Siyinglove

“i see. my apologies, i assumed you were an mba applicant.”

“i know of no such ''formulae'' (and would be constitutionally incapable of remembering them anyway). so... not really. the most important part is marty''s first line: you should play to your strengths. but you should not forget that this entire exam—start to finish—was designed specifically ...”

“you have a 750. congratulations. in this case, i have exactly one piece of advice: don''t take the test again. why would you re-take with a 750?”

“BENEFIT #3 of translating CR into ''conversation'': you''ll have to simplify the language of the passage (= ''explain to a 9-year-old'', as i''m always saying). normal people don''t talk in the language of dense formal text; rather, they talk like ... well, normal people. our brains are ...”

“BENEFIT #2 of translating CR into ''conversation'': you''ll be able to anticipate where the passage is going. consider: When freelance writers are offered full-time staff positions, very few of them accept. Some people try to explain this by... if this is a conversation, you can predict ...”

“BENEFIT #1 of translating CR into ''conversation'': you''ll ALWAYS catch important transitions—even if they are ''tiny little words''. this is the issue in your posts here. in an actual conversation, there is NO WAY you would miss ''Some people think...'', and there is also NO WAY you would ...”

“you''re welcome. by the way, you may have noticed that i haven''t posted here regularly in some time—i''ve been too busy on our own (MPrep) forum. if you don''t hear from me here (and the source is allowed on our forum) you may want to try your luck over there. the best fix for this ^^ ...”

“forgot the footnote— **i can only think of two exceptions: 1/ a religious authority (e.g., if a Christian says Jesus said X, or if a Muslim says Muhammad taught that X, then (s)he is probably going to agree with ''X''); 2/ a beloved mentor/parent/etc (e.g., My father always ...”

“more directly... in EVERYDAY CONVERSATION, Some people say... is almost invariably** followed by something with which the speaker DOES NOT agree. (at the very least, the speaker will generally entertain the possibility that whatever ''some people say'' is false.) if this is not obvious, just ...”

“of these two ''arrows'', only the first is actually substantiated by the passage. as far as the second arrow, note that the passage says... It has been suggested that regular release of endorphins increases people’s longevity ...in other words, ''Some people say endorphins make you live ...”

“here''s how the problem works if you make the substitution i described above. * people who wear dresses live longer than people who don''t. (this is a statistical FACT. we want to explain it.) * it''s doubtful that wearing dresses actually extends a person''s life span, so we need another ...”

“if you are still confused, just replace ''volunteer'' with ''wear dresses'', and that should make the logic easier to understand. i will explain in more detail below. but, BEFORE YOU SCROLL DOWN TO THE NEXT POST, actually make that substitution (take out ''volunteer'' and put in ''wear ...”

“interesting... resurrecting a thread that''s almost 4 years old! nope. first, you should IMMEDIATELY reject this interpretation, because this is not how the GMAT operates. we''re trying to show that this is NOT a cause/effect relationship. so, NO answer choice will state (DIRECTLY) ...”

“on the other hand, "in which", "from which", "to which", etc. can appear either with or without a comma: I saw a play that was reviewed in the local newspaper. I saw a play in which one of my friends plays a starring role. ("in" + "that" = ...”

“if the modifier starts with "which", it should be preceded by a comma. (in the standard american usage endorsed by GMAC, "which" without a comma becomes "that".)”

“good observation. in the context of the original sentence, the red "it" is the cigarette itself. that is an actual conflict (with the immediately preceding "it", which is used to refer to something else). notice that there''s no "vagueness"; the problem is that ...”

“^^ there''s no reason why they should be parallel, since they aren''t in a parallel construction. "slowing" is a modifier. modifiers NEVER have to be parallel to the stuff they modify. if we change "entering..." to "that enters..." (but leave "slowing" ...”

“in context, it''s clear that "it" = oxygen, and oxygen is a singular noun. for the GMAT, that''s good enough. more importantly, talking about "vague pronouns" sets a bad precedent for the GMAT, which tests no such thing. if the GMAT tests a pronoun error, that error will be ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. ^^ not really. clearly, oxygen does enter a cigarette at some point in time. and, in a different context, this sort of construction could totally make sense. e.g., This cigarette causes oxygen to cool rapidly when the oxygen enters the filter ...”

“you''re welcome.”

“thinking more generally— the above is a good example of why functional thinking is superior to "classification" into rigid categories. namely, thinking about "actions" is better than worrying about whether said actions are technically verbs. in fact, in the "blue ...”

“also, note that i''ve been careful to say that these modifiers describe "actions". i.e., i''m careful NOT to say "verbs"... because, in sentences like the blue one, they won''t always be verbs. e.g., I peeked into the workshop and saw the master watchmaker here, comma + ...”

“nope, i wrote it correctly (although i do quite often reverse such things). the orange sentence is too hard to understand. when the reader sees the modifier, (s)he isn''t going to readily connect it all the way back to the orange stuff on the left. any reader''s natural instinct is to try to ...”

“...let''s try that again. i''m 10 years old. in those choices, what do the words mean? e.g., choice (a) means... ...they''ll describe something people have thought for a while ...then they''ll describe a new way of thinking that goes against that one ...but will decide that the new way of ...”

“update: never mind the request for a link. as it turns out, * yes, that post is over 4 years old * someone else already pointed out the same issue to me * ... so i already edited the original post here''s the edited post: http://www.beatthegmat.com/soar-t62473-15.html#280069”

“yep, that''s not a thing. could someone please do me a favor and link to the original post, so that i can edit it? thanks. here''s the context: i almost certainly wrote that at least 4-5 years ago. at that point, the above principle correlated very well with GMAC''s correct and incorrect ...”

“also— if the passage were discussing some part of the hotel through which everyone passes—e.g., how quickly the floor is worn down in the hotel''s exterior doorways—THEN "older hotels are smaller" becomes a factor. i.e., since everyone must pass through the doors of the hotel at ...”

“prudhiviram— this is insightful, but it doesn''t apply here. "carpentry work" is mostly in the underlying frame of a building. if a building has a greater capacity, then, accordingly, it will be bigger, and will thus have more "carpentry work". The amount of carpentry ...”

“In GMAC materials, you''ll routinely encounter sentences like the blue one. Although the orange sentence is technically ok, I very highly doubt that you would ever see anything like it in an official sentence, since it''s stylistically poor writing. So, if you need a guessing method, you''re ...”

“If I were 10 years old, how would you explain to me what choices D and E say?”

“You''re welcome.”

“Probably. As always, context matters.”

“No one is going to be able to answer this kind of question, because this isn''t how the human brain stores information. Think of a word, from your own first language, that is "exceptional" in some way. Now, ask yourself the same type of question ("What are the other words that act ...”

“Too abstract for me. Can you write an actual example that looks like this? Thanks.”

“Also, gmat62, those don''t look like official problems. Are they official problems? If not, ignore them.”

“That statement is admittedly a bit too strong. If you see a helping verb in the second part of a comparison, you should look for (in order) 1/ the same helping verb; 2/ the main verb that the helping verb goes with; 3/ whichever choice looks most like the other part. All of this is, of ...”

“That statement is admittedly a bit too strong. If you see a helping verb in the second part of a comparison, you should look for (in order) 1/ the same helping verb; 2/ the main verb that the helping verb goes with; 3/ whichever choice looks most like the other part. All of this is, of ...”

“Two things. 1/ In general, you shouldn''t think of "using" as an __ing form. Like "including", "using" is allowed more latitude than other words spelled with __ing. In fact, it''s used more like a preposition (e.g., "with") than like a typical __ing ...”

“You''re welcome.”

“In the problem you''ve cited, the whole issue is a non-issue, because NO modifier makes sense. In that context, "applying... is something that happens later. It''s not something that happens in the same timeframe as "moving in", and it is most certainly not a description of the ...”

“Have you ever seen this--or anything remotely like it--in an official problem? If not, it''s a non-issue (and thinking about it will have negative returns, in the sense of needlessly over-complicating the concept). If you have seen this sort of thing in an official problem, then point out ...”

“There are at least 2 more issues you can look at. • Choice C doesn''t convey the intended meaning explicitly. The intended meaning is that excessive commitment will cause an executive to make certain mistakes. This meaning is expressed explicitly in the correct answer (... is likely to ...”

“In any case, for readers who might be wondering about this distinction out of pure curiosity, here''s a brief explanation. • If you control a variable, then you actually exert influence on that variable. E.g., Smith''s data are questionable because he did not adequately control the ambient ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. Hm? You don''t even need to "bypass the issue". There''s no issue in the first place. "Control(ling) for..." is in every choice.”

“Cool, thanks. It''s most rewarding, to me at least, to post stuff that makes people think about life beyond just this exam. So, good to know that''s happening in the mind of at least one reader. The whole sisu thing needs to be tempered, though, by an honest evaluation of whether you''re ...”

“Oh, and, I forgot two more things. • DO NOT label mistakes as "silly mistakes" or "carelessness". Both of these labels will prevent you from actually addressing the issue. The former just trivializes the issue, as though God just dropped mistakes on your head while you ...”

“This one is simple. • Write EVERYTHING down. Absolutely everything. If there are conditions, write them down directly next to wherever you''re going to use them. (If you''re going to use them in multiple places, write them down multiple times. Do it.) Do NOT tell yourself that "this ...”

“When it comes to things requiring attention to detail, I''m just ... well, slow. Ridiculously, shamefully slow. If you saw how long it takes me to get through things that are entirely details, and that don''t really have a big-picture component (e.g., start-up instruction manuals for electronic ...”

“There are a couple of good ways to respond to this. 1/ First, I take issue with the "lots of words" thing. If you think about this test in a way that''s well adapted to it, the "lots of words" complaint doesn''t ring as true. The parts of the test with the most words are ...”

“It''s ok to write that the experiments investigated these effects. In some situations——such as this one——you have "compromises" in terms of the exact literal quality of a modifier. If... ... there''s no way to write a single sentence that''s exactly literal, or ... the ...”

“It''s ok to write that the experiments investigated these effects. In some situations——such as this one——you have "compromises" in terms of the exact literal quality of a modifier. If... ... there''s no way to write a single sentence that''s exactly literal, or ... the ...”

“Ah, yes. C is worded incorrectly. This is where you''ll discover that I''m "special". I am very severely dyslexic; I can''t read sentences in a straight line. Ever see those refrigerator magnets with words on them? That''s what every sentence looks like to me at first. I just see a ...”

“"10 or more gallons" means "x gallons, where x ≥ 10".”

“And, finally, "descended" has the same problem as "has descended" or "had descended". It wrongly suggests literal downward motion, rather than lineal descent from an ancestor.”

“By the way, "has suggested" is also wrong. It implies that the evidence made this suggestion at one point but doesn''t anymore. I explained this here: http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/post100122.html That''s way, way, WAY too subtle to be necessary on the GMAT. But it''s a thing.”

“You''re going in the right direction here, but not quite reaching the right goal. This is a comma + __ing modifier. Comma + __ing doesn''t modify a noun. It tries to modify the entire preceding action/clause. E.g., I dropped the groceries onto the floor, scaring the dogs. This is a ...”

“Choice C doesn''t really do anything, because "lower quantities" and "more frequently" are offsetting ideas. In terms of their effect on total sales dollars, they cancel each out.”

“Right here you''re doing something you should NEVER do——focusing on an extreme (and very bizarre/counterintuitive) mathematical case, rather than thinking about the most likely or most ordinary interpretation of a statistic. Remember——This is not the quant section. It''s the verbal ...”

“Always read very carefully for the exact nature of things like goals, purposes, objectives, etc. Choice B implies that the plan might ultimately have bad results for the government budget. But that''s not the point. It''s not a plan to balance/fix the government budget; it''s a plan to make ...”

