Should I Hire a GMAT Tutor? If you’ve spent any time studying for the GMAT, you’ve probably been inundated by test prep options: on-demand online classes, interactive in-person classes, self prep, or one-on-one-tutoring. As deadlines approach, deciding on the test…
GMAT Percentiles If you’re applying to a top MBA program, you’ve probably read that you need to score above the 80th-percentile in both Quant and Verbal. While this used to be the case, as you’ll see below, percentiles have been…
How to Calculate GMAT Scores GMAT scores are calculated by taking your scaled score from 6-51 on each section and arriving at a composite GMAT score from 200 – 800. Nonetheless, there’s a lot of confusion about how to calculate…
In part 2 of this series, we’ll look at another major criterion that determines the difficulty level of hard GMAT questions: Disguising the Mathematical Concept the Question is Addressing. As in part 1, I suggest that you attempt both questions first,…
I get it. The GMAT is a timed exam, and, faced with the challenge of completing more questions than you have time for, it’s all too natural to deal with rigors of time management by rushing through questions. Maybe you get through a tough quant question, realize you’ve already spent two minutes, and quickly do…
Two years ago, GMAC reached out to me with an offer to curate and write explanations for their GMAT Official Advanced Questions. Since the job required selecting the “hardest” of the hard questions, they asked me to explain to them what I thought constituted a difficult GMAT question. I wrote up a pretty lengthy explanation for…
The GMAT Verbal can be tough to crack. While GMAT Quantitative percentiles have been steadily increasing over the years (compare old GMAT Quant Percentiles from 2007 to this current Quant percentile chart), Verbal scores have mostly stagnated, with, for example, a 40 scaled score from 2007 corresponding to same percentile now (again, compare old GMAT…
Among the many myths that abound regarding optimal preparation for the GMAT, one of the more common and, unfortunately, more harmful ones is that there exists a direct relationship between quantity of practice tests taken and score improvements. And, unfortunately, this myth is perpetuated by large GMAT classes that will advertise 6 or 8 or…
When most people miss a GMAT quant question, the ensuing chain of events tends to be some version of the following: refer to the answer explanation, make sure they understand the explanation, re-do the question, and move on to the next question. Though such an approach certainly benefits test-takers whose only issue is conceptual, it…
Traditional GMAT wisdom suggests that the skills needed for success on the Verbal section overlap little, if at all, with one’s quantitative abilities. Given our educational system and the very fact that the GMAT has separate Quantitative and Verbal sections, such a distinction seems uncontroversial and downright obvious. But, as we all know, the structure…