Many ambitious business school applicants set their sights on a 720 GMAT Total score. A 720 GMAT score is often thought of—rightly or wrongly—as something of a cutoff for the “M7.” The M7 is the informal group of seven prestigious business schools considered to have the world’s best MBA programs: Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, Booth, Columbia, and MIT Sloan.

But how accurate is this mythologizing of the 720 Total score? Do you have to get at least a 720 to get into a top business school, and will it guarantee you admission? Conversely, is a 720 GMAT score really good enough for the elite business schools? If you’re applying to the M7, should you retake the GMAT and try to score even higher—even if you already have a 720? Do you need a 730 GMAT score for Harvard or Stanford? And what do the top 20 schools think about the 720 GMAT score, or the top 50, or the top 100?

In this post, we’ll give you all the answers to these questions, deconstructing the common thinking about the 720 GMAT score and delving into actual data from M7 business schools as well as thoughts on the GMAT from their admissions offices. Finally, we’ll help you think through the 720 and other score goals in terms of your own application and target business schools.

How Business Schools Evaluate Your GMAT Total Score

Business schools are all different—even the best ones—and thus they all have different expectations and uses for your GMAT scores. Generally, the GMAT is used to predict your likely first-year performance in comparison to fellow business school applicants, as studies have shown that a higher GMAT score is a fairly reliable predictor of a more successful first year in business school.

That said, every single business school in the M7 states that they evaluate applicants holistically, meaning that the GMAT is only one part of your application. None of them have a GMAT score “requirement” that you must attain to be accepted.

In short, what the top business schools do want to see from your GMAT score is that you did well enough to prove that you can succeed in a rigorous MBA program. Of course, they also want to make sure that they either maintain or gain in external rankings, and the GMAT score composition of their student body does factor into such evaluations. So there’s a certain element of prestige for the school that’s at play in your GMAT score as well, though it’s hard to pin down exactly how much.

With that said, let’s talk about the mythology of the 720 GMAT score.

Is 720 a Good GMAT Score for Top Business Schools?

Is 720 a good GMAT score? On a basic level, yes: 720 is the 95th percentile GMAT score and is generally considered an excellent score overall. The top 7 schools are slightly more competitive, which we’ll get into below. But a 720 is the about the average GMAT score for the top 10 business schools in the country, so if you are applying to a top 10 business school, you should aim to either hit or surpass a 720 to land safely in the Total score averages for those schools. This way, you’re not an applicant that would be lowering your school’s GMAT score average and thus potentially negatively affecting their ranking.

However, it’s important to know that a 720 GMAT score doesn’t guarantee admission anywhere. No GMAT score—not even an 800—can ensure that you get into the school of your choice, because business schools don’t look at scores in a vacuum like that.

On the positive side, this also means that you can get into one of the top business schools with a score lower than a 720—even one of the M7. A 95th percentile GMAT score is a safe spot to be in, but it’s not any kind of “cutoff.” The GMAT data released from the M7 schools themselves shed light on why people fixate on the 720—but they also show that the 720 GMAT score isn’t a bottom line.

GMAT Score Averages and Ranges for the M7 Business Schools

Every year, the top-ranked business schools release GMAT score data on their websites as part of the class profiles for their incoming classes. Class profiles are worth visiting directly at some point—they offer a wealth of information about how you might fit into various schools in terms of demographics, work experience, GPA, undergraduate major, and GMAT score.

Using this information and US News & World Report’s 2017 business school rankings, we have calculated that the average GMAT Total score for the top 10 business schools in America is currently about 722.4, almost exactly at that 720 mark. This data is where the 720 “cutoff” mindset comes from.

However, when we start to look beyond that, the data tells a more complicated story. Below is all the GMAT score information released by the M7—the seven highest ranking business schools in the US.

Note that while all of the M7 business schools release data on GMAT scores for their incoming class, they vary on the type of GMAT data that they release to the public, which makes it difficult to compare and contrast. For example, Harvard Business School releases the middle 80% of scores and the median score, while Stanford Business School releases the entire range of scores and the average score. Still, we can use this information to evaluate your own GMAT Total score.

This data is for the class of 2018, the most currently available data set:

In the following sections, we’ll talk about what this data means for high scorers, low scorers, and everyone in between.

Can I Have a Low GMAT Score and Still Get Into a Top Business School?

You may have been heartened to see that, when released, the ranges of Total scores for students attending these excellent business school is actually quite wide. Columbia, Wharton, and Stanford have all admitted students who scored in the mid to high 500s. We can safely guess that some of the other schools do as well, even though they don’t release that data.

However, the middle 80% Total score ranges begin at a much higher score than the overall ranges, meaning that the 550-590 scorers are outliers. These students must have had an incredibly compelling application outside of their GMAT score to be admitted.

Ultimately, this information clearly shows that if you are scoring in the 500s on the GMAT and you want to go to a top business school, you should spend as much time as you can studying to improve your score. If you find yourself hitting a wall at or below that score level, then you should probably set more realistic business school choices for yourself, as the low 500s is just not enough to prove to admissions that you can handle the rigorous academic workload of a top MBA program.

If you’re scoring in the high 500s or low to mid 600s but you have an absolutely stellar professional and academic background, then you can see that you still have a chance to be admitted. If this is you, then you might want to take a look at our breakdown of The GRE versus the GMAT to see if you should potentially switch tests. More and more top-ranked business schools—now including Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, Sloan, and Columbia—are accepting the GRE as an alternative to the GMAT. If your score is significantly higher on the GRE, it might be wise to submit that instead of the GMAT score, so that your test scores don’t put up a red flag on an otherwise excellent application.

Should I Aim for Higher Than a 720 GMAT Score?

You probably noticed that the average GMAT scores for all the M7 schools except for Columbia are higher than 720, so if you’re applying to those schools, you might want to set your sights on a 730 GMAT score instead of a 720.

But in general, once you hit 720, you have signaled to elite business schools that you’re certainly academically prepared for an MBA curriculum, and there’s no need to take the GMAT again—unless you’re confident you can do significantly better. The 720 GMAT score is a baseline—it is great to do better if you can, it’s just not worth making yourself crazy over. If you have a 720 and another applicant has a 730 GMAT score, that 10-point difference is unlikely to be the deciding factor.

That said, if you believe you can get a 750 or above, it certainly will help your application. But unless you’re fairly sure that you can do so (as in, you haven’t already studied your heart out and know that there’s room to improve significantly), your time would arguably be better spent doing something that demonstrates your passion and commitment toward the kinds of pursuits an elite MBA prepares you for.

The main exception to this is if you’re looking for scholarships. Generally, because higher GMAT scores in their student body translate into higher rankings, business schools seem to be more willing to give generous scholarships to students with higher GMAT scores in order to entice them to attend. Again, a 730 isn’t likely to make much of a difference over a 720, but a 750 or above would certainly be impressive. A 750 GMAT score puts you in the top 2% of scorers worldwide.

Overall GMAT Score Guidelines for Top Schools

Based on the data, a “safe” GMAT score for the M7 business schools falls in the 720-750 range. “Safe” doesn’t mean guaranteed acceptance: it just means that your GMAT score is impressive and indicates that you can handle a challenging MBA curriculum. The 750-800 range counts as “very impressive,” and if you’re looking for scholarships, the higher the better.

An “okay” score for the top schools is a 690-710. You’d be below the average, but you’d still fall in the middle 80% for most of the M7 schools—though you’ll have to make sure you have a great GPA to back it up.

Scores in the low to mid 600s is risky territory for the top schools, so you’d better have excellent personal and professional experiences and a strong GPA to offset it. With a score below 600, it’s exceedingly difficult to get in—schools admit maybe one or two candidates a year at that score level.

If you’re aiming for the top schools, you should probably retake the GMAT if you haven’t broken 700, and spend as much time as possible studying and preparing beforehand. We highly recommend checking out PrepScholar GMAT’s comprehensive online course, which offers a 60 point score improvement guarantee to help make sure you hit your goal score!

As mentioned above, the class profiles are an excellent source of information with which to compare and contrast yourself as an applicant. Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses as an applicant when picking schools to target.

The Next Rung: Is 720 a Good GMAT Score for the Top 25 Schools? What About the Top 50?

There’s more leeway outside of the top seven or top 10 business schools, though GMAT scores on the whole have gone up in recent years.

The average GMAT score for the top 25 business schools is 706, and the average for the top 50 schools is 683.

Taking out the top 10, the average for schools ranked 11-25 is 695, and the average for schools ranked 11-50 is 674.

So, yes, a 720 or 95th percentile GMAT score is a very excellent score once you get past the top 10.

If you’re scoring in the high 600s or above, you’re in the safety zone for a top 50 program. For the top 100 programs, that number stretches into the middle and low 600s.

Bottom Line: What does a 720 GMAT Mean for You?