“When it comes to dealing with correct answers to official problems, you have 2 options: 1/ Complain about them and/or say why you think they''re wrong; 2/ Figure out how they work, learn from them, and retain these experiences as part of a growing "memory bank" of formal written ...”

“This looks like a solid understanding. You''re welcome.”

“I think you''re right here. Remember, "__ed" is a passive construction, normally representing an action done on or to the subject. So, in most cases, it''s not possible for such a construction to be intimately connected to the subject+action of the preceding clause (which describes ...”

“Sure.”

“You''re welcome.”

“This is just the normal use of "in which". If it''s idiomatically correct to say "in NOUN", then you can also write "(a/an/the) NOUN in which..." E.g., Robert starred in this play. ... the play in which Robert starred ... I was born in 1975. In 1975, the ...”

“An increase is a numerical quantity, so, like any other numerical quantity, it can theoretically be doubled. I.e., in 1989 ("the previous year"), this statistic went up by N percent. Then, in 1990, it went up by 2N percent (= twice the previous increase).”

“Well... no. If that were non-essential, then you could eliminate it without any loss of specificity. If you try to eliminate that modifier, then you''re left saying that Africa is just "the land". That''s nonsense, of course; the sentence has to say that Africa is the land that ...”

“In general, these aren''t the same. • "People ___ing" are people who are ___ing in the timeframe of the sentence. • "People who ___" are people who ___ in general. (If you were going to describe their habits/traits/tendencies, you would mention the fact that they ...”

“You''re welcome. You should always ask "Why?" about every type of question on this test. If you understand what is emphasized (and what isn''t) on this exam—in terms of both content and skills—you''ll find the whole experience much more circumscribed, and much less daunting.”

“Hi, Honestly, I can''t really come up with anything better than what I wrote the first time. So, I''ll just quote what I wrote the first time. (: • Describes Roberta • Must have a relationship to the whole idea of the sentence. I don''t really know the grammar terms (and don''t ...”

“Nah. It describes "a technique". That sentence doesn''t imply a contrast. It just points out that the use of a certain technique has been extended beyond its original purpose. (This is just the diffusion of technology; there''s nothing anticlimactic or "unexpected" about ...”

“I know I say this way too often, but, this sort of understanding (involving classifications/categories) shouldn''t be your end goal, because it''s awkward and clumsy. I.e., your goal is to distinguish correct usage from incorrect usage immediately. If you have to think in terms of grammar terms ...”

“Hmm—this discussion was dead for more than 5 years before that post. Interesting. -- Basically, common-sense understanding should resolve these issues. Just ask yourself whether the __ing modifier actually makes sense as a DESCRIPTION of each of these things. Possibility #1: They ...”

“Yes.”

“More generally——Your understanding of patterns and constructions should not be totally static. It should have some "kernel" of understanding——i.e., a "core" understanding that represents the essence of a particular concept——but you should be willing to tweak it / ...”

“It can describe turns. They took turns. — Turns doing what? / What kind of turns? Turns drawing xxxxx stuff. If you really don''t like that, then you can just remember it as an "idiom". That works, too, although it''s a slippery slope. I.e., it''s easy to slip into a pattern ...”

“In all of the examples you''ve cited, "when" does refer to the actual timeframe when the following event happens. Look at this pair of sentences: When you return the goods, your money will be refunded. If you return the goods, your money will be refunded. The first sentence implies ...”

“If you notice any constructions that are used in contradictory / opposite / significantly different ways in the two languages (spoken and written English), you should pay more than the usual amount of attention to them. (As another example, consider pronouns. In SPOKEN English, they''re not ...”

“• These are wrong answers. • As noted above, the OG explanations are not infallible. If you see "seems to..." in one of the explanations, that often——not necessarily 100% of the time, but often——indicates that the authors are hedging; they''re not totally confident about ...”

“"Including", when used in this way, is not actually a ___ing word. It''s a different word, that (coincidentally) happens to be spelled with __ing on the end. See here: http://www.beatthegmat.com/stone-age-t36393.html#296165”

“Also of note—— If you peruse the OG explanations, it will become clear that they aren''t written by the same people who write the questions. Specifically, it''s clear that ... ... gmac''s best writers write and/or edit the questions (and don''t spend their time writing explanations); ... ...”

“The whole point of the comma -ing modifier is that you don''t have to pin it specifically on one word. The point is that it''s talking about the entire idea in the preceding part. I think you''re thinking too much about rules here, and not nearly enough about examples that actually work. For ...”

“There IS one exception of which you should be aware, though. Namely, if comma + __ing follows only a noun, rather than a full sentence/clause, then it modifies only that noun. (It can''t do anything else!) E.g., Roberta, having just finished her first marathon, collapsed onto the floor. Here, ...”

“All of the examples you''ve cited follow the normal rule. • og12 #30: The modifier describes "were essential items". It''s the reason why they were essential items. • og13 #48: The modifier describes "is ... the largest lake on Earth". It substantiates that ...”

“Not "basic"/"obvious" at all for native speakers, actually. In fact, native speakers--excepting only those with unusually deep ability and/or enthusiasm for the written word--have more trouble with the spoken language/written language distinction. After all, they''re the ones ...”

“Yes. Correct conclusion, but incorrect analysis. "Did" is just referring to a tense of "see" again (as in the first example above).”

“"Helping verb changes tense" is incorrect. If that were the situation, the right-hand part would be "had" (and then you''d need additional context to justify the use of that tense, too). "Do"/"did"/etc. can stand for an action verb that originally appears ...”

“In writing, neither of these would work. "Go out" is grammatically verboten. A verb can''t act as a noun. "To go out" would work in terms of pure mechanics, but the meaning isn''t right. "To ____", if used as a noun, should be a reference to the ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. First and foremost... this: This is the biggest mistake here. You''re trying to evaluate spoken English by the standards of written English. You shouldn''t do that. Because... Spoken English and written English are DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. ...”

“No. A modifier doesn''t make sense here, because you''re talking about two separate things: 1/ move into new housing 2/ apply part of the rent to a later purchase #2 is not, in any meaningful sense, a description of #1. They''re totally different things. So, this modifier doesn''t work—and ...”

“I suppose you meant D. The problem with D is that it doesn''t address the essence of the problem, which is the difference between this year and previous years. As stated, D is something that is true for accelerators in general—and that thus has always been true, both in previous years and ...”

“Prithvi, The problem here is that you aren''t reading the words literally enough. Specifically—When you see the words "a negative effect on disposable income", you should read that as... "a negative effect on disposable income". I.e., any "negative effect", ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. From the standpoint of carefully written, formal English—i.e., the type of English tested on the GMAT—"drug and alcohol abuse" is singular. It''s just "abuse", with adjectives in front of it. (If this construction appears ...”

“By the way— The stuff I explained in the immediately preceding post ("that xxxx" as a noun) is one of the most common "fake idioms" that I''ve seen. By "fake idiom" I mean that the entire internet thinks it''s an idiom, but it''s actually not. For instance, upon ...”

“In that structure, the clauses starting with "that" are not modifiers at all. They play the role of nouns. There''s probably some fancy grammar term for that; I don''t know. In any case, nouns don''t refer to anything, so neither do these modifiers. Here are some examples—first ...”

“The official problems have tested "x and y" as a singular noun before, but never without proof. E.g., OG13 #85, in which "owning and living..." is a singular noun. * It''s actually essential to recognize that "owning and living" is singular. If you assume by ...”

“^^ That approach works. If all those subscripts are on the intimidating side, you can also just plug in a bunch of different lists and see what happens with the statements. (If you use modestly sized lists with small-ish numbers, it should be no problem to plug in several cases to investigate ...”

“^^ It appears here that you''re starting with a set of consecutive integers, and trying to prove statement 1. That''s not the way it works, although you''ll get lucky with the answer here. If you want to take an approach like this one, then you must also prove that starting with any other set ...”

“I know this comment isn''t entirely serious, but, a serious response nonetheless: If you eat a low-carbohydrate, sugar-free diet for 3-4 weeks (or a ketogenic diet for 2 weeks), you should stop feeling those cravings after sticking to the plan for that much time. You''ll get to a point where you ...”

“Well, the best answer is "Experiment and find out what works for you." For most people, though, this wouldn''t be a good idea. First, as you pointed out yourself, the goal is to fuel 75 minutes of relatively low-energy output. (It''s not low-energy for the brain, but, relative to what ...”

“If you could make "double-check glasses", you certainly wouldn''t need an MBA to make it big with that.”

“Clif Bars -- no. A Clif Bar has less protein than a corresponding amount of white bread. It also gets something like 40% of its calories from pure sugar. Just say no. Clif Bars are for sustained muscular energy -- of the "I just hiked uphill for 2 hours and I have no glycogen left in my ...”

“So, what should you eat? To avoid having this post get interminably long -- and because I''m not going to be available for the next week or so to respond to posts -- I''m just going to split this into 2 possibilities. IF YOU HAVE A BACKGROUND OF LOW CARB DIETING: (not necessarily a hugely ...”

“As for beverages themselves, Red Bull is pretty weak sauce, with only about 80 mg of caffeine in a can (about the same as you''d get in a 20-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew). It has about the same amount of caffeine per ounce as other "energy drinks", but the ridiculously small can means not ...”

“Well, there''s not really going to be a simple answer to this one. Will have to post in multiple segments, as I''m on a tablet. Caffeine: Different people have VASTLY differing levels of (a) sensitivity and (b) tolerance to caffeine. You probably have at least a vague sense of how caffeine ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. Sahil -- I can''t tell what issues you are having with the problem. Please ask specific questions -- What do you already understand? What don''t you understand? Which specific constructions / aspects of the sentence do you have questions about? ...”

“The statement says "If any single value in the list is increased by 1..." That means the statement has to be true regardless of which value you increase by 1. In your list (2, 5, 9, 11, 11), the statement works if you increase the 2, the 5, or the 9 by one, but not if you increase one ...”

“Time management is hard for some people, but it''s not complicated. Everything you need to know about time management is in this post: http://www.beatthegmat.com/gmat-660-q51-v28-help-needed-with-verbal-t270109.html#696548”

“I received a private message about this thread. First, you''re using way too many materials. You shouldn''t really need anything except the OG, GMAT Prep, and perhaps a few of our practice tests. This is true especially for the verbal section, since most third-party verbal materials are of poor ...”

“It''s in the correct answer. Don''t forget -- If something is in the correct answer, you can always figure out how it works, just by using the intended meaning. Here, in context it''s clear that "with its xxxxx" is intended to refers to the compound insect eye. Because that modifier ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. I can see the problem, but, for some reason, your comments are entirely blacked out -- I can''t see what you wrote at all. (I''m using a tablet, so perhaps that''s the problem.) If you still have questions, can you post them so that I can see ...”

“I received a private message regarding this thread. I''m not clear on what the bold part means. If it means "I think that trying to understand the meaning is a waste of time", then ... well, that outlook needs to change right now. If it means "I need to understand the ...”

“There are some schools that will combine your best quant and verbal performances from different tests. I believe Tuck (Dartmouth) is one such school, although I am not 100% sure. Worth checking out.”

“Amen brother! Witness! Sing it!”

“I''ve seen that happen, too, but almost always on practice tests. Unfortunately, these students are usually the same ones who get verbal scores of, say, 35, 33, 36, 32, 37 on our CATs or the gmat prep tests, but then walk into the test center and throw down a verbal score in the mid-20s (and whose ...”

“I''m not trying to say that there are no patterns. Rather, what I''m trying to say is that whatever "patterns" do exist ... ... are suffused with exceptions, caveats, and limitations; ... are very remote and difficult to understand when expressed as generalities; and, most ...”

