Blog

With regard to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. Manhattan Prep’s Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense.

We previously examined how to read Reading Comprehension (RC) passages. If you have not read our earlier article, go ahead and do so right now.

Today, I want to talk about the three primary types of questions that appear on RC: Main Idea, Specific Detail, and Inference. I also want to talk about how to analyze RC problems.

In general, we learn the most from a problem after we have finished doing it. Our review is the real learning experience. Any problem can (and should!) be analyzed using the questions discussed in this “How to Analyze a Practice Problem” article.

How would that work with a Reading Comprehension question? Glad you asked. This article contains an example of a complete RC Inference problem analysis—you will learn not only how to analyze an RC problem but also how to tackle Inference problems. (In general, Inference problems ask us to deduce something from some piece of evidence provided in the passage.)

Let us tackle Main Idea questions next. These questions focus on the main point of a passage, though we could also be asked to give the main point of just one paragraph.

Specific Detail questions ask us to address some particular detail mentioned explicitly in the passage. We could be asked what the passage says. Knowing if you are dealing with a What question is important. Think about the answers to these two questions: What are you studying? Why are you studying it? Completely different answers!

Those will cover most, if not all, of the RC question types you will see when you take the GMAT. You might also encounter a Strengthen or Weaken question, similar to the questions that we see in the Critical Reasoning section. These are fairly rare in RC, though—chances are good that you will not actually see one.

So go ahead and tackle those Reading Comprehension question types and remember this: when you are studying, your goal is not (just) to get the question right. Your goal is to learn something that you could apply on a different question (or questions) in the future!

With regard to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. Manhattan Prep’s Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense.

What are the Dos and Don’ts to get the most out of your CATs? If you have not yet read the earlier installments of this series here and here, go take a look! 

DON’T take a practice CAT within five days of the real test

Would you run a practice marathon a few days before a real marathon? Of course not! You risk tiring yourself out or (mentally) injuring yourself (by reducing your confidence) just before the real test.

If your score is not where you want it to be, postpone the test; you are not going to change it substantially by taking a practice CAT at the last minute (or doing anything else).

DON’T go months without taking a CAT

When someone does this, the impetus is usually anxiety. You feel nervous that you will not get the results that you want, so you avoid getting any results at all. Alternatively, maybe you plan to study everything and then when you take the test, you are confident that you will get the score you want… but practicing without any CAT data is going to cause you to build bad habits (such as spending too much time on a question) and fail to build good ones (such as learning how and when to cut yourself off and guess).

If your last CAT was so long ago that you are no longer sure what your strengths and weaknesses are under testing conditions, it is time to take another CAT.

Takeaways

In short, do take a CAT pretty early on in your study process. Then analyze the results and use that analysis to inform your study plan. When you have addressed a substantial proportion of the major issues identified via that analysis, take another CAT. Most of the time, you should be able to find at least two to three weeks’ worth of issues to address after every CAT.

Once you have your score where you want it to be, start your final review. During this phase (which typically lasts a couple of weeks), plan to take one CAT two weeks before and another CAT one week before your real test date. Read the article “The Last 14 Days: Building Your Game Plan” to learn what to do with this data.

Good luck and happy studying!

Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they choose a business school. However, the educational experience you will have is what is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Today, we focus on Jonathan Knee from Columbia Business School (CBS).

Jonathan Knee is the Michael T. Fries Professor of Professional Practice of Media and Technology at CBS and the co-director of the school’s Media and Technology Program. He is also still active in the private sector as a senior advisor at the advisory and investment firm Evercore Partners.

Knee is perhaps best known among CBS students for his book The Accidental Investment Banker: Inside the Decade that Transformed Wall Street (Oxford University Press, 2006) and, we are told, brings a unique perspective into the classroom by showing where entertainment and finance cross paths. In his latest book, Class Clowns: How the Smartest Investors Lost Billions in Education (Columbia Business School Publishing, 2017), Knee explores investors’ efforts in higher education. Students reported to mbaMission that his “Mergers and Acquisitions in Media” class is intense and that the course’s final presentation—made before a guest panel of practicing investors—feels like the real deal. One CBS graduate who took a class with Knee said the benefits of having an active advisor as a teacher were the business insight and guest speakers the professor brought into the classroom.