Is 720 a good GMAT score? Yes. But there’s no GMAT score that is guaranteed to get you into a top business school, and above the mid-500s, there is no score that is guaranteed to get you rejected. Still, you should aim to hit the 720 mark if you’re applying to a top 10 business school, and a 730 GMAT score is an even better target if you’ve set your sights on the M7 (except for Columbia). A 750 or above helps if you’re looking for large scholarships.

What’s Next?

Check out our guides to low GMAT scores, high GMAT scores, and average GMAT scores by school for more information about how your GMAT score measures up.

You can also use our target GMAT score worksheet to determine what score you should aim for based on the schools you’re applying to. Happy studying!

The post Is a 720 GMAT Score Your Ticket to an Elite MBA? appeared first on Online GMAT Prep Blog by PrepScholar.

As with any standardized test, there are some key, simple shortcuts that you can implement right away to improve your overall performance on the GMAT. While there’s no substitute for good old-fashioned studying, you can try out the quick and easy strategies below to maximize your performance right away.

With these GMAT tips and tricks—plus the boatloads of test prep you’re surely doing—you’ll be prepared to face any challenge that comes your way on test day.

GMAT Tricks: What Can They Help You With?

The makers of the GMAT will tell you that there are no such things as “tips” or “tricks” for doing well on their test. Unfortunately, there is some truth to this: while GMAT tricks can help you a little bit, the only real way to ace the GMAT is to invest lots of time in preparation. Yep, that means study, study, study.

More specifically, the real trick to doing well on the GMAT is to become an expert in the fundamental areas that are tested on each section: reading, deconstructing an argument, and the GMAT-specific grammar rules for Verbal and AWA; arithmetic, geometry, and algebra for Quant; and all the above plus basic graphs and data presentation for IR. You should especially focus on memorizing all of the key math and grammar properties, and then taking enough practice tests and questions that you develop a fluency with them. By the time you take the GMAT for real, it should be second nature to spot what each question is testing you on and then to implement the relevant rule or property accordingly.

That said, each of the tips below has its usefulness. They can help you feel confident, study more efficiently, and show up to test day ready to thrive. Most importantly, many of these GMAT tricks and shortcuts are particularly helpful for guessing strategically on questions you’re stuck on—so when all else fails, you can feel like you have a solid plan and a fighting chance to get the right answer.

We’ve divided all the GMAT tips and tricks into three categories: overall GMAT tips (for all sections), tips that are particular to a section or question type, and tips for streamlining the day of the test.

General GMAT Tips and Tricks

Below are some overall GMAT tricks and shortcuts that apply across all the sections.

Practice on a Computer

The GMAT is over three hours long and is taken entirely on a computer. So on top of the mental fatigue, you’re also facing eyestrain, neck pain, and upper back soreness! Make sure you’re prepared by doing as much prep as possible on the computer.

A great place to start is the free GMATPrep software. The software is official, costs nothing, and features two real full-length GMAT practice tests. If you haven’t already, download the GMATPrep software and take one of these two tests. Jot some notes down afterward—not just about how it went, but how you felt throughout the process. Could you have sat up a bit straighter? Did you need to blink and look away several times? The more you practice on a computer, the better you’ll be able to assess your stamina.

Use Online GMAT Forums to Break Down Questions and Answers

If you can’t find the answer explanation for a problem that challenged you, you should google it. If you guessed, or even if you solved the problem correctly but the process took you longer than one and a half minutes, you should still google it.

If you couldn’t figure it out efficiently (or at all), chances are that someone else couldn’t either, and they’ve posed the question to the broader community of GMAT preppers online. In fact, almost every single question in any official GMAT software or books has an answer explanation for free online. GMAT Club, Manhattan Prep’s GMAT Forum, and Beat the GMAT are all great forums to use for answer explanations; just be sure that the person posting the answer is a reliable enough source (like a verified GMAT instructor or an expert who’s been “upvoted” many times).

On the off chance that you can’t find the question and answer explanation, then sign up for one of the above forums and post the question yourself!

Use Process of Elimination

It is far easier to eliminate wrong answers than it is to pick the right one. So, when you’re unsure about answer choices on a given question, try to eliminate all the wrong ones first. Make a case for why each one is wrong (even if you don’t believe it’s wrong, go ahead and argue to yourself that it is anyway). The choice that is the hardest to disprove will likely be the right answer.

Move On After 2.5 Minutes Max

Particularly on Quant, some of the more challenging questions do require a full two minutes and change to execute. But many of them can be answered more quickly than that by implementing an applicable math shortcut or property. So if, on timed practice tests or the real thing, you find yourself taking forever on a question that seems to involve a crazy amount of steps, you’re probably forgetting the rule that you need to solve it efficiently. And doing it out “the long way” is a trap, because it leaves you with a lot less time and mental energy for the rest of the questions.

Remember, your GMAT score goes down much more if you don’t finish a section than if you guess incorrectly on a handful of questions.

So rather than investing three or more minutes on any one question, use process of elimination to make a strategic guess. And no matter what, move on after two to two and a half minutes. If you’re working on a practice test, be sure to go back and review the answer explanation for that question when you’re done. Was there a property or shortcut that you were supposed to use to solve the problem more efficiently? If you really were supposed to multiply all eleven of those numbers together on your scratchboard, then I’ll eat my shorts!

The Major GMAT Tricks and Shortcuts for Each Section

There are also several key GMAT Tips and Tricks for each section.

GMAT Tricks and Tips: Verbal Section

Below are some GMAT tips and tricks for the different kinds of questions you’ll see on the Verbal section. These are just the key tips; for a longer, complementary list, head to our guide to tips and tricks for the Verbal section (coming soon).

Sentence Correction Tip 1: When in Doubt, Go Short

In addition to the rules of grammar, you also have to keep an eye out for concision and clarity on sentence correction questions. Often—but not always—the most concise answer will be the correct one. When in doubt, scan the shortest of the answer choices for errors, and then pick it if you can’t find any.

Reading Comprehension Tip: Read the Passage First

When you come across a passage-based question, read the passage first, not the question. This is often the better strategy for two reasons. First, you can only see one question at a time, but there will be three or four questions for each passage. So if you read the passage trying to “hone in” on the answer to the first question, you might subconsciously disregard aspects of the passage that are important for the subsequent questions.

Second, even questions that seem to be about a small detail or sub-topic will require a holistic understanding of the passage to answer correctly. You actually have a better chance of identifying the right answer in the majority of questions if you aren’t biased toward one detail or sub-topic, but are reading for the main idea instead.

Critical Reasoning Tip: Read the Question Stem First

Conversely, for critical reasoning questions, it’s a great idea to read the question stem before reading the argument. This way, you can determine what type of question you need to answer, and read the argument looking for what you need. For example, if it’s a “weaken the argument” question, you’ll be looking to identify the conclusion of the argument, keeping an eye out for any flaws. But if it’s an “inference” question, you won’t be looking for flaws, as inferences are an extension of the argument (not statements that weaken it).

GMAT Tricks and Tips: Quant Section

Below are the major GMAT tips and tricks for the Quant section. For more tips beyond the big ones, head to our guide to GMAT tips and tricks for the Quant section, which complements this list (coming soon).

Use a Scratch Pad

You’re given a laminated scratch pad with five yellow grid double-sided pages and a non-permanent wet erase marker to take notes on during the real GMAT. The pages are about the size of those on a legal pad, and it looks like a cross between a dry erase board and a flip pad or sketchbook. The surface of the GMAT scratch pad is plastic, which will feel different from writing with pen or pencil on paper. The thin wet erase marker takes some getting used to as well.

In your test prep, you should practice with a scratch pad to get used to the feel and the space confinements. Manhattan Prep has created a GMAT test simulation booklet and marker that are almost identical to the ones you’ll receive at the GMAT. You can purchase the simulation booklet here. Alternatively, to create a DIY version, just purchase a yellow grid legal pad and a slender Sharpie-sized marker. It won’t be exactly the same, but you’ll get the feel for the size and shape of both.

Check out our guide to tips and tricks for the GMAT scratch pad for more on how to use these unusual tools most effectively in your note-taking.

Plug in Numbers

As stated above, many GMAT Quant questions don’t require you to solve all of the many equations embedded within them. Sometimes picking a simple number and substituting it for the unknown variable works even better—and makes the problem simpler and easier—than actually solving the complex algebraic equation.

If you’re given one or more conditions for a number (that it has to be prime, for example), make sure that the number you pick meets all of the conditions. But be careful to avoid making assumptions beyond these conditions. For example, if your question states that a, b, and c are consecutive numbers, you can’t then assume that a<b<c or that a>b>c. All you know is that they are consecutive—you don’t know the exact order in which they each occur.

Moreover, you don’t want to pick a number that represents a possible exception to the general rules of a condition. For example, 2 is the only even prime number and can lead to some confounding results when worked with in an equation, so you may not want to choose it as your “plug-able” number in a prime numbers question.