“Well, agreement some of the time. Which, I guess, isn''t really agreement. (: My point above was, essentially, "Sometimes that will disprove cause/effect. Sometimes it won''t." So I tried to make up one example of each. If someone tried to memorize "xxxx does not disprove that ...”

“Here ^^ is a case in point. By trying to apply "rules", we''ve arrived at a conclusion that''s wrong. In reality, the causal link here is unaffected. To see why, just replace "depression" with "death", and "eat chocolate" with "jump off a ...”

“See, this ^^ is the kind of thing that just doesn''t make any sense to try to do. It''s basically impossible to make rules for this stuff; in fact, CR is on the test because it''s basically impossible to make rules for this stuff. Moreover, there''s no reason even to bother trying to generalize, ...”

“I would, but I don''t really have the time.”

“In my case, it''s more like "I give up easily." o_O ... but, seriously, that''s what it is. I''m a very lazy person with this kind of work (though not with, say, training dogs or working out). In any sort of testing environment, if something is not working right away, I just quit. ...”

“It doesn''t contain any grammatical errors, but it doesn''t make sense. You''ve removed the actual REASON why "prospecting was an easy task", so now it''s a non sequitur. Analogy: Everything in my suitcase is all wet because the heat caused a bottle of hair spray to explode. ... ok, ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. Note this: The company has decided to do this. Not "Pro-Tect is considering a discount"; not "Pro-Tect may offer a discount"; etc. They have already adopted the strategy. (The degree to which they have already ...”

“I''ll bet you $100 that you''re faster at arithmetic than I am. I am ... not fast. The little secret of this exam is that "time pressure" is an illusion. If you are honest with yourself about when you are stuck -- and if you STOP working as soon as you no longer have a clear goal in ...”

“Take more than one day off. As for movies, I''m the wrong guy to ask. That is brutal. I''m the most epic night owl ever (since age 11 or so, I''ve never been able to fall asleep before about 6 a.m.), so I feel your pain. * Take caffeine/ephedra/synephrine. Or whatever similar thing ...”

“You should get exactly the same amount of sleep you normally get. If you don''t normally get much sleep, then ... don''t get much sleep. Getting more than your usual amount of sleep is just as bad as getting less than that amount. You should also rest for the LAST week. Don''t do ...”

“No. I really don''t understand why everyone -- and I mean EVERYONE -- is obsessed with combinatorics and probability. They are just topics, like any other topics. They are not more important (or more "difficult") than other topics. They''re just ... things that are there. Where you ...”

“^^ No. The test regulates how many questions you see in each subject area. There is nothing "special" or "magical" about probability or combinatorics -- you''ll see roughly one of each, regardless of how you are doing. When you say "the ROI was higher", what do ...”

“Warning: This reply is going to be spread out over several posts. Schools know what is on the exam, and, presumably, they will also know that your native language is not English. A 40+ verbal score from any candidate whose first language isn''t English is seriously impressive. Your ...”

“^^ This is ... impressive. (I certainly wouldn''t think of these steps, even if I had 2 hours for this one problem.) The problem with putting forward too many approaches like this one, though, is that they discourage students from simply "getting out the shovel and digging". These ...”

“That''s how I would approach it. The problem, though, is that you should use an analogy that looks exactly like the original, but with smaller numbers. So, using your numbers, you could check, say, (11*11*21 - 10*10*20) against (10*10*20 - 9*9*19). The most important point is that the two ...”

“Precisely. One of the two values in the subtraction must be the original capacity of the box.”

“I use analogies because the human brain is fundamentally wired for analogies/examples/experience, and not for rules. Think about how you learn your first language, of which your knowledge is incredibly thorough. (Even if a professional linguist studies your language for years and years, (s)he ...”

“Sounds like that''s the issue. Let your brain get some rest. From the descriptions you''ve given here, it seems that you don''t really need to study much at all between now and your test date. If you do full practice tests, the main reason should be to practice your timing. At this ...”

“Basically, CR is designed to be something that you can walk in and do, pretty much right from the start. You should practice it a certain amount, so that you''re familiar with what types of thinking are required and what types aren''t. (E.g., the above comments about real-world thinking. ...”

“If you spend 6+ hours a day studying, you will almost certainly get worse at CR, which you''ve cited as already your worst area. CR depends fundamentally on normal real-world common sense. It''s impossible to master CR by memorizing rules or by putting in endless hours of studying. (If you ...”

“The point of this problem is for you to realize that "exceeds the speed limit regularly" and "ticketed for exceeding the speed limit" are not necessarily related. The argument treats them as though they are automatically related. So, the argument is just assuming that they are ...”

“If you are not 100% sure about calculating, just make a list. Let''s say A, B, C, D are boys and e, f, g, h are girls. AB AC AD Ae Af Ag Ah BC BD Be Bf Bg Bh CD Ce Cf Cg Ch De Df Dg Dh ef eg eh fg fh gh There are 28 things in the list. The red ones have at least one boy. There are 6 ...”

“For pretty much all combinatorics problems: * If there are only a small number of possibilities, just make lists, and count stuff. (e.g., OG quant supplement #132) * If there are too many things to list and count.. is it relatively straightforward to calculate the number of possibilities ...”

“That is one fast dog. Fastest land animal ever, in fact. (Cheetahs only run about 70 miles an hour.) Hmm.”

“This problem has issues. (Not surprisingly, the source isn''t listed.) As others have pointed out, the time period of the interest rate must be specified. (Most financial interest rates are expressed in annual terms, but certainly not all. Credit card advertisements express them per year, but ...”

“First... * Make sure you have a good reason to take the test again. For most applicants, re-taking the test after scoring 700 would be a foolish decision (and would reflect negatively on the candidate''s ability to set priorities, even if the retake yielded a higher score). On the other hand, ...”

“These guys are champions. Post something with "hair" in it, and boom! they find you. If we were that good at finding oil, gas would be $0.01 a gallon. Wow.”

“Well, there''s the parallelism between "to protect" and "to protect" in B. In C, the two forms aren''t parallel.”

“Nope. Same problem. To illustrate the issue here, I can just point to myself. I don''t smoke marijuana, and don''t really care whether others do, but I support its legalization. (My rationale: Gang activity could be curtailed, the drug could be made safer for users -- and the government could ...”

“Your reasoning here has the same issue as the original argument. The point of this problem is for you to realize that there is no necessary connection between (i) voting for something and (ii) being affected by that thing. (Just think about it: There are lots and lots and lots of issues on which ...”

“Ah, I see. But, no, that''s not what "consecutive integers" means. There''s a different name for that sort of thing -- I think it''s "arithmetic progression" or "arithmetic sequence", or something like that -- but you won''t need to know that name for the gmat ...”

“"Consecutive" means "next to each other in sequence, without skipping anything". The difference between any two consecutive integers is 1. 5, 10, 15, 20, ... would be consecutive multiples of 5. But they''re not consecutive integers, since there are other integers between ...”

“No need for other resources. You don''t even need to go all the way through the OG RC. (And there''s the OG supplement and GMAT PREP on top of that.) By the time you get even halfway through the OG RC section, your habits are already set. Doing more RC passages is just going to take the same ...”

“This discussion appears to have gotten rather far afield from the original problem. So, let''s kill it here. Thanks for the kind words.”

“"Positive difference" is exactly what it says. It''s the difference between two numbers, expressed as a positive number. E.g., the positive difference between 3 and 7 is 4. The positive difference between 7 and 3 is also 4. For statement 2, the only thing you really need to think ...”

“Thanks. (My brain doesn''t really understand things unless they are simple. On this test, that''s a huge advantage.)”

“I don''t mean to spoil the party here, but... "Seems awkward" translates to "I have no idea what''s actually wrong with these choices". Not only is "awkward" darn near impossible for non-native speakers to detect, but it''s also not actually an error. Make sure you ...”

“Just to underscore this point -- In a different context, one could have a present likelihood vs. a future likelihood. E.g., If interest rates rise, the likelihood of foreclosures will increase. In this context, we''re actually talking about the likelihood of foreclosures now, VERSUS what ...”

“I wrote two things: 1/ "likelihood" + "may" = redundant. 2/ In this context, you can''t say that a likelihood will be something, because, in the present context, the "likelihood" is a probability that exists in the present. In D, "will" is ...”

“You can also strike A and E because "likelihood" + "may" is redundant.”

“A couple of requests have come my way for help on this one. "Responding to..." describes the astronomers, not the scale, so the first two choices are out. The last choice refers to "the likelihood of an asteroid or comet". That doesn''t make sense; a physical object ...”

“[quote="mevicks"] Ok. But Mitch''s choices (k = 2 and k = 10) already established the integrity of the question. And he posted those before the whole k = 4 thing. So, I couldn''t see what value would be added by that post, beyond what Mitch had already established.”

“There''s an insight here that solves the problem immediately, given these answer choices. Here it is: You''re given a SUM. If you switch digits in the same decimal place, the sum is unchanged. For instance, if you have xxxxx7 + yyyyy5, then that''s the same as xxxxx5 + yyyyy7. And so on with ...”

“And then, of course, there''s the "I''m 11 years old again" method. You can just multiply out 200 x 200 x 300 and 201 x 201 x 301, and then subtract them. If you are thinking "That might take too long" -- don''t think that. Do not EVER tell yourself "I think ______ will ...”

“I don''t know what thecodetogmat is doing with "differences". Looks like some sort of calculus thing. If you don''t know that, you can still do this: Imagine the shape of the parts that would be added to the box (if you increased each dimension by 1 cm) or cut off of it (if you ...”

“It took me a shamefully long time to realize that wasn''t a pyramid. o_O”

“I like this problem. What''s the source?”

“^^ That doesn''t work. k = 4 doesn''t satisfy either statement, so it''s irrelevant.”

“I would suggest typing "√" in the question. I don''t know about other readers, but I can''t make any sense of that expression with all those 1/2''s. If you''re on a Mac, you can type "√" by holding down "alt" and pressing the letter V. If you''re on any other ...”

“This 238 is just the number of terms between those two values. (Not new information; you already know that they are the 1st and 239th terms, so they are 238 terms apart.) It''s not the value of anything. The use of the word "obviously" here is ... interesting, considering that ...”

“It seems that, by simply typing out the question, you''d have spent only a fraction of the time needed to capture and upload an image. Hmm. First, note that statement 2 doesn''t add any value to statement 1. If you know that each term decreases by 4 from the previous term, then statement 2 ...”

“Ha, I didn''t even notice that you wrote things. Next time, use quotes. Or colors. Or put your responses in boldface. Or ... something. -- Mostly very good. * There''s no problem with "them" in (b). (It works in the same way as "their" in the correct answer.) * ...”

“Some people call me things I can''t write here. (: There''s always "Hey you (with all the hair)", I suppose. Do you think I''m "strict"? Hmm. But I''m such a sweetheart. o_O Seriously, though, it''s always interesting to hear others'' perceptions of me. I''m ...”

“This question is in the gmat prep software. I''ve seen it with my own eyes. Regarding "this question doesn''t sound like a gmat question" -- If you are a non-native speaker of English, that kind of thing is almost impossible to judge. You''re better off not thinking about it. ...”

“There are no limits on the size of shark that can be caught. --> Nope. There are no limits on the size of sharks that can be caught. --> Yep. It''s "sharks". Not "shark". So "monkfish" here is like "sharks".”

“Don''t use LSAT questions. If you use those, you could very possibly get worse at GMAT CR. Most LSAT CR questions are "hard logic" (if A then B, if not-C then not-B, therefore if A then C) type things. GMAT problems, by contrast, NEVER involve this type of logic. If you do too many ...”

“Well then, don''t do RC for an hour straight. You won''t ever do RC for more than 5 or 10 consecutive minutes on the test, so why would you even do that to yourself? Hmm. The good news is that you don''t really have to understand a lot of things. In fact, the GMAT gives passages full of ...”

