Science passages surprise!

isisalaska · Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:57 pm Post subject: Science passages surprise!

I have been trying to read passages from the three different topics covered on the GMAT: business, social science, and pure super difficult science. Surprisely enough the one I really master is...science! wow! Shocked

this is really a surprise, I would have though business or social science would be easier for me. Maybe this has to do with the fact that since I am "scared" about the topic I pay more attention...is this a plausible explanation?

aim-wsc · Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:39 pm Post subject:

can you tell us which are ''typical'' passeges? or the ones that GMAT like ? Smile

isisalaska · Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:30 pm Post subject:

Ok an example of a scientific one will talk about planets, starts, or biology, with a bunch of "weird" words

Example;

In choosing a method for determining climatic conditions that existed in the past, paleoclimatologists invoke four principal criteria. First, the material—rocks, lakes, vegetation, etc.—on which the method relies must be widespread enough to provide plenty of information, since analysis of material that is rarely encountered will not permit correlation with other regions or with other periods of geological history. Second, in the process of formation, the material must have received an environmental signal that reflects a change in climate and that can be deciphered by modern physical or chemical means. Third, at least some of the material must have retained the signal unaffected by subsequent changes in the environment. Fourth, it must be possible to determine the time at which the inferred climatic conditions held. This last criterion is more easily met in dating marine sediments, because dating of only a small number of layers in a marine sequence allows the age of other layers to be estimated fairly reliably by extrapolation and interpolation. By contrast, because sedimentation is much less continuous in continental regions, estimating the age of a continental bed from the known ages of beds above and below is more risky.
A passage about Social Science will talk about women rights, or something about an individual group such as African Americans

Example:

The settlement of the United States has occupied traditional historians since 1893 when Frederick Jackson Turner developed his Frontier Thesis, a thesis that explained American development in terms of westward expansion. From the perspective of women’s history, Turner’s exclusively masculine assumptions constitute a major drawback: his defenders and critics alike have reconstructed men’s, not women’s, lives on the frontier. However, precisely because of this masculine orientation, revising the Frontier Thesis by focusing on women’s experience introduces new themes into women’s history—woman as lawmaker and entrepreneur—and, consequently, new interpretations of women’s relationship to capital, labor, and statute.
Lastly, a passage about Business well, it wil be about business right Wink

how this company increased so much in revenue, management style etc.

Example:

Since the late 1970’s, in the face of a severe loss of market share in dozens of industries, manufacturers in the United States have been trying to improve productivity—and therefore enhance their international competitiveness—through cost-cutting programs. (Cost-cutting here is defined as raising labor output while holding the amount of labor constant.) However, from 1978 through 1982, productivity—the value of goods manufactured divided by the amount of labor input—did not improve; and while the results were better in the business upturn of the three years following, they ran 25 percent lower than productivity improvements during earlier, post-1945 upturns. At the same time, it became clear that the harder manufactures worked to implement cost-cutting, the more they lost their competitive edge.

I find a lot of Scientific ones in GMAT. BUT, chances are you will get 3 or 4 different passages during the test, for some reason I get a lot obout women studies in the US. My advice is not keep things straight by writing key words or dates on a piece of paper.

I hope it helps!

beatthegmat · Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:32 pm Post subject: Re: Science passages surprise!

isisalaska · Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:34 pm Post subject:

It surely does!!! I have been trying that one instead of thinking "oh my God what a dry subject, etc". Great tip Eric!