The last rule of thumb is to plug in numbers that are easy to work with. Don’t use a crazy number like 163—the whole point is to make the problem easier! As long as they meet all the rules of the conditions given (and don’t have their own confounding special properties), simple numbers like 3, 4, 5, etc. should be fine.

This trick helps a lot for data sufficiency questions, in which you’re explicitly given conditions to test. But you can often “test out” the answer choices for a problem solving question with this method as well: just plug the choices in, do the equation(s) with them, and cross off the choices that don’t work. Usually there’s a faster way to get to the right answer, but this method can be a lifesaver when you really just don’t know how else to solve a given question. I like to start with the number in the middle, so that even if it doesn’t balance the equation, I can determine whether the number that will work will be higher or lower (and rule out the values above or below it accordingly).

Data Sufficiency Tip: Work Methodically Through the Choices

With their unchanging list of answer options, data sufficiency questions lend themselves perfectly to a special kind of process of elimination: You should always work through the answer choices in the same order.

We’ve pasted the choices below for your review. Note that they won’t come with A-E lettering on the real test (we’ve put that in to make referring to them easier); instead, they’ll each have a bubble to the left that you’ll click on to indicate the answer.

First: test statement 1. If it isn’t sufficient to find one and only one answer, then eliminate (A) and (D). If it is sufficient, eliminate (B), (C), and (E). Next, test statement 2. If it isn’t sufficient and statement 1 also wasn’t sufficient, then either (E) or (C) is the answer. If it is sufficient and statement 1 wasn’t sufficient, then (B) is the answer.

You should only put the statements together if, after testing each statement for sufficiency by itself and going through the process of elimination above, both statements are insufficient. At this point, there are only two options: either they’re sufficient when taken together, or they’re not. If putting them together gets to only one answer, then (C) is the answer. If not, then (E) is the answer.

Problem Solving Tip: Look at All the Answer Choices Before Solving

This is generally a better strategy than solving the problem right away and then looking for a choice that matches your solution, as the choices themselves can provide clues to how to solve the problem—especially if there’s a property or shortcut that can help you do so.

For example, if a question appears to ask you to multiply many large numbers together but the answer choices are all in exponent form and are all an order of magnitude away, then you might be able to just estimate and find the closest answer. As always, the GMAT almost never requires you to do extremely laborious equations out by hand—they want to see that you can get to the right answer efficiently (as an excellent businessperson would)!

GMAT Tricks and Tips: Integrated Reasoning Section

Below are some of the key GMAT tips and tricks for the challenging Integrated Reasoning section. For more, check out our guide to the GMAT Integrated Reasoning section.

Brush up on Graphs and Data Presentation

While the IR section relies largely on the same math, verbal, and critical reasoning skills that you need for the other sections of the GMAT, there is one unique skill set that you will need in addition: the ability to interpret various graphics, like bar graphs, scatter plots, and line graphs.

Before you take the test, you should get comfortable interpreting data from a variety of graphs, charts, and simple spreadsheets so that you can readily understand each graphic that comes your way. There’s a lot of work in the GMAT IR section in only 30 minutes, so you don’t want to waste time trying to figure out how to read a certain type of graph.

Don’t Try to Use Every Piece of Information

Some of the information given in an IR question setup will be unnecessary. Your task is not to interpret every piece of information, but rather to sift apart what’s important and what isn’t. Looking over the data first may help you get your bearings, but then you should read the question. Think carefully about what it’s asking and what you need to know—and don’t need to know—to answer it.

Then, you can look directly for relevant information and pick it out from the table, chart, graph, or passage before you.

Read All the Labels, Including Units!

It may seem time-consuming at first, but you should make sure you read all the little pieces of writing on or near the data, including titles of charts/graphs, the labels for the x and y-axes, column names, and even footnotes, if any. While you won’t need every piece of information, you will need a thorough comprehension of the data in order to answer corrections correctly.

Along these lines, you should definitely take note of the unit of measurement: some answer options will require converting units (from meters to centimeters, for example), and you don’t want to fall into such an easily avoidable trap!

GMAT Tricks and Tips: Analytical Writing Assessment

Below are the key GMAT tricks and shortcuts for the Analytical Writing Assessment.

Design a Template

The AWA doesn’t require more than a fairly formulaic essay to get a perfect score. A template can help you pre-plan out your essay as much as possible in advance, so that all you have to do on test day is fill in the specific variables unique to your prompt. Check out our in-depth guide to the GMAT AWA Template for more on what the AWA template is and how to create one for yourself.

Spend the First Five Minutes Planning Your Essay

Even if you’re armed with a stellar template, you should still always spend about five minutes planning and outlining your essay before diving into the writing. This includes identifying the flaws that you’re going to discuss and the order you’re going to discuss them in, so you can avoid having to rewrite or reorganize your essay halfway through.

GMAT Tips and Tricks for Test Day

Even if you’re fully prepared for the content, there are other variables that can affect your performance. The tricks and tips below will ensure that nothing trips you up on test day.

Pack Ahead of Time

Imagine that you’ve studied your heart out, gotten a great night of sleep, and then you get to the test center…and you’ve forgotten a photo ID!

That’s why you should pack for the GMAT the night before. Our post on what you should bring (and not bring) to test day includes a printable packing list, so you don’t even have to think about it (you can save that precious “thinking” energy for the actual test)!

Plan to Arrive 15-20 Minutes Early

The last thing you want to do is to bring your anxiety level up by risking running late. Plan to arrive at the test center at least 15 minutes before you take the test. My rule of thumb for arriving early to any location is to use the map app on my phone to plot out when I should leave my apartment to arrive on time—and then subtract 20 minutes from that departure time.

Use Your Breaks Fully

As stated above, the GMAT is over three hours long. That’s a long time to sit in one place! Even if you don’t feel like it at the time, you should absolutely take advantage of both of the breaks given to you. Get up, go to the bathroom, stretch, and drink water and eat some nutritious snacks from your locker during each of the eight-minute breaks. Your body and brain need this rejuvenating activity to reduce anxiety and increase focus for the sections to come.

What’s Next?

For more in-depth GMAT tips and tricks for each question type, check out our guides to the best tricks for the Verbal section and the Quant section.

Are you just starting on your GMAT study journey? It might help to look over our post on how to start preparing for the GMAT for tips on how to plan out your test prep.

Alternatively, here are some additional strategies for how to beat the GMAT, as well as the best GMAT resources to practice with to test these strategies out and improve your score.

Good luck!

The post The 19 Best GMAT Tricks and Tips appeared first on Online GMAT Prep Blog by PrepScholar.

The essay portion of the GMAT, known as the Analytical Writing Assessment, probably doesn’t resemble the kinds of essays that you’ve written for college.  Luckily, the essay task itself and the prompts that you’ll encounter for it are fairly formulaic. This means that your approach to writing the essay can be boiled down into a template. A template is like a blueprint or a model: it gives you a predesigned, customized format and structure. You’ve likely written outlines for essays before—the GMAT essay template is similar but a bit more detailed, as anything that is standard can be pre-written out, so that all you have to do is fill in the specifics. 

If you’ve already done some research, you know that there are several variations of GMAT essay templates out there—both individual high scorers and a few test prep companies have offered up their own template styles, based on the approaches they like best. In this post, we’ll go over what the GMAT essay assignment is, how a template can help you nail it, and give you a few example templates that reflect different kinds of approaches you can take. Finally, we’ll discuss how to make your own template based on what works best for you.

What Is the GMAT Essay Assignment?

For the Analytical Writing Assessment, you will be given a single, one-paragraph prompt containing some kind of argument. The prompts often center on debates from the business or political worlds and are sourced from the editorial and op-ed sections of magazines and newspapers, annual company reports, memorandums, proposals and the like.

While this prompt changes from test to test, the directions are always the same, so you should memorize them in advance. I’ve reproduced them for you below:

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.

In other words, you have only one task for the GMAT essay: to write a critique of the given argument. Invariably, every single GMAT argument will have flaws—faulty assumptions, inadequate evidence, sampling or statistical issues, vague words (such as “many” or “few”), unsuitable comparisons, information or considerations that have been overlooked, and so on.

Many GMAT essay prompts will contain more than one of these flaws. Your critique should consist of an in-depth analysis that exposes them, and (if applicable) suggestions of ways to fix the flaws or otherwise improve the argument.

The best approach is to pick apart the prompt bit-by-bit: point out each flaw the author makes, challenge it using your own reasoning and specific counterexamples that support your claims, and suggest ways the author could fix the flaw and thereby improve the validity of their conclusion.

Do not present your own views on the argument at hand. Regardless of the prompt, you should always make the case that the given argument is flawed—not whether or not you agree with it.

What Does a GMAT Essay Need to Get a Top Score?