“Don''t use 1000SC. The only good questions in there are stolen from GMAT PREP. Hundreds of them are completely wrong, and will teach you things that are wrong. Just go back through the OG and GMAT PREP questions. Don''t just solve them and move on. Do these things, too: * Pick ONE type ...”

“You don''t need to understand subtle variations in tenses. If tenses are important in a problem, the differences will be BIG differences, and the errors will be BIG errors. Like putting cause after effect. Or expressing simultaneous things in different tenses. Or something else like that. If ...”

“Don''t do this. Do not "hunt" for errors in the original sentence. Think about it: If you could "hunt" for errors and actually find them, then you could simply do the same thing for each answer choice. You''d find all the errors, and you''d never get any SC problems wrong. ...”

“I don''t know what "Grail" means. The only sources of "authentic GMAT questions" are the OG, the OG supplement, and the GMAT PREP questions. Again, I don''t know what this "grail" thing is. But, unless that''s a nickname for some archive of GMAT PREP questions, ...”

“If you hit a wall with the prime-number treatment, you can also just make a list. The LCM of a and 12 is 36. So, a is definitely a factor of 36. Try all the factors of 36, and see which ones actually work. The factors of 36 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18, and 36. * The LCM of 1 and 12 is 12, not ...”

“To the original poster: Ironically, the answer to this question is in the diagram that you provided yourself. Take a look at the "rise" and "run" values that you put in your own diagram. The slope of the left-hand leg is -8/7; the slope of the right-hand leg is 10/13. ...”

“Hey, I wrote this problem! If I were 11 years old, I would just draw a 20 x 10 rectangle around everything. Then I could subtract out the three areas I don''t want, which, conveniently enough, are all right triangles.”

“For statement 1, it helps to realize that the distinction between "unfavorable" and "not sure" is no longer a real distinction; all that matters is "favorable" or NOT "favorable". Once you have that, you can make the usual two-way table for overlapping ...”

“So, when you test cases, it has to be a little more interesting. Basically, in statement 1 you have to pick a value of y that''s greater than 1/|x| (or less than -1/|x|), and vice versa for statement 2. E.g., in statement 1, if x = 1/3, then you have to pick y > 3 or < -3. (If you don''t ...”

“A student called my attention to this thread. Rich -- I agree that testing cases is the best way to go here, but, careful with the due diligence. We know that 0 < x^2 < 1/4. So x = 0 is not an allowed value; the allowed values are everything between -1/2 and +1/2, except 0. For y ...”

“Nah, this isn''t the only set that satisfies statement 1 with consecutive integers. There are plenty of others; they just have the feature of having at least two N''s and exactly one N + 1, for some "N". E.g., you could have nineteen 1''s and one 2 nine 1''s, a 2, nine 87''s, and an ...”

“Hey, I wrote this problem! Yep, that''s what I had in mind when I wrote the problem: basically, a smack in the face to those who try to rush through it. Slow down, clarify the goal, and think carefully. If you consider the whole idea of "increasing by 1 doesn''t change the number of ...”

“Nah, I''ve just taught many different things, to many different ages of students. One thing I''ve learned, in general, is that terminology/classification kills understanding. In other words, as soon as there are "names" or "labels" that people can stick on things, they just ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. The whole "parallelism from right to left" thing arises naturally from the way you read sentences. Basically, if there are two parallel elements in a sentence, the reader doesn''t know that there are two parallel elements ... until ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. This question looks a lot like an LSAT question -- and, more importantly, not at all like anything that the GMAT would test. What''s the source of this question?”

“You''re welcome. I''m sure you weren''t the only one wondering about that. Thanks.”

“Fair enough. If you see the seeds of a strong pattern, then, great. Nicely done. I guess my point is that, since you''re going to the trouble of posting these things on a public forum, you may as well lay out that part of the reasoning more explicitly. E.g., "I can tell that the same ...”

“A student pointed me to Mitch''s solution on this thread, in particular the part about statement 2. Mitch -- It''s true that x has to be 5. (Since we only care about x, this is all that matters for the problem at hand.) However, I was wondering how you arrived at y = 2. For instance, ...”

“This problem has been in the GMAT PREP software for several years.”

“^^ The post above shows that the statements are sufficient for n = 6, but they don''t necessarily represent all values of n. (There''s no reason to assume that n is 6.) If you''re going to take the "plug in numbers" approach, then, good -- it''s an effective approach -- but you should ...”

“Ceilidh''s picture is at http://postimg.org/image/6wrsd3hy1/”

“If your next complaint is "it''s not clear enough that we''re talking about the percentage", then, yes, that''s a valid point -- and that''s almost certainly why the problem was removed from the OG.”

“Sure it''s ok. What would be wrong with it? You''re comparing two statistics ("figures"). I.e., you''re not comparing the visitors themselves -- just the figures/statistics. The way this modifier is placed, it should describe the percentage, not the number. After all, it''s ...”

“This is false. Even if you walk away from the test for months, the things that actually matter won''t "fade". * For CR and RC, there''s no required knowledge at all -- all that''s tested is (a) pure reasoning skill and (b) paying attention to the specific task at hand -- so there''s ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. Unfortunately, there''s not really much here in the way of meaningful information. In particular, there''s nothing here about ... ... how you studied the material ... how you approached the problems (what you looked at first, etc.) ... what you ...”

“This... is a problem. You can''t read through the entire guide and suddenly expect to be able to apply all the concepts at once. (!!) That''s just not how learning works. * Imagine you''re learning a new language. Would you read all the way through a grammar book, and then try to make ...”

“I received a private message about this problem. The first thing that struck me as ... interesting was this: ^^ Either there''s a typo in here, or it doesn''t make sense. As currently written, here''s what it says: * You had a certain target score. * You scored way, way lower than that ...”

“By the way, if you have the OG, there seems to be little to gain from the problems on this source. They''re just copying OG problems, and changing just enough words to avoid a copyright lawsuit. For this problem, they''ve even copied the explanations from the 11th OG, almost verbatim. (!)”

“Faraz, yes, "that of xxxx''s" is redundant. The "of" indicates that the thing belongs to xxxx; the apostrophe+s serves the same purpose. e.g., California''s public universities --> fine the public universities of California --> fine the public universities of ...”

“I received a private message about this problem. This problem is essentially a carbon copy of an old OG problem. It''s in the 11th edition, near the beginning of the SC chapter. The original sentence says: A survey by the National Council of Churches showed that in 1986 there were 20,376 ...”

“If necessary, make an analogy -- same logic, but with more intuitive subject material -- to help you understand. E.g., 55% of people in California support the legalization of marijuana. However, 80% of people under 30 support the legalization of marijuana. Therefore, people under 30 must be more ...”

“The issue here, it seems, is the way you''re thinking about the problem in general. I.e., you''re busying yourself with trying to "classify" things -- subgroup data, "classic" pattern, etc. -- instead of actually thinking about the situation described in the problem. Those ...”

“Ok, so I went back into our software and checked this problem. The problem posted in this thread is not the same as our problem. Our problem actually starts with these words: A volunteer service organization, the Daughters of the American Revolution, admits... This wording completely ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. This problem is on our list to be edited. Things that have to be fixed: * Choice (C) isn''t really wrong; it''s just an alternate meaning that is still perfectly reasonable. (A change of meaning is incorrect if it produces a nonsense ...”

“Business management and legal wrangling require different skill sets -- hence 2 different exams (and 2 different kinds of graduate school!) with different emphases. On the other hand, there are lots of intersections between the business and legal worlds, so having both skill sets is an asset. ...”

“No. Different skill sets. If you get too much into the thinking mode of one of these, you''ll get out of the thinking mode of the other. Most LSAT logical reasoning questions test formal logic. If you could teach digital circuits to understand English sentences, then digital circuits could ...”

“You may be wasting less time... but you''re still wasting time. What if it''s only three seconds? hmm... 3 seconds x 37 math problems = about 2 minutes. If you waste only three seconds on each problem, that''s already 1 less problem you have the time to solve. More importantly -- This is ...”

“Thanks”

“Wrong choices: We don''t care about non-sufferers of migraines. Whether a patient likes certain foods is irrelevant to whether they are responsible for a disease. So many words! I had to read this choice 3-4 times. I''d explain it to a 10-year-old as "If you take people ...”

“When you read the green part -- more than once, if necessary -- you should come away from it with the following understanding: "It''s likely that we won''t catch all the foods that cause allergies". That''s the only reasonable way to interpret "difficult to observe". This ...”

“I received a private message regarding this problem. The passage is very wordy. Slow down -- take the time to understand what it says. Ideally, be able to explain it in words that a ten-year-old would understand. I had to read the red part here about six times before I could do that. (I''m ...”

“-- I received a private message about this post. It''s true that prompt questions like this one are rare in GMAC''s materials. But, fundamentally, it doesn''t matter, because exactly the same task can be expressed with the specifics in the passage, rather than in the question. E.g., ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. Other instructors have already noted what''s important here, but please note some important takeaways. #1: The answer is no. The answer to this question is ALWAYS no. No, the official guide is not wrong. The correct question to ask here: ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. Lots of you guys are doing WAY too much work here. You should not have to do any calculations in this problem. None. Remember, it''s data sufficiency! If you know there''s a single answer, then you''re done. Trying to find that answer is a ...”

“Way too much work for statement 2. * You have the center (= the origin). * You''re given a specific point. * So, you have the radius. Done. Sufficient. If you calculate anything for this statement, you''re wasting your time -- and, more importantly, you''re forgetting the goal of the ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. It''s not very time-consuming. If you understand why you''re choosing numbers -- i.e., you know exactly what you want the numbers to do, or not to do -- then it''s a pretty efficient process. You''ll have to explore a bit, but it''s not a ...”

“(:”

“Still too strong. "Prove/show that the conclusion is false" is too strong, and won''t work on many (maybe even most) of these problems. "Show that the conclusion can be false" is the right idea.”

“Ha! No worries, of course I''m not offended. I''m just playing. I guess it''s hard to convey humor over the internet. But I guess, if nothing else, there''s a vocabulary lesson there: prose means, basically, "normal text". I.e., text that is not poetry.”

“When you negate an assumption, you have to show that the conclusion can be false. But you don''t have to prove that it''s false. E.g., take a very simple argument: Tomás is from Spain. Therefore, he has dark hair. The assumption in this argument is, of course, that everyone from Spain has ...”

“Whoa, no. That''s not how the negation technique works. You don''t try to establish the opposite of the conclusion. (!!) In the negation method, you just try to invalidate the current argument. You''re definitely not trying to prove that the opposite point is true.”

“Thanks. Shakespeare didn''t write much prose, though. Mostly poetry. (His prose is mostly ironic/comic -- so you might be implying that my answers aren''t easy to read at all.) |:”

“Finally, a short and sweet bit of important advice: If you have to plug numbers into a CR question, you''re doing it wrong.”

“If the point above is not 100% clear, consider just about any emotionally loaded political issue, e.g., abortion or the death penalty. * Think about the group of people who would voice support for (or against) the legalization of abortion. Or the death penalty. Or whatever other issue. * Now ...”

“See, you can''t do that here. There are no quantitative data for "affected by the legislation", so (D) can''t be calculated in the first place. Which is the whole point of this entire problem! There are data for "responded in support of the legislation", but the entire ...”

“Thanks for the heads-up, Brent. Made some edits.”

“I don''t know the source of this problem, but the correct answer shouldn''t be (D). I don''t 100% love any of the choices, but (C) seems to be the best of the bunch. The problem asks us for a reason why laws are passed that have negative effects on the missionary groups. In other words, we ...”

