70*m+64*n)/(m+n) = 66 (70*m+64*n) = 66*(m+n) = 66*m + 66*n 4*m=2*n m=0.5*n or 2*m=n //whichever one you like thus m

Lesson Learned: Stay Calm. I froze up on the math section BIG TIME. i was forgetting how to multiply and second guessing my self as to whether -1/2 was less than -1/8. I ran out of time and totally guessed on the last 5 questions. Man it was a horrible experience. if you are prone to these kinds of panic attacks i suggest devising a non time consuming way to cure yourself. or just plain learn to stay calm. After hearing about the format of other GRE takers i think i can safely say that one section type will be sandwiched by two others. e.g. verbal/quant/verbal or quant/verbal/quant. (after the analytical section of course) I'm trying to get into a decent graduate engineering program and i have a pretty low gpa (2.89/4.00) so i kind of need some kick arse gre scores. This is my 2nd time to take the GRE. the first time i got a 420v and 690q. How bad do you think it looks to take the GRE a third time? if i do decide that taking it again is better, i'll probably take some yoga classes or something to deal with my panic attacks and then ace the test. What do you guys think about taking it again for the 3rd time? btw, i'll be graduating from a US school if that makes a difference.

after staring at it again i came up with this: 1) Start to shift each corner over by the same amount, thus all the blue lines are equal length http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/8405/insquare4zq1.jpg 2) Since all the blue lines are equal and all sides are of equal length, then all the red lines are also equal length 3) This means that all the green triangles have equal hypotenuse lengths (as well as equal areas) making the inner quadrilateral a square http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/1635/insquare3uj4.jpg Thus, there are multiple ways to inscribe the square and the answer is D. The OA is D. :doh: I probably should have mentioned that in my original post :doh: :doh:

yeah, either you missed a few words in copying the question down, or the question is misworded. and

On the actual GRE is there always a more philosophical issue and one that is more "sciency" While using powerprep and the ETS book of old gre paper tests, i noticed that there is always one issue that is about science and technology and then one issue that is more philosophical. Is this always the case? or is it random? For example: "Too much time, money, and energy are spent developing new and more elaborate technology. Society should instead focus on maximizing the use of existing technology for the immediate benefit of its citizens." or "Great advances in knowldege necessarily involve the rejection of authority" Clearly, one with an engineering background would choose the first topic, but is it possible to get two crazy philosophical topics like the second?

ABCD and PQRS are both squares. http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/9800/insquarevb5.jpg Column A ... ...Column B x ..................45 So basically, Is there only one way to inscribe a square in a square?

These are from one of the CATs on Cambridge Educational Services' Super Deluxe CD-ROM. Is cambridge really ambiguous when it comes to their test prep material? I found a few errors (like they put + when they meant = ) and these following questions i think are nearly completely unanswerable. Would the actual GRE have questions like these?