In designing a functional GMAT AWA template, you should take into account how you’re graded on the essay, what the score range is, and what skill areas a top-scoring essay will demonstrate mastery over.

As you may already know, your GMAT AWA essay is graded on a scale of 0-6 in half-point increments, once by a human reader (usually an English or Communications professor) and once by a computerized grading program called E-Rater. If the two different scores differ by less than one point, the two scores will be averaged to get your final scaled score. If they differ by greater than one point, a second human reader will step in.

Both the human reader and E-Rater grade holistically, with four skill areas taken into account: content (relevant, persuasive ideas, reasoning, and examples); organization (using an organized and cohesive structure to present your argument); language use (diction and syntax), and grammar.

In other words, to get a 6, you’ll need:

• A targeted, accurate analysis of the given argument’s main flaws, with excellent reasoning and supporting examples, and suggestions for how to fix the flaws or otherwise improve the argument.
• A logical organization—introduction, conclusion, and body paragraphs in which the progression of your ideas makes sense, and skillful use of transition words and phrases.
• An excellent command of grammar.
• Varied sentence structures—avoid using any sentence stem (EG, “this is not true because”) over and over again.
• Sophisticated, precise vocabulary and some display of very basic economic terms (only when called for—this includes concepts like supply and demand, capital expenditure, and so on).

How a GMAT Essay Template Helps

While a GMAT writing template can’t really help with grammar, it can address all of the other considerations by providing a detailed blueprint for your essay. An effective GMAT essay template will include the following features:

• The structure of your essay, paragraph by paragraph
• The kind of content that should be in each paragraph
• Varied and sophisticated pre-written sentence stems (as in, the beginning part of a sentence) for the main kinds of flaws

You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) do anything very creative or innovative in your AWA response—the top-scoring essays are fairly standard, often sharing the same basic structure and similar kinds of analyses. Therefore, a GMAT AWA template is an incredibly useful tool for ensuring that you address every moving piece of the argument and successfully perform the written and analytical task required of you.

In short, a GMAT writing template gives you a proven plan of action to take with you on test day, so that you can write an essay that hits all the right notes while conserving mental energy for the sections that matter most: the Integrated Reasoning, Quant and Verbal sections.

Example GMAT Essay Templates

Slight variations aside, there are essentially two main styles of template for the GMAT essay: one that saves suggestions for improvement for the end, and one that includes them in each body paragraph (one for each “flaw”).

No matter which template you’re using, you should always spend about five minutes planning and outlining your essay before diving into the writing. This includes identifying the flaws that you’re going to discuss and the order in which you’re going to discuss them, so you don’t find yourself having to rewrite or reorganize halfway through.

Sample GMAT AWA Template 1: Flaw-by-Flaw

The first method is to dedicate each body paragraph, two to three in total, to analyzing a different flaw of the given argument. This analysis includes suggestions for improvement within each body paragraph. I’ve included some sample sentence stems that I myself have written, so you can see them in action.

• Intro Paragraph (2-3 sentences)
  • One sentence summarizing the argument
    • EG: “This argument makes the case that ____________ “
  • State your thesis, which is that the given argument is flawed
    • OPTIONAL: Acknowledge that the author’s case isn’t all bad
    • EG: “Though the argument is compelling at face value, its conclusion is ultimately untenable because it rests on ________ ”
      • [Introduce your examples in the blank space: insufficient evidence, assumptions that may not apply, etc.. Do this in the order in which you will discuss them.]

• 2-3 Body Paragraphs (5+ sentences)
  • Introduce one of the specific flaws
  • Explain why it is a flaw
    • EG, for insufficient evidence: “The fact that ______ does not necessarily support the claim that _______. In fact, this evidence could warrant numerous other conflicting claims, including that _______.
  • IF APPLICABLE: Give a counterexample, and explain why it works to undermine the argument.
    • EG: “____ is an example of a successful company in the same industry whose strategy is based on the opposite premise: that ______.”
  • IF APPLICABLE: Suggest ways to fix the flaw
    • EG: “Some additional evidence that would fix this issue and truly bolster the argument is _________ “

• Conclusion Paragraph (3-4 sentences)
  • Re-state that the argument is flawed
    • EG: “Overall, this plan of action rests on too many logical fallacies to be viable for _____ ” [company X]
    • OPTIONAL: Re-acknowledge that the author’s side has some merit
  • Briefly recapitulate your reasoning (using new words)

Sample GMAT AWA Template 2: Save Improvements for the End

You might find that not every flaw can be fixed, or that some of your suggestions for improvement cover more than one flaw. If this is often the case for you, consider starting with this second template instead, as it saves the suggestions for the end of the essay.

• Intro Paragraph (2-3 sentences)
  • One sentence summarizing the argument
    • EG: “This argument makes the case that ____________ “
  • State your thesis, which is that the given argument is flawed
    • OPTIONAL: Acknowledge that the author’s case isn’t all bad
    • EG: “Though the argument is compelling at face value, its conclusion is ultimately untenable because it rests on ________ ”
      • [Introduce your examples in the blank space: insufficient evidence, assumptions that may not apply, etc.. Do this in the order in which you will discuss them.]

• 2-3 Body Paragraphs (5+ sentences)
  • Introduce one of the specific flaws
  • Explain why it is a flaw
    • EG, for insufficient evidence: “The fact that ______ does not necessarily support the claim that _______. In fact, this evidence could warrant numerous other conflicting claims, including that _______.”
  • IF APPLICABLE: Give a counterexample, and explain why it works to undermine the argument.
    • EG: “Moreover, ____ is a prime example of a successful organization in the same industry whose strategy is based on the exact opposite premise: that ______.”

• Conclusion Paragraph (5+ sentences)
  • Re-state that the argument is flawed
    • EG: “In conclusion, while it may seem to make sense for ______, this plan of action as presented rests on too many logical fallacies to be viable for _____ ” [company/organization X]
    • OPTIONAL: Re-acknowledge that the author’s side has some merit
  • Briefly recapitulate your reasoning (using new words)
  • Give suggestions for how the author could fix these flaws and/or improve the argument
    • EG: “One way to fix the sampling issue is to ______ “

A slight variation on this: Sometimes you can’t find three different flaws in the prompt to discuss. In this case, feel free to use the conclusion outline from the first sample template, and make your third body paragraph devoted to improvements instead.

How to Make Your Own GMAT Essay Template

In writing your own essays, you may find that one of the templates given above works best for you, or you may find it more effective to combine different elements of each. The most important thing is to formulate and practice with a set GMAT essay template well before you take the real test.

Try each template out as is (excluding my sentence stems) on a different essay prompt. Afterward, take a stab at grading your own essay, and then jot down notes on what went well and what didn’t work for you as much. Does the essay seem to “flow” better when you leave the flaws for the conclusion? Alternatively, it easier to just go flaw-by-flaw, including a suggestion to mitigate each (if you can come up with one) in each body paragraph, and having a shorter conclusion instead? Are there any turns of phrases that were particularly clever, that you might want to reuse on other essays?

Once you’ve practiced writing two different essays and reviewed your post-essay notes, you should be able to come up with a template that works for you, including some clever canned sentences or sentence stems that you can reuse for the common flaws across prompts, like the ones I used above. Once you’ve formulated a template of your own, practice with it on two to three more essays to see how it holds up in action. Note that your template is never going to work 100% perfectly: a little flexibility should be baked in, so that you can vary your wording a bit from prompt to prompt.

Pre-Writing Your Essay and an Important Note on Avoiding Plagiarism

It’s totally okay to use a GMAT essay template, and it’s even okay to create those sentence stems for preemptively constructing your critique—what’s not okay is using the exact wording or specific ideas that were written by another person. For example, you can use the “summarize the issue, acknowledge the author’s point, and state your thesis about how the argument is flawed” template for your introduction, but you shouldn’t use the sentence that I gave you illustrating this thesis in action (“Though this argument is compelling at face value, its conclusion is ultimately untenable because it rests on ______ “).

The same goes for anything you’ve read online or in a test prep book: while it’s a great idea to Google and read other essays on the practice prompts that you find challenging during your prep, you shouldn’t use anyone else’s words if you encounter such a prompt on test day.

In short, everything you write has to be your own words, but they can be your own words that you yourself came up with beforehand. And there are some key advantages to doing a bit of pre-writing beforehand: that way, you can just plug in the specific details from the prompt. You can even plan your transition words ahead of time, as I did in some of the examples above.

However, as you’ll notice when you get going on your essay prep, the templates are not always one-size-fits-all. You may find an argument that doesn’t fit the mold, in which case you’ll have to improvise a bit.

For example, here’s a real GMAT essay prompt from the list of official prompts released by the GMAC:

The big problem with this argument, unlike other GMAT arguments, is that it doesn’t support its conclusion at all. It’s more or less just a conclusion—there’s very little specific flawed reasoning to work off of. So, in your essay, you might focus mostly on what else you would need to evaluate the argument—like all the different kinds of reasoning and evidence that the author would need to further support this conclusion.