“The GMAT doesn''t really have problems like this one. In fact, if you study too many problems like this, you''ll get worse at solving GMAT problems, because you''ll be developing a different skill set. This problem does 2 things that GMAT problems basically never do: 1/ It''s formal logic ...”

“This is critical reasoning. "Wordy" is not a thing here. All that matters in CR is what is stated. Not how it is stated.”

“I received a private message about this one. In assumption questions, remember that you can negate the potential assumptions. If that negation destroys the argument, then you''ve found an assumption. (A) Negation: There are people who can''t distinguish the taste of an apple from that of a ...”

“Boldface questions are still there.”

“This problem is certainly interesting, but it''s not representative of the GMAT. The GMAT would not contain a critical reasoning question that requires this much mathematical work. When CR problems involve statistics, you''ll almost never have to think about any mathematics beyond ... ... this ...”

“Let''s assume that the problematic "availability" thing has been replaced by the words I wrote above. The speaker wants to establish the reason why fewer PA-related articles were published this year. He/she thinks it''s because there were fewer PA''s available for experiments. * If we ...”

“Admittedly, there''s a problem with the wording of the argument. Specifically, "availability" is unacceptably ambiguous: that word could potentially refer either to the number of PA''s available or to the wait time necessary to use one. The passage clearly uses "availability" ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. What''s interesting about this problem is that (D) is the only choice that has anything whatsoever to do with the conclusion of this argument. The question asks specifically about an assumption underlying the conclusion of the argument, so the ...”

“I received a private message about this problem. Choice (e) is irrelevant. The passage states the identity of the weapons definitively -- i.e., there is no doubt whatsoever that "Type C bronze weapons" is the correct identification. (If there were any doubt, the passage would have to ...”

“Also, you can solve this problem by just looking at the picture, estimating the length, and estimating the answer choices. The picture is accurate, so we can estimate visually. Given that AB = 3, a quick glance makes it clear that w is 1 or less. Approximately 3(1.4) - 2(1.7). ...”

“I think I wrote this problem, but I honestly can''t remember. This is true, but you don''t need this much ammunition here. In that picture for this problem, the yellow thing divides XDY into two 45º-45º-90º triangles. Therefore, the yellow thing is just DX or DY divided by √2. You ...”

“^^ Winner. Don''t bother calculating these things. If you aren''t thinking in these terms, then notice what happens when you do the calculations. If you do this problem, finish it, and still don''t realize immediately that (last four choices) < 1 < first choice, then there''s no benefit ...”

“Not sure what you''re asking here. It sounds like you''re saying that ... ... if the thing in choice (e) is true, then it strengthens the argument, AND ... if the thing in choice (e) is false, then it also strengthens the argument. Is that what you''re trying to say?”

“Yeah, that''s actually why that answer choice is wrong. Perhaps you''re overlooking the word "not"?”

“Ha. I like it. Although, ironically, I focus more clearly when I haven''t eaten.”

“Take what works for you. Leave what doesn''t. When it comes to predicting answer choices**, it really depends on you. Some people get "tunnel vision": Once they have an answer in mind, they won''t be able to notice other correct answers. For these individuals, predicting answers is a ...”

“(:”

“This question couldn''t have a choice like that, because the passage presents the exact opposite ("a very large majority ... report no charge in time spent watching television") as factual evidence. Answer choices aren''t going to contradict stated facts.”

“Choice E talks about a time when the moon was "relatively elastic". The "Later" part (that you''re citing) is when the moon was "less elastic" -- i.e., a time that''s irrelevant to choice E. Answer choices aren''t affected by other answer choices. Four are ...”

“Sorry, I don''t know what this means.”

“That''s one way to do it. If you haven''t memorized that rule for triangles, you can also just try drawing the triangle both ways. I.e., try drawing a triangle with sides x, x, and something that''s less than half of x -- this will work just fine (you''ll get a long skinny triangle, where the ...”

“Whenever you see a problem involving the order of powers, numbers between 0 and 1 (and also negative numbers) should be on your radar.”

“x = 1/4 and y = 1/3 satisfy statement 1. In that case, x < y. x = 4 and y = 1 also satisfy statement 1. In that case, x > y. Not sufficient.”

“hey, i wrote this problem! It''s more complicated than that. √x > y doesn''t imply that x > y. If it did, then the answer would be (a), not (c). Here''s the thing: The ORDER OF POWERS is different from "normal" for ... ... negatives ... numbers between 0 and 1. ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. the other moderators seem to have this covered already, but, one more thing: If you don''t realize these things right away, then you should start testing specific cases. Just throw in some negative integers, -1, -2, -3, etc., and see what''s ...”

“When you see statement 1, make sure you think about it for a bit. It turns out to be insufficient here, but it''s still significant, because it determines exactly which sides are the congruent ones. If the problem says this instead: ... then the answer is (a). Make sure you know why.”

“I received a private message about this thread. The parts I''ve put in boldface are the main point. The author is saying that "People will watch less TV" is false. This depends on what you mean. Not everyone is like the majority, sure. However, when you look at the ...”

“nope. one way to test this is to put the word "therefore" between the two statements, in both directions, and see which direction makes sense. try it: winemakers who still use cork but wish to keep production costs from rising will be forced to reconsider plastic stoppers ...”

“thanks.”

“Of course, you''re correct here -- but, you''re also quoting my post, which already says exactly the same thing. Are you trying to add information? If so, what? By the way, note that you haven''t actually proved "insufficient" until you plot BOTH kinds of lines -- one pair with slopes ...”

“This is actually the idea behind the whole "gamification" movement -- the idea of turning "tasks" into "games". It''s the whole idea behind Nike+ and Foursquare, have made "games" out of running and simply going to your favorite stores/restaurants, ...”

“Well, ideally, sure. Although you should be able to endure things, too. (The "enjoy" thing is ideal if it''s reasonable -- but trying to have that attitude 100% of the time is like being a spoiled child.) In any case, this thread appears to have departed quite far from slopes of ...”

“The whole personal-involvement thing is not just a problem faced by English-as-a-second-language students; it''s a problem faced by ALL students. In fact -- perhaps ironically -- this is often an even greater issue for students whose first language is English, since those students often just read ...”

“lesson #1 of life: replace "omg what if xxxxx goes wrong???" with "well, let me see what i can do here."”

“This user also posted this question here: http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/Please-verify-sentences-&-learning-from-Economist-Magazine-t23549.html”

“This user also posted this question here: http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/Please-verify-sentences-&-learning-from-Economist-Magazine-t23549.html”

“This user also posted this question here: http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/Please-verify-sentences-&-learning-from-Economist-Magazine-t23549.html”

“i received a private message about this thread. see, the way you''re asking this question, in the first place, is the issue here. you''re trying to memorize "rules" about how to use these things, without a particular context. that''s rarely ever going to be possible. once you ...”

“oh, and this: no. in fact, that will probably have the opposite effect -- you''ll just get mentally fatigued and "burn out", and then you''ll make even more mistakes. honestly, you shouldn''t study CR or RC for more than, say, 10-20 lifetime hours each (and even getting ...”

“first, you''re clearly overestimating the competition here; obviously, there isn''t anyone who NEVER makes "silly mistakes". second, the issue here probably lies in finding the goal of the problem. how often do you take the time to figure out exactly what you''re looking for, before ...”

“part of the problem here may be this -- i.e., there may be an issue in how you''re thinking about "concepts". the whole point of RC and CR is that they don''t require any "knowledge". therefore, your use of the word "recollect" here is troublesome, because you ...”

“now, detail question ... ok, i need to go FIND the part about "restrictions on the movement of capital". remember, i don''t even know what any of the details actually say, so this is pretty much a blind hunt. (on the other hand, i got through the passage in about 1 minute -- ...”

“ok, main idea question first. so yeah, when it comes to main idea questions, the answer choices are not your friend. just ignore them, make a prediction, and then check for your prediction. from what i wrote above, my prediction looks something like this: * present a way lots of people ...”

“interesting question -- i''ll give it a shot. the most consistent thing about my "reading" of these passages is that, well, i don''t really read them. i only look at the words for as long as it takes me to figure out what''s basically going on with them ... and then i move on. (this ...”

“see, the way you''re asking this question is the real problem here: you''re forgetting that reading comprehension is reading comprehension, in the literal sense. it''s not a good idea to try to shoehorn passages into neat little classifications (like "evaluating passages"). you''re going ...”

“these things, they happen. get up, dust yourself off, move on, and ... make sure it doesn''t happen next time.”

“by the way, in response to your last question, i''d argue that seeing unfamiliar-looking words is one of the most intuition-intensive experiences out there. after all, if you don''t know what a word means, but you still want to understand what''s happening in the area where that word appears, then ...”

“in terms of "new words", i''ll assume you''re talking about the verbal section. (the vocabulary in the math section is extremely limited, so it''s unlikely that you''ll see any genuinely new words there. instead, the issue is that the language is unusually precise.) the GMAT isn''t ...”

“the most important thing to realize here is that "intuition" is not some thing that superheroes have. basically, "intuition" is just a fancy-sounding word for "experiences you''ve actually bothered to notice and remember" -- either consciously or not, mostly ...”

“right to left, maybe? (left to right is the normal order, so that wouldn''t be much of a revelation for anyone.) i think you''re giving me too much credit here. in the particular case you''re talking about, i just did these things: 1/ look at the sentence 2/ note that it''s impossible ...”

“well, if you are totally stumped by a problem when you first see it, then, yes, you should look for "signals" or "clues" when you review it. on the other hand, don''t forget that the end goal here is to develop an intuition for solving the problems. i.e., you can think about ...”

“ok up to here: that''s the formula for perpendicular, not parallel. (if you think about it for a sec, it should be obvious that this can''t be the formula for parallel. if the product is -1, then one slope is positive and the other is negative -- definitely not parallel!) parallel ...”

“what do you mean by "question type" here? like, multiple choice vs. data sufficiency?”

“^^ yes... i don''t understand your reasoning here, because, well, you haven''t provided any of the reasoning here. basically, here''s the point: * line b is perpendicular to line a. therefore, (slope of line b) = -1/(slope of line a). * the reflection has the opposite of the original ...”

“you''re welcome. (and thank you, too, for actually asking specific questions, rather than just throwing a problem up there with no commentary.)”

“This post doesn''t give me a sense of what you don''t understand, so I can''t give a specific response. But, do this: * Put a few points on an x-y coordinate system. * Reflect them across the y-axis (I assume you know what this means). * Watch what happens to the coordinates. * Generalize. ...”

“Well, two things. 1/ The y-coordinates don''t change here; the x-coordinates do. If you change the y-coordinates, you are actually reflecting across the x-axis. (Try it with a random point.) On the other hand, if you change "y axis" to "x axis" in the problem statement, ...”

“i''d suggest that the problem starts with your thinking of these things as "phrases" in the first place. your calling them "phrases" suggests that you''re thinking of things as units, when they aren''t actually units. (by "unit" i mean a piece that has one definite ...”

“... well, meaning-wise, you can''t really write this without some sort of qualifier/modifier on the "x" part. otherwise, the "only" is at best unnecessary, and at worst nonsense. (e.g., the sentence above makes a lot more sense if you take away "only".)”

“your example here is unrelated. the addition of "the" before "only one" changes the meaning significantly. also, this example is a nonsense sentence; "tenacity" has nothing to do with distinguishing right from wrong. the problem is that i can''t tell what this ...”

“shailendra, you really shouldn''t be taking this approach. i.e., you shouldn''t be trying to make these things "formulaic". that''s really, really hard to do -- and, by contrast, it''s easy just to think through each situation. this is impossible to judge without context. these ...”

“it says "one", so, no, it''s not plural. ("groups" itself is plural.) ^^ these examples are irrelevant to the problem at hand. this problem doesn''t say "one of the most problematic groups THAT have xxxxx" (where "that" corresponds to ...”