For more information about CBS and 16 other top-ranked business schools, check out our free mbaMission Insider’s Guides.

With regard to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. Manhattan Prep’s Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense.

What are the Dos and Don’ts to get the most out of your CATs? If you have not yet read the earlier installment of this series here, go take a look!

Most of the time, DON’T take a CAT more than once every three weeks

There are two broad modes of study: the “trying to improve” phase and the “final review” phase. Most of our study is the first phase; the final review phase kicks in for just the last couple of weeks.

During the “trying to improve” phase, taking a CAT more frequently than about every three weeks is a complete waste of time. Really! The whole point of taking the practice CAT is to figure out what needs to get better. Then, go get better! Until you have made substantial progress toward whatever issues were uncovered, taking another practice CAT is just going to tell you that you still have those same issues.

That even applies when you are trying to improve timing or stamina issues; you have other ways of addressing these issues besides taking a CAT. If quant timing is a struggle, GMAT Focus is a great “intermediate” resource from the real test makers. You can also set up longer sets of questions for yourself (in the 15- to 20-question range)—your practice sets do not have to be 37 or 41 questions for you to learn to handle the timing better. (Read this article on time management for more.)

You can practice building stamina every time you study. Figure out everything that you are going to do for the next hour or two hours. (I try to set up what I think will be three hours’ worth of work, just in case I finish faster than I think; if I do not finish, I save the rest for the next day.) Then, go for one hour without stopping—no email, no smart phone, no food, nothing. If you want to do a second hour, take a 15-minute break and go again for a second hour without stopping.

After that second hour, do take a substantial break (at least one hour, but ideally two) before you study any more that day. Making new memories is more mentally fatiguing than recalling memories (you only need to recall memories during a CAT), so do not do this exercise for more than about two hours in a row or your study will suffer.

Once you hit the “final review” phase, you can take a CAT once a week for the last couple of weeks; at this point, your goal is to solidify everything and develop your game plan.

With regard to the GMAT, raw intellectual horsepower helps, but it is not everything. Manhattan Prep’s Stacey Koprince teaches you how to perform at your best on test day by using some common sense.

What are the Dos and Don’ts to get the most out of your CATs? Learn more in this three-part series.

Know WHY you take GMAT CATs

Practice CATs are very useful for three things:

(1) Figuring out your current scoring level (assuming you took the test under official conditions)

(2) Practicing stamina and/or timing

(3) Analyzing your strengths and weaknesses

The third item is the MOST important—this is how we actually get better at this test!

Practice CATs do not help us to improve while taking the test. If you have been training to run a marathon, you will not learn how to get better while running the marathon itself; at that stage, you are just trying to survive. Rather, you learn how to improve in between races while doing all kinds of training activities and analyzing your performance.

DO take a GMAT CAT at the beginning of your study

Many people put off taking their first CAT, often because they say that they have not studied yet, so they know they will not do well. Your goal in taking your first CAT is NOT to do “well.” Your goal is simply to get a handle on your strengths and weaknesses. Whatever they are, you want to know them right away so you can prioritize your study.

One caveat: Familiarizing yourself with the five question types before that first exam (particularly Data Sufficiency) is important, but definitely do not worry about learning all of the formulas and grammar rules. Your first test performance will tell you what you do and do not yet know.

One caution in particular here: a decent percentage of the people who put off their first CAT do so because they are feeling significant anxiety about taking the test. These are the people who do need to take that first test early—pushing off the practice tests will just exacerbate your anxiety.

DON’T take a GMAT CAT more than once a week

Have you ever had this happen? You take a CAT and you get a disappointing score. Maybe you even really mess things up—run out of time or finish 20 minutes early—and your score plummets. So, a couple of days later, you take another CAT to “prove” to yourself that the bad test was just a fluke.

If you have ever done that, you wasted your time and a practice CAT, both of which are very valuable.

That bad test was not a fluke. Something happened to cause that performance. Figure out what that thing was and fix it before you spend another 3.5 hours taking a second test.

In fact, whether you like the score or not, whenever you take a CAT, do not waste time taking another until you have addressed whatever issues popped up during your analysis of the first test. (This article will help you analyze MGMAT CATs.)