The Bottom Line: Using a GMAT AWA Template

Ultimately, you should use the sample templates above as a jumping-off point to formulate your own GMAT AWA template. And you should be comfortable with your template (and the plan-of-attack baked into it) well before test day.

Still—it’s a good idea to expect the unexpected. Practice using your template on a wide array of GMAT prompts, not just ones that deal with plans-of-actions for corporate, which are the most common. Writing more than six essays is likely overkill, but going through four to five practice essays on a variety of different topics will help you test out your GMAT writing template and ensure a top score on the real thing.

What’s Next?

Now that you’re well-versed in GMAT writing templates, check our guide to the best GMAT writing prompts to get going on your AWA practice (coming soon).

We also have a more in-depth guide to format, scoring, and tips for the GMAT AWA.

Alternatively, if you’re just getting started with your overall GMAT prep, you may want to go over what to expect on the all the other sections of the GMAT.

Happy studying!

The post The Best GMAT Essay Template to Help You Ace the AWA appeared first on Online GMAT Prep Blog by PrepScholar.

The Verbal section of the GMAT often gets the short end of the stick when it comes to discussion, and there’s very little free information out there focusing solely on this oft-neglected part of your Total score. So if you’ve navigated to this article, you’re probably wondering: how high of a score do you need to do “well” on the GMAT Verbal? How do business schools assess Verbal scores and percentiles, and what’s a good score for your target schools? You might be wondering exactly how much your Verbal score affects your Total score as well. 

Luckily, you’ve come to the right place! The below guide will give you all the important context for understanding the Verbal score on the GMAT. We’ll give you the entire GMAT Verbal score range, the general parameters for a “good” score and a “great” score, and all the guidelines for setting a target Verbal score for yourself.

How Is the GMAT Verbal Section Scored?

First, let’s quickly review how the Verbal section is scored. Just like Quantitative scores, Verbal scores on the GMAT reach from 0 to 60 in single-digit increments. However, in practice, the top of  the GMAT Verbal score range is 51—so a 51 is considered a perfect score on either section. 

Along with your scaled score, you will also be given a percentile ranking. This corresponds to the percentage of test-takers whom you scored higher than. For example, if you scored in the 75th percentile on the Verbal section, this means you did better on that section than 75% of people who took the exam. This percentile is based on the last three years of GMAT scores, so if you took the test in 2014, your 75th percentile score would encompass all GMAT-takers from 2012 through 2014.

Thus, while scaled scores are static, percentiles can (and do) change over time. Percentiles help contextualize your scores by comparing them with those of other applicants, and they are assessed by business schools along with the scaled score to see how you measure up.

What’s a Good GMAT Verbal Score Overall?

Now that we know how scoring works, we can get right into what constitutes a good GMAT Verbal score. At a basic level, a good GMAT Verbal score is one that gets you into the program of your choice, which means it can vary quite a lot depending on where you plan to apply.

However, we can still draw some rough conclusions about what generally qualifies as a good score. To see the full GMAT Verbal score range and get a sense of how your score stacks up, check out the GMAT Verbal percentile table below.

(Data used is from 2013 through 2015, the most current available data from GMAC.)

As you can see, it is very, very challenging to score highly on the Verbal section. Scores above 44 are rare; anywhere in the 45 to 51 range puts you in the top 1% of test-takers. A score of 40 or above puts you in the top 10%. A score of 36 puts you in the top 20%. A score of 28 or above puts you in the top 50%. The mean (average) score on the Verbal is a 28.6, up one point from 27.8 ten years ago.

So a 36 or above would generally be considered a “good” score on the Verbal section. This puts you in the top 20% of test-takers and, even outside of percentile rankings, demonstrates to business schools that you can safely handle all the reading and writing required of you in an MBA curriculum (more on this below).

But the Verbal score doesn’t just stand on its own: understanding how the Verbal score raises or lowers the Total score is just as important for assessing what a “good” GMAT Verbal score means in context.

How Does the GMAT Verbal Score Influence the Total Score?

As stated above, it’s important to know that your Verbal score will both stand on its own and factor into your Total score. The Total score is a scaled score encompassing the Verbal and Quantitative sections: it reflects a combination of your performance on both for a more holistic measurement of your aptitude. It is the score referred to most often and is the most important part of your GMAT score for your business school application.

The good news: This two-section combination means that there are multiple ways to get the same Total score on the GMAT. The exact way in which the Quant and Verbal scores are mediated is proprietary to the GMAC, but from data from years past, you can roughly say that one point up on one section and one point down on the other will yield about the same Total score. For example, a 51 on the Verbal and a 35 on the Quant would yield about a 700 Total score, as would a 50 and a 36, as would a 49 and a 37, and so on all the way through a 35 on the Verbal and a 51 on the Quant.

Now, the bad news: GMAT Quant scores have skyrocketed in recent years—in turn raising Total scores. This is largely due to the changing demographics of test-takers worldwide: according to the Wall Street Journal, “Asia-Pacific students have shown a mastery of the quantitative portion” of the GMAT, and these students now “comprise 44% of current GMAT test-takers, up from a decade ago, when they represented 22%.”

By contrast, as stated above, scores on the Verbal section have risen by just 1% over the last 10 years. But the rise in Quant scores still means that it’s harder to land in the same Total score percentile as students from years past—you’d have to do extremely well on the Verbal to compensate for the increased Quant competitiveness.

But don’t get too demoralized! While understanding these percentile trends is important, it’s good to remember that the scaled scores themselves are static. Scaled scores are designed to be an absolute, timeless metric for judging how prepared you are for academic success in a graduate-level management program. Business schools absolutely expect that someone who scored a 40 on the Verbal in 2017 is just as likely to succeed in the classroom as someone who scored 40 on the Verbal in 1987, even though the corresponding percentile rankings have changed since then.

How Much Do GMAT Verbal Scores Actually Matter to Business Schools?

At this point, you understand what a good score on the Verbal section is and how this metric can raise or lower your Total score. But what do business schools think about all this? Do they care equally about the Quant and the Verbal, or is your Total score by itself the only thing that matters?

Unfortunately, schools don’t release statistics on Quant/Verbal score breakdowns—just the Total score itself—so it’s difficult to tell what qualifies as a high or low Verbal score at a given school. This omission also reflects the the general importance of the Total score.

However, surveys of and interviews with admissions personnel indicate that business schools generally give more weight to the Quant score, as graduate-level management courses are largely math-intensive. Moreover, schools do give some leeway to international ESL (English as a second language) students, who aren’t as likely to score highly on the Verbal section as native English speakers.

Ultimately, business schools definitely prefer a balanced score on both sections to one with a drastic difference between the two. As stated above, not all equal Total scores are created the same. Doing terribly on either the Quant or the Verbal, or having a drastic difference between scores, signals to admissions that you might lack the skills necessary to succeed in all parts of an MBA curriculum.

In general, because business schools care more about the Quant section and because it is extremely hard to score highly on the Verbal, your scores are far more likely to raise a red flag if Quant is the one on the low side.

For example, if you get a 720 Total score on the GMAT by getting an amazing 51 on the Verbal but a 37 on the Quant, that would put you in the bottom 40% of Quant scorers and would definitely call into question whether or not you could handle the math-intensive coursework in an MBA program. However, if you get a 720 by getting a 51 on the Quant and a 36 on the Verbal, that would still put you in the top 20% of Verbal scorers—which likely wouldn’t raise any red flags about your ability to succeed in class.

There’s also an element of personal variability to consider: If your professional or academic background is light on math, it will be more important for you to do well on the Quant section to demonstrate to admissions that you can handle the corresponding work in an MBA curriculum. On the other hand, If you’ve taken a ton of high-level math courses and have worked in a math-heavy field, you’ll likely be well prepared for the Quant anyway and may want to spend more of your study time on Verbal—to show your target schools that you’re just as capable of reading and writing at management level.

What’s a Good GMAT Verbal Score for Top Business Schools?

What are the best business schools looking for when it comes to your GMAT Verbal score?

Every year, the top-ranked business schools release the average or median GMAT Total scores for their incoming classes. Using this information and US News & World Report’s 2017 business school rankings, we have calculated that the average GMAT score for the top 10 business schools in America is currently about 722.4. This includes Harvard Business School, Stanford, University of Chicago (Booth), University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), Northwestern University (Kellogg), MIT (Sloan), Dartmouth (Tuck), Berkeley (Haas), Yale, and Columbia.

Note that to get a 720 Total score—which hits this average and places you in the top 10% of scorers worldwide—you’ll likely need at least a 36 on the Verbal. And that’s only if you get a perfect 51 on the Quant!