“by the way, the gmat contains A LOT of coordinate geometry problems on which you''ll basically have to draw a picture of the situation. sometimes there will be workarounds, but (a) sometimes there won''t, and (b) some of the workarounds are really, really hard and/or would require an extremely ...”

“it shouldn''t take more than ten or twenty seconds. what are you drawing? why is it taking so long? if you actually had to use a slope formula, then i can see how this might take a little longer. but, two things: 1/ it still shouldn''t take longer than a minute or so, 2/ you should know ...”

“first... well, a "century" is 100 years. 1729 is a year, not a century. (the year 1729 was in the 18th century.) again, there''s no rule for this -- you just have to think about what the words mean. an "era" is a time period. can you initiate a time period? sure. can you ...”

“none of these makes any sense. go back and check the original. also, i''ve said everything i can possibly say about this whole "only one..." thing on this thread: http://www.beatthegmat.com/one-of-the-t40356.html#174075”

“this one you can figure out with everyday common sense. can workers themselves "increase"? nope can a number of workers "increase?" yep there you go. by the way, there are two other things here that don''t make sense: * "numbers" doesn''t work here; it ...”

“here''s another approach. as with other "pick integers" problems, i like to think about extreme cases. STATEMENT 1: * One extreme case would be if removing the biggest number in the set gives an average of 15. If the biggest number "n" is removed, then you have 1, 2, ..., ...”

“Con un 690 ya tenés un buen rendimiento -- sin hablar de que no creciste hablando y leyendo el inglés (de que, sin duda, se darán cuenta los comités de admisión). O sea, ya has llegado a que mejorarlo más te debería ser un tema periférico. Si bien podés mejorarlo bueno, si no ... ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. well... there''s both good and bad here. the good part is that you''ve realized that this stuff is based on intended meaning (as opposed to thinking that everything in the world is an "idiom", as is all too common around here). ...”

“you can figure this one out by thinking through it (as you can with most decisions like this). the sentence is saying that the bowerbirds derive their name from something. that''s only going to make sense if it''s followed by something that has a similar name. * the piles of sticks and stuff ...”

“... but those aren''t ways to defend the entrance. i.e., "sounding a warning" may be a way of alerting others who will come to defend something (= the job description of a "sentinel"), but it''s not actually a means of defense. more importantly, there''s no correctly ...”

“scroll up to my first post (3 posts above this one), where i outlined how to do that. you''ll get "b" = 12 and "m" = 0.2.”

“Hater. (: That jersey is a beautiful thing. My face, not so much. This is getting a bit off-topic; let''s kill it here.”

“From what I can gather on here, his face looks a lot like a Louisville basketball jersey. (Go Cards!)”

“well... * doesn''t have to be all of them; rather, all but one is good enough. e.g., if the answer choices are 5, 10, 15, 20, and 1000 possibilities, then the most you''d ever have to list would be 21 possibilities (in which case the answer would default to (e)). * ... also, even if you have ...”

“Ha! Oh jee whiz. For crying out loud. That''s just all kinds of wrong for an exam like this. Unacceptable degree of knowledge -- and class bias, to boot. (... like the infamous "oarsman / regatta" problem that showed up on the SAT a couple of decades ago)”

“The most efficient way to solve the first problem is just to multiply 7 x 6 x 5. That way you don''t have to mess around with any of that anagram stuff. For the second problem, aside from the solution(s) given above, you can just call the passengers A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and make a list. ...”

“A multiple-choice problem with 3 correct answers? Huh? Where''d you get this? Hopefully not from a GMAT source...”

“^^^ yeah, that. i don''t really see the value in making a visual diagram here, since there are just 2 (easily trackable) components. it''s more efficient just to write the numerical values. there are certainly instances in which a visual diagram can do wonders; this isn''t one of them.”

“You can be even lazier than that. * It''s not even * It can''t end with 5, since it''s not a multiple of 5. Done! -- well, on this question at least, they pretty clearly don''t expect you to know how -- because these four choices (= easy process of elimination) were presumably ...”

“This problem, as currently written, is non-representative of the real GMAT. On the other hand, if you make the street grid substantially smaller -- so that it becomes reasonable simply to count the paths -- then it would be more like the genuine article. this is one thing that''s annoying ...”

“lol. what''s interesting is that this isn''t a copy/paste gone awry, but an actual screenshot posted as a picture file. Meaning that someone took a screenshot of a problem that already looked this way, and then posted it. Original poster -- Did you not see the question-mark signs in the ...”

“If you plug in k = 2, then the denominator of the fraction just becomes 3. So you''ll get an easier equation to solve. If you solve that equation, you''ll get m = 11. So then m - k = 11 - 2 = 9.”

“maybe i''m a simpleton, but i''m surprised that i''m the only one here to interpret "counting" as referring to ... counting. like, the "one, two, three" / "make a list" kind of counting. ... which is also a perfectly respectable way to solve GMAT combinatorics ...”

“what you''re missing is the "fixed amount" part. i.e., the 24 is not calculated as 40% of 60; it''s calculated as (fixed amount) + (smaller percentage of 60). similarly, the 32 is calculated as (same fixed amount) + (same smaller percentage of 100). etc. if you solve the equations ...”

“This problem is not representative of anything you''d ever see on the GMAT.”

“One way to do this problem is with straight algebra: let x = gross revenue, y = salary. then y = mx + b, where m is the percentage (expressed as a decimal), and b is the "fixed" part of the salary. then you can just plug in (x, y) = (100, 32) and (60, 24) to find the values of m ...”

“Some hints: * Kill the fractions! (Multiply I and II by 18, and III by 30.) * Once you''ve done that, substitute "3n" or "3(integer)" for x, since x is a multiple of 3. * Then see what you can factor out.”

“by the way, in case anyone is stressing about the ostensible amount of work involved in "fact 2" there ... not really; i just took the list i made for fact 1 and crossed off all the teams with A or J on them. so, this problem can easily be done within a reasonable time, even by ...”

“Maybe I''m misunderstanding something, because I get 156 possible games. Here''s how I figure it: let''s say the couples are AB JK PQ XY. -- fact 1: there are 24 possible teams. * list them: AJ AK AP AQ AX AY BJ BK BP BQ BX BY JP JQ JX JY KP KQ KX KY PX PY QX QY. * combinatorially: ...”

“I like it too, but not as a GMAT question. It''s not at all representative of anything that would ever show up on this test. Math olympiad, sure. GMAT, nah.”

“Brent''s solution is cool. Ron''s solution is much simpler (not necessarily "easier"; just simpler), because Ron is a simple man. Ron would just make a list for each statement. ok, p is 4 times a prime number. hmm... 4 x 2 = 8 4 x 3 = 12 4 x 5 = 20 4 x 7 = 28 4 x 11 = ...”

“this problem is pretty cool. what''s the source?”

“Right. So, the question was probably transcribed incorrectly at some point (perhaps in the original source... yikes!) It''s most likely supposed to say "small" in front of "postcards" in that statement.”

“Looks like that''s the same question you posted here: http://www.beatthegmat.com/slopes-of-line-t268264.html#688227”

“To prove that it''s (e): * Draw line b with slope 1. Then draw line a perpendicular to it. Then do the reflection, and watch what happens. * Draw line b with any positive slope in the world except 1. Then draw line a perpendicular to it. Then do the reflection, and watch what happens. Give ...”

“i don''t disagree with what you''re saying here, but ... that''s not an option. so there''s not much of a point in worrying about it. the only decision you have to make here is between "attempt" and "trying", and, between those two, "attempt" is the winner. ...”

“^^^ yep. that.”

“"attempt" is not the subject there -- "enzymes" is the subject -- so the bottom line is that there''s no reason to expect "attempt" to agree with the verb. this is not a grammar issue at all, actually -- it''s just a matter of the context / meaning of the sentence. ...”

“so, the red part here -- if you actually mean division by 2 -- is an issue. why are you considering remainders on division by 2? you can''t do that; the division in the problem is division by 6, not by 2. as an illustration of what could go wrong here, let''s say it''s 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + ...”

“you''re welcome!”

“you can actually do either. again, this is a great example of "just try whatever comes to mind" -- one of the awesome things about GMAT problems is that they can often be solved in many different ways. the honest reason why i thought in terms of 3 here is "it''s just what popped ...”

“true. basically, as long as you didn''t mean the word "always" literally, then you and i are thinking along the same lines here. i would add two more numbers to the list, though: -100 and 100 (or -1000 and 1000, or two other suitably "huge" numbers). a lot of expressions ...”

“to be perfectly balanced here, it''s not totally fair to say there are two errors, since, technically, the 900 isn''t wrong. (the 900 is incompatible with the 271, but only the 271 is actually erroneous.) i''d be interested in seeing the answer key for this problem, though. see, ok, i can ...”

“hey, * again, the internet is your friend here. seek and you shall find. * basically, the idea is that you should visually match up the two similar triangles, so that they are "facing the same way". i used the example of a model car and a real car. that''s a particularly easy ...”

“sri, you''re welcome. macattack, that''s the basic proportion when you have similarity. you can do one of two things here: 1/ you can think about what similarity means, and then figure out which fractions would be the same. for instance, let''s say you had a model car, and then a real car ...”

“i was going to suggest that, yeah. (remember, though, everyone who''s subscribed to the thread will see the first version of your post... lol)”

“oh, no, you can''t do that with remainders. i.e., you can''t "reduce" a division ratio. (this is what it appears you''re trying to do, anyway -- it looks as though you''re trying to take the 9/6 and "reduce" it to 3/2. nope. not with remainders. think about small numbers ...”

“final score... you: 1 "oa": 0 what''s the source? regard with suspicion from now on...”

“Ya, if the "oa" doesn''t say 7/25, then it''s wrong. What does it say? I''m posting from a tablet, so I can''t see behind the cursed blackout thingy. This is why you should stick with problems from known sources, folks.”

“macattack -- yeah, you''re right here. nice work. as usual, i misread the problem (yay! dyslexia is fun) as "three-digit code" instead of "three-digit number". so, in other words, i was thinking about 000-999 instead of 100-999. so, yes, that works. using the ...”

“i did, however, notice that you''re not arguing in favor of any of the other answer choices. see, that''s the saving grace here: these are multiple-choice problems. so, if you have a quibble about one of the answer choices, then you need to put your money on another choice, or else there''s not ...”

“[quote="stevennu"] you have a decent point here, i guess. i wouldn''t have thought of this interpretation, but, then again, i am not a very literal reader. (fun fact about ron: i''m dyslexic, to the extent that i''m actually incapable of reading a sentence straight through from left ...”

“[---]”

“if anyone is in the mood for a fireworks show -- once you get to the (c) vs. (e) part... try multiplying statement 1 by 5, multiplying statement 2 by 4, and then adding the stuff you get. sha-boom! like a boss. (this is not my recommended way of solving the problem... but it''s awesome.)”

“you can also approach the problem like this: when you look at statement 1, the important part is that x^2 is bigger than y^2. (the +1 is of no consequence, at least in this problem.) what does this mean? remember that squares of positives are positive, but that squares of negatives are also ...”

“hey, i wrote this problem! -- gmattesttaker2, i''m with you here -- i actually have pretty severe dyslexia, so i don''t stand a chance of slogging through all those three-letter angles. instead, you should do what srcc25anu did above, and draw a picture with the matching angles between the ...”

“^^^ yep, good solution. in general, if you don''t understand the theory behind a DS problem, immediately begin TESTING CASES. * some problems can only be solved by testing cases (most conspicuously problems that specify integer solutions, but certainly not just those ones). * even if you don''t ...”

“i''ll grant you that "odd + odd = odd", etc., are rules that you need to know. as for the multiples of 3, i don''t memorize that sort of thing (because i wouldn''t retain it anyway). instead, i just think about literal groups of three things packaged together -- if i add up a bunch of ...”

