Welcome back to this week’s Challenge Problem! As always, the problem and solution below were written by one of our fantastic instructors. Each challenge problem represents a 700+ level question. If you are up for the challenge, however, set your timer for 2 mins and go!
The tens digit of
is
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When talking to my students about their study plans to prepare for the GMAT, I always emphasize the need to take as many computer-adaptive practice tests as possible. A test-taker needs to experience what the real GMAT is like, and there’s no better way to do that than to sit for four straight hours and experience the challenge (and joy?!) of facing progressively difficult questions.
When students begin preparing for the GMAT, I always recommend that they take a GMATPrep practice test early in their studies. I do this for several reasons:
We’re happy to introduce the Knewton Weekly Math Challenge. Every Wednesday we’ll post a very difficult quant question. The first person to answer correctly in the comment field below will win the new Knewton T-shirt. After the right answer appears in the comments (you can only post one answer, and you must explain how you arrived at your answer — so take your time), we’ll post a full explanation. Here’s the first question. Good luck!
In a certain game, a player begins with a bag containing tiles numbered 1 through 10, each of which has an equal probability of being selected. The player draws one tile. If the tile is even, the player stops. If not, the player draws another tile without replacing the first. If this second tile is even, the player stops. If not, the player draws a third tile—without replacing either of the first two tiles—and then stops. What is the probability that at the conclusion of the game, the sum of the tiles that the player has drawn is odd?
As discussed previously in this space, the authors of the GMAT have two primary goals when they write any GMAT question – they want you to have the potential to get the question wrong, and they also want to give you the opportunity to waste precious time as you arrive at your answer (so that you have the potential to get future questions wrong). Cleverly, they have designed a style of Critical Reasoning question that is suited to serve both ends – the “Mimic the Reasoning” question.
While the two essays on the GMAT require you to do completely different things, the approach and foundation of each essay is exactly the same. In this blog article, I want to address two questions my students often ask: “How long should I spend on planning the essay vs. writing the essay?” and “How long should the essay be?”
There has been a lot of conversation about this topic over the past few years and I thought I would share some of my thoughts surrounding this GMAT/GRE debate, so you can consider the implications it may have for you if any.
It’s common to take the GMAT twice; some have gone as far as retaking the test three or four times! At the end of the day, we all have the same reason for retaking this test: to get a higher score. Perhaps you need a higher GMAT score to compensate for a weak area on your business school application. Or maybe you wish to strengthen your performance on one section of the GMAT to indicate competency to MBA adcoms.
So what is the best strategy for retaking the GMAT? Before answering this question, it is important to assess your options.
This is the latest in a series of “How To Analyze” articles that began with the general “How To Analyze A Practice Problem” article (click on the link to read the original article). This week, we’re going to analyze a specific Data Sufficiency question. The GMATPrep® problem we’re using this week is one that we’ve already discussed how to solve in a previous article; click here to read that article and try the problem first.
Here’s the problem again; if you didn’t read the first article and try the problem already, then try this problem now (2 minutes):
Tone is the feeling or emotion associated with a passage or a part of a passage. An author creates tone with the specific words he or she chooses to include. Adjectives and adverbs give authors a chance to express emotion because they are explicitly descriptive; much of an author’s tone is created in the way he or she describes things.
Sometimes an entire passage has a tone. Take this example:
Welcome back to this week’s Challenge Problem! As always, the problem and solution below were written by one of our fantastic instructors. Each challenge problem represents a 700+ level question. If you are up for the challenge, however, set your timer for 2 mins and go!
A circle is inscribed in an equilateral triangle, such that the two figures touch at exactly 3 points, one on each side of the triangle. Which of the following is closest to the percent of the area of the triangle that lies within the circle?
Last week, we covered the basic components of an Argument and how to identify them (Critical Reasoning for Beginners, Part 1: The Components of an Argument). Now let’s put the theory into practice and look at a simple Sample Argument.
There are two types of interest problems on the GMAT, and they include simple interest and compound interest. Simple interest is the most basic and is a function of P, the principle amount of money invested, the interest rate earned on the principle, i, and the amount of time the money is invested, t (this is usually stated in periods, such as years or months). The resulting equation is:
Many business schools teach using the famous “case method”, in which you will analyze the real-world situation of a specific business at a time of crisis/transition/decision in order to gain practical knowledge of business theory as applied to an actual situation. The theory behind the case method is that, by analyzing how, for example, Kodak needed to transition from a conventional (film) to a new (digital) business model, you will gain large-scale comprehension of a business principle in general, and not just an intimate understanding of one business. With this experience, you can then apply your theoretical-and-practical understanding of a vast array of business principles to whatever situations will arise in your future role as a manager.
Don’t worry, this is not nearly as complicated as it sounds. Knewton instructor Cole Entress lays it all out for you in this short lesson.
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