So, if, you’re targeting top business schools like these, a good, though ambitious, goal would be to aim for at least a 40 on the Verbal, which would put you in the top 10% of test-takers (as you can see from the GMAT Verbal percentile table above). If your Quant scores are stellar, then it’s okay to dip into the high 30s on Verbal—but really nailing the Verbal section can’t hurt in your quest to stand out from the pool of high-scoring Quant applicants.

Now that you’re an expert on GMAT Verbal scores and how they are assessed by business schools, let’s discuss how to determine what a good one is for you personally.

How to Determine a Good GMAT Verbal Score for You

The first thing to do is to make a chart with the business schools you are targeting and their average (or median, if they don’t list the average) Total GMAT scores. You can use our handy GMAT score target worksheet to do so. The worksheet will help you figure out what your target Total score should be based on the highest score on the list.

However, it won’t help you set a goal for the section scores, which involves a bit more guesswork. Remember that a good verbal score for you is one that gets you to that goal Total score, so the trick is to estimate roughly where you need to score on the Verbal to reach your overall goal.

First, determine your baseline score (or starting point). Download the GMAT Prep Software and take a practice test. Do your best to simulate test-day conditions (a quiet room where you won’t be interrupted, no food or water except during timed breaks, and so on). After you’re done, the software will calculate your scaled scores, Total score, and percentile rankings for all five sections, including the Verbal.

Based on the difference between your Total score and your goal score, you can estimate how much you need to improve on Verbal and Math: a 2-3 point increase on Verbal or Quant corresponds to a 20 point increase of the Total score. (This estimate is based on crowdsourced data and is not 100% reliable, but it should give you at least a rough idea.) Then you can set Verbal and Quant score goals that will get you the Total score you’re aiming for, keeping in mind that your Quant score will ultimately be more important than your Verbal score.

For example, if my baseline is 650 Total, 33 Verbal, and 47 Quant and my goal is a 700, I’ll want to increase about six points across the two sections. I’m currently right around the 70th percentile on both sections, but I have a lot more room to improve on Verbal, so I’ll set my Verbal goal as 38 and my Quant goal as 48.

Ultimately, a good Verbal score for you is one that enables you to hit the Total GMAT score that would put you safely in the average for your target schools, without letting Quant dip too far below it.

What’s Next?

Check out our guide to what makes a good, excellent, and bad GMAT score for more on how business schools assess your performance on all sections of the GMAT. If you’re still feeling iffy on the basics, you should read our comprehensive breakdown of how GMAT scoring works first.

When you’re ready to get started, read through our 23 expert GMAT study tips to jumpstart your test prep. Do you find that you’re totally burned out by the time that you even get to the Verbal section? You’re not alone: read our nine tips for making it through the full GMAT length.

To increase your Verbal score specifically, study our GMAT Reading Strategies guide (coming soon).

Happy studying!

The post What’s a Good GMAT Verbal Score? appeared first on Online GMAT Prep Blog by PrepScholar.

The reading comprehension part of the GMAT Verbal section can be intimidating at first. You have to glean key ideas and information from dense, jargon-filled passages, which probably don’t resemble the kinds of articles you read for fun.

Luckily, whether you love these kinds of passage-based questions or they fill your heart with dread, there are a number of tried-and-true strategies that you can use to improve your score. In this post, we’ll give you all the tips and tricks you need to ace GMAT reading comprehension—including how to approach the passages overall, how to attack the questions, and how to pace yourself so that you spend just the right amount of time on them.

GMAT Reading Comprehension Overview

You always have 36 questions in total on the GMAT Verbal Section. Of those, you’ll encounter about three or four reading comprehension passages, each with three to four multiple-choice questions associated with it. So that makes for 9-16 reading comprehension questions, or roughly one-third of the GMAT Verbal section devoted to reading comprehension.

Within that, there will usually be three “short” passages of 200-250 words with three questions, and one “long” passage of 300-350 words with four questions. Occasionally, you might get two of each. The passages are sourced from textbooks, journals, periodicals, scholarly articles and the like, and they center on topics from the natural and social sciences, the humanities, and the business world. Note that no outside knowledge is expected in any of these domains—all the information you will need to answer the questions is in the passages themselves.

The GMAT uses a split-screen presentation for reading comprehension questions: the passage is presented in its entirety on the left side of the screen, while the questions associated with it are presented one-by-one on the right side. This means that you can always see the passage, but you can only see one question at a time. Plus, as with every other section and question type on the GMAT, you cannot go back to the previous question—your answer, once you click “next,” is final.

The reading comprehension questions on the GMAT are designed to test your ability to “understand, analyze, and apply information and concepts presented in written form”. Within this, you’ll need to:

• Understand words and statements
• Identify logical relationships between ideas and concepts
• Draw inferences
• Point out flaws in assumption and reasoning
• Understand and follow quant concepts as presented in writing

The GMAT uses a few distinct question styles to test these different skills, all of which we discuss in the next section!

GMAT Reading Comprehension Question Types

Reading comprehension questions on the GMAT focus on your ability to understand the given passage on either a micro/”little picture” level or macro/”big picture” level. Accordingly, all the reading comprehension questions you’ll encounter on the GMAT will fall into one of the following categories.

Main Idea

Main idea questions ask you to summarize the passage as a whole or to identify the author’s overall purpose in writing the passage. You might see questions asking you to pick out the “central” or “main” idea or asking you what the author was “primarily concerned with.”

Often, the answer choices given don’t use exactly the same language as the passage itself: they want to see that you really understand the main idea, as evidenced by being able to recognize it even when it’s phrased differently. They especially want to see that you can recognize the macro-organization of a passage and not get derailed by details or sub-topics.

Supporting Ideas and Details

Conversely, details questions do ask you to identify facts, details, descriptions or sub-topics. The details they ask about will always be explicitly stated, and sometimes the relevant part(s) of the passage will be highlighted to make it easier for you to find it. Thus, they’re often the easiest (or at least the most face-value) questions in a given set. They begin with phrases like “According to the passage” and “the passage states that.”

Inferences

Inference questions, on the other hand, ask you to identify what is implied by the author but not explicitly stated. Rather than “the passage states that,” these kinds of questions will begin with something like “the passage suggests that,” so you immediately know that you’ll need to connect the dots yourself. Nevertheless, the correct answer is always supported by the passage.

Out-of-Context

Out-of-context questions ask you to apply information from the passage to a different context. They often ask you to identify a parallel situation or analogous example. You’ll also see out-of-context questions asking whether the author would agree or disagree with something. Unlike inference questions, out-of-context questions use ideas or situations that aren’t from the passage.

Logical Structure and Organization

Logical structure questions center on function. Sometimes you’ll be asked to assess how a passage is constructed (does it define an idea, compare and contrast, refute an idea, etc.); other times you’ll be asked to recognize underlying assumptions, strengths, and weaknesses of the passage’s argument—as well as potential counterarguments.

Also falling under this category are questions that ask how the author persuades the reader—as opposed to what the author is persuading the reader of (which is more of a main idea question).

Style and Tone

Style and tone questions ask you about the author’s expression of ideas through diction, or word choice. You may have to deduce the author’s attitude toward a specific idea he/she brings up or identify the tone of the passage as a whole. Words like “critical” and “enthusiastic” often appear in the answer options for these kinds of questions.

Should You Read the Passage or Question First?

Now that you’re familiar with the kinds of passages and questions that you’ll see, let’s talk about the order in which you should approach them.

The first option is to read the entire passage first, then attack each question. The second option is to read the first question first—just the question, not the answer choices—to get an initial idea of what you’re looking for before you start reading the passage. Feel free to practice both ways to see which one works best for you.

Ultimately, though, I recommend reading the passage first.

Why? Because you’re only able to see one question at a time on the GMAT. You might be able to skim the passage with that first question in mind and get to the right answer, but then the next question could be on a completely different facet of the passage, and you’ll be ill-prepared to answer it. Moreover, even a question that seems to be specific to one detail probably requires a holistic understanding of the passage in order to answer it correctly.

How to Approach the Passages: 7 GMAT Reading Comprehension Strategies

Nest up, let’s go over the best GMAT reading comprehension strategies for attacking the passages. After that, we’ll talk about the best GMAT reading comprehension tips for answering the questions, and then we’ll put all of this into action on a few of the real, official GMAT sample questions.

Practice Pacing Yourself

The Verbal section gives you 65 minutes for 36 questions, or a little under two minutes per question. But reading comprehension questions are going to take a bit longer than the critical reasoning questions, and significantly longer than the sentence correction questions. You should budget enough time to read these passages carefully—rather than skimming—in order to absorb all the important ideas and details.

That said, you don’t want to spend a ton of time decoding each word or sentence. If you really don’t “get” a sentence, don’t read over it more than twice, because you’ll lose a feel for the passage as a whole—you can come back to it if you need to for a specific question.