“don''t do this to yourself. just try to solve the problems. if you get defeated, shrug your shoulders and move on to the next problem. there''s clearly some gradient to the "difficulty" of the OG problems, but let''s not fool ourselves here -- no one really knows for sure. ... ...”

“all these "rules"... geez. if i had a memory like that, i''d rule the world. how about this instead: 9^1, 9^2, etc. are all multiples of 3. they''re also all odd. there are nine of them. so... when you add them together, you get another multiple of 3 that is odd. the even ...”

“well, the opposite of "one or more 7''s" is "no 7"s. do you know how to find the probability of that?”

“this is a pretty cool problem. when you think about divisibility by 5, that''s really just an issue of the last digit (the units digit). remember, if the units digit is 0 or 5, then the number is a multiple of 5. so, what''s the pattern of units digits in powers of 7? 7^1 = 7 7^2 = ends in ...”

“matt wrote: i mean, i feel what you''re saying here, but i''m on the other side of this particular fence (= i''m on the "thorough and direct = good" side of the fence). see, if i knew that this was most people''s first encounter with the question at hand, i''d probably be more ...”

“this is a dangerous game to play, because it''s pretty much impossible to detect the "percentile" of a question (and, more importantly, because thinking about that kind of thing at all is nothing but a distraction from the things that actually matter). in fact, it''s often hard even to ...”

“by the way, guys, this "spoiler" stuff messes up the forum experience for people who use tablets (ipad, etc.) if someone is using a tablet, then it''s actually impossible for him/her to see what''s behind the "blackouts". just fyi, probably shouldn''t do that. if the ...”

“this works, of course, but it''s ... just so. much. work. this is all you have to do: * the original ratio of m:w is 3:5. so, forget the two-variable approach. original # of men = 3x original # of women = 5x * once you have this... statement 2 is 3x/(5x + 2) = 7/10. well, if you ...”

“by the way -- if you once had a habit of picking (c) on these kinds of problems, then the problem almost certainly has nothing to do with "tricks". instead, in that case, the problem is most likely that you just haven''t internalized the DS process well enough. i.e., if one or the ...”

“hey, the above is true, of course, but this is one of those situations where examples are necessary. i presume you''re talking about stuff like this: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx? (1) |x| = x (2) x is positive in this case, statement 1 means "x is either positive or 0" (make sure you ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. melguy -- "please explain this whole passage and all these questions" is not a fair request. please give (and ask) specifics: what did you understand? what didn''t you understand? for the questions -- which answer choices were you ...”

“the problem with the modifier in choice (b) is that it''s backward. basically, the thing that should be the modifier has been made into the main action, while the thing that should be the main action has been made into a modifier. here''s another example to show what i mean: I dropped the ...”

“well, yeah, the point is that abstract things (situation, observation, relationship, etc.) CAN stand for the whole idea of the preceding clause. but, if the noun that comes before them also represents an abstract concept, then it''s also possible for these to work in the same way more concrete ...”

“more generally, just about every single strengthening/weakening/evaluating/explaining problem on this test WILL require additional, reasonable, ordinary-person-on-the-street assumptions. in fact, that''s the entire point of these problems -- you can''t solve them by "rules" or ...”

“yes, you do have to assume that. but, in choice (e), the words "about to..." imply reasonably enough that this is the case. if a factory isn''t scheduled to open for another 4+ years, no reasonable person (barring english learners who might not know the phrase well enough) would ...”

“For some reason, I thought I had answered this post. One word: Congratulations. And thanks for the feedback.”

“well, thanks!”

“so, i''ve been wondering this for a while, but never asked until now... why does everyone here always write my name in all capital letters? just curious.”

“Congratulations, and thanks for the kind words.”

“sks74 -- the commas belong to the modifier, not to the original sentence. when you take the modifier away, they disappear, and then you may or may not still have commas in the original sentence. it could actually work either way. regardless of whether you start with xxxxx yyyyy or with xxxxx, ...”

“as far as math goes -- the most important thing on the math section, by a mile, is the use of backup strategies: * "plugging in your own values" for undetermined quantities (multiple choice questions) * working backward from answer choices (multiple choice questions) * estimating ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. some thoughts: * vishugogo''s advice about the CR problems is good. in fact, he has most likely understated the proportion of "strengthen"/"weaken"/"evaluate"/"explain the discrepancy" among the CR ...”

“-- also -- although this is not a strict "error" or "rule" -- it can nonetheless help you with guessing / elimination: the GMAC writers definitely go out of their way to avoid using constructions like "x that y that z" or "a of b of c", whenever ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. this problem is in the OG verbal supplement. -- some things that are actually wrong with (d): * "for 15 years" is modifying the clause "...that are part of an effort". --> you can''t use the present tense with ...”

“Received a private message about this thread -- What Arun says is basically correct. The difference is not 100% firm -- this is really more a matter of writing style than anything else -- but, in essence, yes. However, the most important sentence in the post above is this one: yep. ...”

“I received a private message about this thread. Basically, as Mitch said, you won''t need to know when a subject of the form "x and y" is singular. if that happens (as it will, from time to time), there should be explicit indications in the sentence that the subject is singular. one ...”

“Yes. It''s an entirely context-based difference.”

“there''s probably no rule against doing this, but i guess i just don''t see the point -- if anyone wanted a computer translation of this thread, that person could just copy/paste and go to Google Translate himself/herself.”

“The following is excerpted from a student''s email (with permission). The student''s note and my response are in Spanish. Lo más importante, en cualquier etapa de tu estudio, es que te des cuenta de que la calidad del estudio vale mucho más que la cantidad. Todo el GMAT ha sido ...”

“click the link directly underneath that comment.”

“yeah -- that''s why this answer choice is exactly the opposite of what you want. read the surrounding part again; "rebound from large impactors" is actually what prevents the gravity anomalies from forming (by basically straightening everything back out again). more directly, ...”

“not only does this post add zero value to the discussion, but it insults the poster(s) who found the passage difficult enough to post here in the first place. we''ll thank you not to do this again.”

“remember that all GMAC problems assume that everything is limited to real numbers. so, if any numbers are excluded from the domain of a particular statement or equation, then those numbers don''t need to be considered. the key point here is that division by zero is undefined. as a result, the ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. as far as (b), you''ve basically got a sentence that says that the fossil evidence is more dramatic than itself -- i.e., it''s a self-contradictory sentence. see, what has yet been discovered means "everything that has been discovered up to ...”

“well, there you go. see, you don''t need to be perfect to get a perfect score. nice! testing cases (= "smart number picking") on DS problems in particular is THE single most important strategy/technique you can adopt for solving math problems. you may get the chance to test cases ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. most of the replies in this thread -- while perfectly correct and respectable solution methods to the problem -- don''t really seem to address the original request, which was for guessing hints. so ... i hate to say this, but i don''t see any ...”

“the argument is concerned solely with the situation in florida, so any comparison to another state is irrelevant. as an analogy, if you are gaining weight and trying to figure out why, then anything like "well, my brother is gaining weight even faster than i am!" or "i still don''t ...”

“some thoughts here: so... the wisdom of this plan depends on exactly what you mean by "topic-wise". if "topic-wise" means that you looked at lists of problems by topic, and then went and did the problems in the list, ... well, that''s not a great way to do things. the ...”

“the previous clause never mentions who proclaimed the truce, so it''s impossible for "..., proclaiming ..." to modify/describe that clause in any meaningful sense.”

“i received a private message about this thread. you should ignore this question; it''s not useful, and it will misdirect your attention onto things that are not actually tested on this exam. * first, the gmat has never tested the singular/plural status of "none". ... and they ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. to the original poster -- you wrote: the problem, here, is that this thread contains absolutely no information or observations that could be used to answer this question. in other words, it''s impossible to give any specific response to this ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. * grammatically, both of these sentences are just fine. the second one is a bit wordy, but wordiness alone is not an error. * "take good sleep" is not idiomatic in american english. i don''t know if that''s a thing in other countries, ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. before addressing the points contained in the thread itself, i feel the need to mention that, as posters above me have mentioned, it may not be the world''s greatest idea to re-take the test at this point. did you get any feedback from the ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. it''s true that the text of this passage is rather, um, dense. however, that''s good practice for the test, in the sense that you must not get lost in details when you read -- so, practicing with passages that are a bit "over the top" (as ...”

“i received a private message about this thread (a long, long time ago -- there''s been a lot of traveling between then and now). if you see the following construction ... complete sentence, and complete sentence ... then the primary interpretation is that the two complete sentences are separate ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. --> this is correct BUT as far as i''m aware, the "who"/"whom" distinction has never been tested on the gmat exam. not a single once. so, it''s best not to waste your time on it.”

“yep, that''s a perfectly well-constructed sentence.”

“sure, as well as with sufficient exposure to the language in general.”

“i received a private message about this thread. there are no firm grounds for choosing between A and D here; both sentences are fine. it''s a flawed problem. what''s the source? -- nope, it''s not that clear-cut. there are plenty of constructions like this one (i.e., sentences ...”

“i received a private message about this thread: the "rule" in red is wrong. very wrong, in fact -- if you use this reasoning, you''ll eliminate the correct answers on all three of OG12 #81, #92, and #137.”

“not bragging, necessarily, but at times it does seem that you''re trying pretty hard to prove yourself to ... well, to the assembled anonymous masses of the internet? also, perhaps i''m remembering incorrectly, but didn''t you once write that you didn''t care about / stopped caring about your GPA ...”

“Brent— that''s a pretty sweet explanation of rounding; i''ve actually bookmarked it, in case other students have the same question later. on the other hand— 4.4444...45 --> 1.1-1.2 --> 3.1 Now I''m wondering what show you were watching while you wrote that paragraph; it must have ...”

“CR is definitely a "if it''s not broken, don''t fix it" kind of thing. basically, CR is about 80% normal human reasoning -- the same way you''ve thought through situations since you were a kid -- and about 20% understanding, with some extra precision, the nature of the different tasks ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. you may want to check that; those scores don''t match up. if you had q44 v28, that would be 600. maybe plus/minus 10 points, but that''s about it. i hope this is not actually a serious question. if it is, then the answer is, of ...”

“thanks. i generally tend to think about things with the simplicity of a ten-year-old. maybe a decently smart ten-year-old, but a ten-year-old nonetheless. the advantage of this, of course, is that i am often very good at putting things into simpler terms -- precisely because i need them in ...”

“Shailendra— Your post included the word "estimation", but I don''t view my technique here as an example of estimation -- since I have not, in fact, estimated anything. I''ve selected one exact allowed value for the percentage change, and then propagated that value through the problem. ...”

“Yeah, this problem should mention percentages. Perhaps the original poster just forgot the percent sign; if not, then the problem is flawed. Calculating 1.85^3 or 2.1^3 manually is unappetizing, to say the least. (Remember that there''s no calculator on this test.) The answer ranges are ...”

“remember that range = greatest - least which can be arranged to greatest = least + range or least = greatest - range -- (1) these data concern ranges only; there is no indication whatsoever of how the heights compare. insufficient (2) the greatest height in class a is taller than ...”

“The trick here is that you don''t need the "4 groups" part at all. Since "each unit is assigned to a different researcher", we just need to find the number of "units". To find that, the "breaking into four groups" step is unnecessary. (In fact, you can''t ...”

“If you are restricted to whole numbers, then NONE of your traditional algebra rules will be reliable. Algebraic methods don''t distinguish between whole numbers and non-whole numbers -- so algebra simply won''t be able to tell you when there will and won''t be whole-number solutions. If you get ...”

“Hi there, From what you''ve written, it seems you''ve been doing this almost non-stop for the last 9 months. If so, then the first thing you need to do -- right now -- is to step away from the test for at least a few weeks. I wrote about this here: ...”

“Two things. 1/ The "600+ score received" part is ambiguous; it''s not clear what those percentages represent. Do they mean... ... Of students who studied for this long, here''s the % scoring over 600? or... ... Of students scoring 600+, here are the %''s who studied for X amount of ...”

“The best advice regarding "difficulty levels" is to ignore them completely ... unless you write GMAT problems. As a test taker, you will have no idea whatsoever of the "difficulty level" of the questions you''re facing -- a notion that is proved, in fact, by the very question ...”

“It doesn''t matter what "many top dictionaries" do; it matters what GMAC does. If GMAC were ever inconsistent on this usage, at any point whatsoever, then an argument would exist for this sort of "false decision point". On the other hand, GMAC has been absolutely 100% ...”

“yeah, but, no. remember, one of the primary things that''s tested by these questions (strengthening/weakening/etc) is your ability to find the most likely, or most reasonable, interpretation of the given information. here, we have an item dealing with security personnel -- i.e., people whose ...”

“yeah, you shouldn''t do that. if anything, you should read the questions very slowly and carefully. even if you do that, you''ll be spending a few extra seconds at most. if "time pressure" is a problem, that doesn''t mean you have to work/read faster. instead, it means that you have ...”

“The only stuff on quant is, essentially, your standard mathematics up through first-year high-school algebra and geometry. Beyond that point, it''s really a matter of strategy -- especially making frequent use of non-"textbook" methods (e.g., backsolving, plugging in your own values for ...”

“I received a message about this thread. yes. no. those are values of p, not values of q. there''s definitely a misunderstanding here, because you wrote "clearly p=q" (unless 2 equals signs means something else), but it''s actually impossible for p and q to be the same ...”

“This is clearly supposed to be OG12 question #79 (= OG13 question #78), but someone has, weirdly enough, changed the language somewhat. Check out the OG, and then see if you still have any issues with the problem.”

“I received a private message about this thread. This problem is horrible. The ostensibly "correct" answer contains at least 3 errors, and none of the choices comes even remotely close to being a respectable English sentence. Ignore this problem, and distrust the source from now on. ...”

“In general, well said. It should be noted, though, that there are arguments whose entire point is to discuss the reasons why particular facts are (or aren''t) true. (A GMATPrep problem about "scientists over forty" comes to mind; you could probably google it.) On those problems, the ...”

“Ok, so here''s the deal with the last problem: The solution is A, but the vast majority of people who attempt the problem—including high scorers—pick C and are quite "confident" about that choice. (Quick summary: Make the double-set matrix chart thingy. Then you have 45, 75, 120 in ...”

“see, now, that''s awesome. Now, you should just hope that everyone else on this board ignores everything I''m saying, thus giving you the edge. |: Oh yeah, and, one more thing: Here''s the thing: Especially in high-level DS, there is surprisingly little correlation between this kind ...”

“Hi Bond777, thanks for your response. Sometimes it seems like I''m just yelling into the ether, but it''s posts like yours that make the time spent here worthwhile. The difference between one score of q49 and one score of q50/51 is probably statistical randomness. On the other hand, if ...”

“There are two things to note here in general. 1/ In general, you should NOT try to rephrase most DS questions. You should leave most DS questions exactly as written, and answer the exact question that is asked. This is really important, because one of the primary skills tested by DS ...”

“As Anju pointed out, you should be able to make quick work of the 2 individual statements. Each of them leaves one side completely free to move around, so neither is sufficient. When it comes to combining the statements, you can take an algebraic approach like Anju''s. You can also do 2 other ...”

“bpolley, i know very little about finance, so basically everything you are saying here is flying many miles over my head. and, as you yourself pointed out, it''s not the topic of the thread. i believe this is why God made interviews.”

“sure. i do have a waitlist, yes, but the duration depends on where you''re located. if you''re in the US and need to meet during "normal" times (= not the middle of the night/super early morning), then my current waitlist is about 2 to 3 months. on the other hand, for people who ...”

“"backsolving" means, basically, starting from an answer choice, and working back through the information in the problem (in whatever possible way). if everything "clicks" (= is consistent) with everything else once you''ve gone through all the infromation, then you''ve found the ...”

“well, not to rain on your parade or anything, but, for that particular show, the MTV producers'' directive is to actively pick out people who are ... well, insane. (like, literally; in the TRW casting process, a documented history of mental illness is actually considered a plus.) after all, a ...”

“they offered the exam at 5 o''clock in the morning? where was this? i''ve never heard of a gmat appointment before 8 a.m. or after 4:30 p.m. what i meant was, where did you get "3-4 points each section" from? how was that figure calculated? thinking about difficulty is ...”

“i''m going to be annoying and turn this question back around on you. let''s say you were interviewing a room full of people (whose résumés, etc. were available to you). your job was not necessarily to pick out "the brightest", but, rather, to pick out "the most likely to be ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. i''m curious about the "forced bio-break". i mean, i can guess what that probably means, but ... yeah. Lol. where are you getting this number? there''s no evidence that our quant sections are "tougher" than ...”

“i received a private message regarding this thread. in quant, if you are scoring ~40, the most valuable realization for you to make is that you aren''t going to get anywhere at all by studying more mathematics. this test only tests mathematics up to first-year high-school algebra and geometry; ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. mitch said it. this problem is horrible; everything is wrong. stop using random problems downloaded from the internet! if you download random sources for free, you''ll get things that are worth exactly what you paid for them.”

“i am a little late to this party, as usual, but i received a private message about this thread. the question asks about the empirical study of small firms'' role. therefore, we need to find ... the empirical study of small firms'' role. that''s the last paragraph. in that paragraph, it ...”

“i received a message about this problem. there''s no way this problem is from PowerPrep (= the old GMAC software, dating from before the GMATPrep days). i can tell that it''s not an official problem because (i) the sentence is weirdly written and awkward, and, more importantly, (ii) it''s not ...”

“i don''t know where you got this problem, but, i beg you, please do not ever look at that source, ever again, for any reason at all. stick to official problems, folks!”

“good. you shouldn''t run out of those. in fact, you should be done preparing for those two tasks (especially RC) long before you exhaust those questions. i''m not offended by it; i just think it''s weird, in this kind of environment (a professional/expert advice board), that''s all.”

“a good rule to follow here is, "if a nine-year-old can tell which noun the pronoun stands for, then it''s not ambiguous." here, a nine-year-old would definitely be able to tell you that "it" is the manufacturer. so, no, it''s not problematic. more to the point, though - ...”

“yes. in fact, the same can be said for ALL critical reasoning problems on this exam (with the possible exception of "draw your own conclusion" problems, which test the rigorous kind of thinking that one would use to, say, read a contract). it''s impossible to get very far or CR with ...”

“thanks. i suppose i am not up on the latest netspeak. on a forum like this one – whose entire point is to teach and promote the reading and writing of formal written english (!!) – that sort of thing strikes me as a bit inapposite/unprofessional, especially in questions aimed at a moderator. ...”

“honestly, you shouldn''t even need to do all the RC''s in the GMAT official guides; those books alone contain way, way, way more RC''s than you should ever have to use. so, the thought of using non-GMAC sources shouldn''t even enter the picture, since there''s already a huge excess of RC material ...”

“bad idea. those questions are much more formal/rigorous and use far less intuitive/real-world reasoning than the GMAT questions. if you study those materials too much, the likely effect on your score will be negative. in other words, "Ron, do you really mean what you wrote in that post ...”

“"there are still head injuries" is not a counterargument at all; the argument doesn''t require that head injuries be reduced to zero. in fact, we''re only talking about a 20% reduction – so there will still be head injuries in every league.”

“primarily, it''s wrong because it doesn''t actually counter the argument. that choice says that the helmets are "sometimes" made of the inferior materials – but that''s only sometimes. that''s not any reason to suspect that the 20% reduction in injuries isn''t due to the helmets that ...”

“the focus is not on the value of the products; the focus is on whether "redundant trade" can be justified economically. if the growers can get good prices at home, then that''s an argument AGAINST redundant trade, not in favor of it. don''t lose track of the issue!”

“exactly.”

“this looks like an LSAT question, and not like a GMAT question. is this an LSAT question? in general, you shouldn''t study with LSAT questions – those questions depend much more on "formal logic" and "rigorous" thinking, and much less on the sort of "common sense" ...”

“ah, i see what you mean. no, you don''t write "are VERBing", unless the action of VERBing is actually happening in the present, i.e., as the narrator of the sentence speaks. on the other hand, watch out, since there are plenty of adjectives that have the same form – sometimes even ...”

“i don''t understand what you are asking here. so, here''s a fuller discussion of that answer choice. basically, the problem with that choice is that you can interpret it in two ways – and both are wrong. * you could interpret it as a list of three parallel things (= three conditions that ...”

“yeah, i''d like to second the assertion made by brian above: this pesky "out of scope" thing is not going to help you solve anything. see, here''s the problem: there are two ways in which people interpret the meaning of the phrase "out of scope", and neither will actually help ...”

“this is a valid objection, to which there are two responses. the first response is "yes, the answer choice should contain a more explicit reference to the activities in the passage". the second, and more important, response is "this is why you should stick to official sources ...”

“this kind of problem doesn''t fit neatly into any of the usual little boxes (strengthen, weaken, evaluate, etc.) but, two thoughts here. 1/ first and foremost – if you UNDERSTAND THE TASK, don''t bother classifying the question! that''s really what this is all about - understanding the ...”

“i don''t think this question is particularly non-gmat-like. the eliminations are much more black-and-white than what you''ll usually see on the gmat exam (especially if you are scoring at a reasonably high level in verbal), but, you should be able to solve this one very quickly. all you have to ...”

“in that choice, those are only 2 of the 3 elements in a list. the word "cool", which precedes the underline, is also a component of the list. so, that list is punctuated as is normal for a list of 3 items ("x, y, and z").”

“just clarifying here -- if "the ideal test taker" means "super-genius savant who can get all the questions correct", then, sure, the comment about missing questions (at the end there) holds. on the other hand, i prefer to interpret "ideal test taker" as "a test ...”

“ah, i read the inequality signs backwards. thanks. i will edit my post. on the other hand, my other observation still holds: if you have "statement 1 AND statement 2", and you know that exactly one of statements 1 and 2 is true while the other is false, then "statement 1 AND ...”

“there''s also a more concrete way to deal with this problem, once you''ve got the diagram in place: * Find a number that''s IN some of the answer choices, and NOT in others. * Try that number. * If the diagram works, keep the choices that contain your number. * If the diagram doesn''t work, keep ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. whenever anyone asks me "what should i do if i get way behind on time?", i have one primary answer: well, DON''T get way behind on time. in other words, what''s most important here is not knowing how to deal with this situation if it ...”

“--> this actually answers the question, then. i.e., anything of the form "true statement AND false statement" is false. so, you''ve actually proved that the answer is "no", not "we can''t tell". the problem here is, of course, the initial confusion created by ...”

“EDIT: in my original post, i read the inequality signs backward (ah, the joy of being dyslexic). i''ve deleted the discussion of things that the problem didn''t actually say. (:”

“i received a message about this thread. just a follow-up comment: while anju''s solution is clearly correct, i would give different advice in case of trouble. my advice would be, "if you have trouble with that approach, then try to develop a better visual understanding". see, ...”

“hi, i received a private message about this thread. here are some thoughts in regard to what''s been written in recent posts: that''s unlikely -- there are lots of other things you can do with the materials. see here: ...”

“i received a private message about this thread. you say you''ve been studying for the test for 6 months, maybe longer. ... and that''s probably the issue: you are studying way too much for this exam. if you do way, way too much studying, then the most likely effect on your verbal score will be ...”