Plan your time accordingly: A good rule of thumb is to spend six minutes on a short passage with three questions, and eight minutes on a long passage with four questions. Two to three minutes should be spent on the initial reading, and the rest should be spent on the questions (including time to refer back to the passage as needed).

While you’re doing practice questions, consistently set a timer to get used to the recommended pace. This way, you can get timing down to an instinct before you take the real GMAT.

Watch for Transition Words and Phrases

Transition words track the relationship among ideas—as well as among the bits of reasoning and evidence that support or negate them. There are five main categories of transition words that you should know and recognize for the GMAT:

• Cause-and-effect: words like “consequently,” “because,” and “thus” and phrases like “as a result.”

• Agreeing/further expounding upon the same argument: words like “similarly” and “furthermore” and phrases like “in addition.”

• Adding evidence: phrases like “for instance” and “in fact.”

• Contrast or opposition: words like “yet,” “however,” and “nevertheless” and phrases like “on the other hand” or “in reality.”

• Conclusion: Phrases like “all in all” and “in essence,” which indicate that the author is about to sum up or conclude their point. “Thus” can sometimes be used as a conclusion word as well.

Paying close attention to these words will help you follow the logical progression of a passage as you’re reading. Unless the passage actually centers on defining a concept, understanding the relationship among ideas and the author’s train of thought as the passage goes on is more important than doing a deep dive into what the ideas actually mean.

This is especially true if a passage is heavy in jargon (like natural science ones often are): the GMAT doesn’t care if you understand what “suprachiasmatic nuclei” is. They care that you can understand the role it plays in the passage’s main idea or thesis.

Abbreviate Jargon

Along these lines, you should abbreviate jargon and technical terms in your mind as you read. Any time you see a long technical term, a Latinate scientific name, or something similar, you should mentally shorten it to the first syllable. If it’s more than one word, abbreviate it into its initials. Either way, let your eyes gloss over the rest of the letters.

Many questions will abbreviate these terms anyway. For example, you might see something like “SN” in reference to “suprachiasmatic nuclei” in questions or answer options.

In general, you can think of jargon as a decoy: it’s there to distract you from tracking the logical progression of the passage and the point the author’s trying to make. Don’t fall into this trap!

Make a Mental Summary

GMAT reading comprehension passages often follow a typical structure: the main claim or point will be at the beginning, the next paragraph elaborates, and the next concludes. Even for ones that deviate slightly from this outline, you should still try to identify the main point as soon as possible—and then read each paragraph with an eye for how it builds or relates to the main point. After every paragraph, stop and take a moment to distill the “key idea” of the paragraph and fit it into your mental summary of what you’re reading. If the passage doesn’t have separate paragraphs, stop after every couple of sentences or right before a transition word.

Your mental summary should contain two parts: what and why.

• What: What’s being said?
• Why: Is the author trying to convince us of something or just laying out information? What’s the point of each paragraph, and why organize them that way?

One great trick is to simplify your summary as if you have to explain the passage to a little kid. This will help you distill complex passages down into their most straightforward, absorbable message.

Watch Out for Multiple Viewpoints

Sometimes a passage will contain multiple viewpoints—the viewpoint of the author and a viewpoint he/she disagrees with, multiple disparate viewpoints that the author is trying to mediate, etc. Take note of this: there will almost certainly be a question or two that tests your ability to distinguish, compare, or apply the different viewpoints presented. So these viewpoints should be a part of your mental summary: if they’re there, they’re there for a reason.

Find a Reason to Be Interested

It may seem counterintuitive, but to some extent, you really can choose whether or not you care about what you’re reading.

For example, let’s say you’re learning about bird migration patterns. Think about how cool it is that birds migrate in the first place. How amazing is it that they’re just born with the knowledge to fly thousands of miles south in the winter, and then back when it gets warm again up north? That’s so cool! Of course scientists want to understand how this works—and you do, too!

Okay, so I’m at risk of getting a little hokey here. But the point stands: find a way to engage with the passage. Find a way that it relates to the kind of knowledge that you might seek out in your own time. You’re more likely to absorb the passage well if you’re interested in what you’re reading.

Take Notes

Most people think that the scratch board you’re given while taking the GMAT is just for the Quant section. This isn’t necessarily true: if there’s a single use case for it on the Verbal section, it’s reading comprehension. You don’t want to waste time writing down every detail, but on a passage-as-a-whole level, it can save time in the long run to jot down your mental summary as you read. You should then use your notes to help guide you on the questions.

Taking these kinds of notes is a good idea for most if not all students, but if you’re resistant to it, here are what I consider to be the three biggest use cases for taking notes:

• You’re the kind of reader who finds it helpful to annotate the books you read for class.
• In practice questions, you find that you’re consistently having a hard time answering “big picture” (main idea, inference, out-of-context, logical structure) questions.
• Your eyeballs start to gloss over what you’re reading, and/or you find you have to read the passage multiple times to “get it.”

Of course, no one strategy works for every single student. Ultimately, you should practice both taking and not taking notes for the passages, and see which way works best for you.

Don’t Do This: Speed-Read or Skim

It bears repeating: GMAT reading comprehension questions require a thorough understanding of the passage. While you can (and should) simplify jargon in your mind as you read, you shouldn’t rush through the passage or just read the first and last sentence of every paragraph.

For one thing, you can’t see what you’re going to be asked beyond the very first question, which makes it hard to read predictively. You might unintentionally gloss over parts of the passage that will be important for a coming question. Moreover, as we just mentioned, the “next-level” questions (such as inference and out-of-context questions) will require a holistic, in-depth understanding of both the main idea and important details and how they interrelate. Overall, skimming and speed-reading can leave you poorly prepared for whatever lies ahead.

The Single Most Important Takeaway

Above all, the most important strategy for approaching the passages is to always read with the “main claim” or “main idea” in mind. Whether the author is making an argument or simply laying out information, there will always be a main idea that governs the passage’s content and organization.

4 GMAT Reading Comprehension Tips for Answering the Questions

Now that we’ve discussed how to approach reading the passages, let’s get into how to attack Reading Comprehension GMAT questions themselves.

#1: Make Sure You Answer the Question Being Asked

This may seem obvious, but the GMAT loves to give you answer options that are factually correct given the information in the passage but which don’t actually answer the question being asked. For example, if the question is asking you to identify an “assumption” behind a particular statement, the answer isn’t going to be something explicitly laid out in the passage. Likewise, if you’re being asked to identify a “main idea,” it’s not going to be a piece of supporting evidence.

#2: Stick to What You Can Prove With the Passage

Don’t bring in outside knowledge, even if you’re familiar with the topic being discussed. The “right” answer should always be 100% supportable by the passage alone.

#3: Read All the Answer Choices and Use Process of Elimination

Getting rid of wrong answers is an integral part of the process of getting to the right answer. Even if you’re absolutely 100% sure of your chosen answer, you should always take the time to briefly check the other options and make sure you can discount them before moving on.

This is also a good strategy for when you’re stuck between answer options: focus on disproving each one, and then go with the answer option that is hardest to disprove. It’s almost always easier to weed out the wrong answers than it is to find the right one.

#4: Familiarize Yourself with Incorrect Answer Types

In your test prep, don’t just find the right answer and move on: practice asking yourself why the other answer options are incorrect. You’ll start to see patterns in the wrong answers that are given, including:

• Too broad: In main idea questions especially, you’ll need to watch out for answer options that take the main idea of the passage just a little bit too far. Sometimes this can hinge on a single word: something like “all,” “never,” or “every” that makes it too extreme of a statement given what’s in the passage.

• Too narrow: A cousin of “too broad,” the “too narrow” answer options might get at a specific detail but not the main idea, making them incorrect answers for a main idea question.

• Reversed causal or temporal relationship: Some answer options will “flip” a relationship. They’ll say that B caused A when the passage really states that A caused B, or they’ll say something came first in the process when it really came later on.

• Not supported by the passage: The easiest to eliminate, these answer options bring in information or ideas that weren’t mentioned at all in the passage.

• Supported by the passage but doesn’t answer the question being asked: As we said above, this is a very common wrong answer type, which is why it’s so important to make sure you fully understand what the question is asking before picking an answer. “Too narrow” falls into this broader category, but there are other kinds of decoy answer options that come up as well: options that are too much of an inference for a details question, options that are too explicit for an inference question, and so on.

Finally, let’s see these GMAT reading comprehension strategies in action with some sample questions.

Reading Comprehension GMAT Examples

Check out out GMAT reading comprehension tips in action on the passage and questions below.

Passage

Passage Summary

Before I get into the questions, I’ll take a moment to summarize the passage:

• Main idea: a computer simulation of the Geminid meteor stream has found that meteor streams broaden over time and form a hollow pipe shape.
  • Contrasts with conventional theories, which predicted broad, but centrally dense (not hollow)
  • Data from real Geminid meteor shower supports hollow shape theory: two bursts of showering when earth entered and exited the pipe

Note how I drilled the passage down to just the key ideas—this is more or less what your own notes and/or mental summary should look like for this passage.

Question 1

First, let’s look at the question and nail down exactly what it’s asking of us. This is a logical structure question, which we know because it’s asking us to identify an assumption underlying a statement in the passage. It has kindly directed us specifically to the last sentence: “The time intervals between the bursts suggest the actual Geminid stream is about 3,000 years old.”

Clearly, you can’t answer this question by reading the last sentence by itself—or even the last paragraph. You need to understand the context (what the author’s argument is) in order to correctly identify the implicit assumption at work here.

It’s hard to predict what exactly they’re looking for in this question, as there are many potential assumptions underlying that last sentence. So it doesn’t make sense in this particular question to try to come up with your own answer first. Let’s go straight to the answer choices instead:

(A) is a classic “supported by the passage but doesn’t answer the question” option. It restates something said explicitly in the passage, and it has to do with data that was discovered—not an underlying “assumption.” Eliminate it.

(B) brings in information that isn’t supported by the passage: we are never told about the state of the meteor, and even if we were, it wouldn’t seem to have any bearing on using time intervals between meteor shower bursts to measure the age of the stream. Eliminate it.

(C) takes a number that was brought up a few times—5,000 years—and misapplies it. 5,000 years was the projected period for the computer modeling experiment, not a prediction of how long a real comet stream “should” exist. Eliminate it.

(D) tests your understanding of how multiple theories compare and contrast in this passage. The conventional theory is that meteor streams will broaden and become denser at the center. The new experimental finding is that meteor streams will broaden and become a hollow, thick-walled pipe. Both of them agree on the broadening, just not on the specific shape. Thus, (D) intentionally misinterprets the experimental finding. Eliminate it.

(E) gives us some food for thought. The passage does imply—but never explicitly states—that the data from the real Geminid meteor showers supports the computer model’s findings. The computer model had predicted that if the stream were 5,000 years old, it would take earth 24 hours to pass through. It actually took earth 19 hours to pass through, which—according to the computer model—makes the stream about 3,000 years old.

“According to the computer model” is never stated; it’s exactly the assumption underlying the application of an age to the actual meteor stream. As in, the author has taken the meteor shower data as “proof” of the computer model’s validity, and then turned around and used the computer model to date the real thing. So (E) is correct.

Question 2

First, as always, let’s think about what the question is asking. It’s a details question, so we’ll have to find something explicitly stated in the passage.

Now, take a look at the answer options: they deal with words like “velocity,” “time,” and “gravity.” Where in the passage did they talk about these things? It was in the first paragraph. Let’s refer back to it, since the explanation of the physics of meteor dust was a bit tricky.

The passage states: “A meteor stream is composed of dust particles that have been ejected from a parent comet at a variety of velocities. These particles follow the same orbit as the parent comet, but due to their differing velocities they slowly gain on or fall behind the disintegrating comet until a shroud of dust surrounds the entire cometary orbit.”

“Due to their differing velocities”—or, in simpler words, traveling at initial speeds that differ from each other—is the key here. Because they break off from the comet at different speeds, they gain ahead or fall behind it differently, ultimately landing in a variety of orbital positions and forming a kind of cloud. Choice (A) nails it, but we should still make sure we can eliminate the other options.

(B) directly opposes what’s stated in the passage: they are “perturbed” by planetary gravitational fields eventually.

(C) is a misinterpretation of the text—we’re dealing with velocity, not time.

(D) does get at the fact that the differing velocities don’t continue on forever, as the particles do “slowly gain or fall behind” the comet itself, but it doesn’t answer why the particles form a shroud around the comet, so it doesn’t answer the question being asked.

(E) brings in information never stated in the passage. All we know for certain is that the ejection velocities of the particles differ from each other, not the comet itself. Plus, some of the particles do “gain on” the comet, which implies that they’re traveling faster than the comet itself. So this answer option is at best speculative and at worst contrary.

We can safely stick with (A), the correct answer.

Question 3

This is clearly an inference question. The author is asking us to hypothesize about what would happen if the conventional theories were true as opposed to the experimentally proven one. It’s not an out-of-context question, as it’s asking us about a situation within the passage, not outside of it.

So, given that the passage gives us the answer for the new theory, can we extrapolate from that what would happen for the conventional theory? First, we have to identify what the conventional theory really is. Here’s where that passage summary really comes in handy: We have distilled that the computer model (and ultimately supported) theory is the ‘hollow pipe’ theory, and that the conventional theory is the ‘centrally dense’ theory. If bursts happen when earth enters and exits the walls of the pipe, what would happen if earth passed through a centrally dense formation?

(A) makes perfect sense. The showers would gradually increase to a peak at the center, and then decrease again. All of the other answer options point to a different shape: (B) implies that the stream is uniform throughout; (C) reverses the pattern, matching more closely to the hollow “walls” theory than to the conventional theory; (D) implies a random shape; and (E) implies that there are no particles at all in the outer regions, rather than just a less-dense clustering of them.

GMAT Reading Comprehension: Key Takeaways

TL; DR? You’ll encounter roughly 9 to 16 reading comprehension questions on the GMAT. While the questions vary, they all essentially test your ability to understand an argument or identify the important ideas and information from a given passage. You should:

• Read the passage carefully.
• Look out for the main idea/main viewpoint, and for the interrelationship among sub-concepts/other viewpoints.
• Pay special attention to transition words, but gloss over jargon.
• Make a written or mental summary as you read.
• Attack the questions by using your summary and eliminating wrong answers strategically.

No matter what, the most important thing is to nail down the best mix of the above strategies and tactics for you well before you take the real GMAT. Don’t deviate from your plan on test day: sticking to the tried-and-true approaches will ensure that you do your best.

What’s Next?

Now that you’re an expert on reading comprehension GMAT questions, check out these similar posts on the best strategies for sentence correction questions and critical reasoning questions. (coming soon)

Wondering about the best way to study for the GMAT? Check out these tips for designing your GMAT study plan. (coming soon)

Other than reading comprehension, are you familiar with the format and question types on the rest of the GMAT? Our guide to the full GMAT exam pattern has samples of each and every question type.

When you’re ready to start taking practice tests, read through our guide to the best 28 GMAT practice tests to help you prepare for the exam. Good luck!

The post The 11 Best GMAT Reading Comprehension Strategies appeared first on Online GMAT Prep Blog by PrepScholar.

Luckily, we’ve done the hard work of distilling everything you need to know about GMAT exponents! In this post, we’ll cover all the relevant rules, properties, formulas, and shortcuts. We’ll also walk you through an example of every main kind of exponent question that you’ll encounter on the test, so you can see these formulas in action. By the end, you really will be an exponent expert!

What Are Exponents? Definitions and Terminology

Below are the basic definitions and terms that you need to know for GMAT exponents. Most of this is probably very familiar to you, but make sure you understand everything before moving on.

Definition of Exponents

Let’s start with the basics. An exponent indicates how many times a given number should be multiplied by itself. The number itself is called the base number, and for any base number $k$, the exponent $n$ says how many times to use that number in a multiplication. The exponent is written in superscript to the right of the base number:

$$k^n$$

We’re most familiar with the “square,” which is what it’s called when the exponent is 2.

$$k^2 = k × k$$

But an exponent can be any number. Here are some basic examples:

$$2^2 = 2 × 2 = 4$$
$$3^2 = 3 × 3 = 9$$
$$4^2 = 4 × 4 = 16$$
$$5^2 = 5 × 5 = 25$$

$$2^3 = 2 × 2 × 2 = 8$$
$$3^3 = 3 × 3 × 3 = 27$$
$$4^3 = 4 × 4 × 4 = 64$$

$$2^4 = 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 = 16$$
$$3^4 = 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 = 81$$
$$4^4 = 4 × 4 × 4 × 4 = 256$$
$$5^4 = 5 × 5 × 5 × 5 = 625$$

Another common term for exponents is “powers.” We can refer to $k^n$ as “the $n$th power of $k$,” or “$k$ to the power of $n$.” Raising any number to the power of 2 is called squaring that number, and raising the number to the power of 3 is called cubing the number.

Definition of Roots

The square root of any number $y$ is a number that, when squared, equals $y$. (If $y = k^2$, then $k$ is the square root of $y$.)

The same goes for the cube root: the cube root of any number $y$ is a number that, when cubed, equals $y$.

And so on for every exponent.

The square root of any number is represented by this symbol, called a “radical”:

$$√4 = 2$$
$$√25 = 5$$

Any root beyond a square root (cube roots and up) is represented by a little number in superscript to the left of the radical that indicates the power. Below are examples of cube roots:

$$√^3{8} = 2$$
$$√^3{125} = 5$$

Properties of Exponents

Now that we’ve reviewed the definitions, let’s get into the properties of exponents that you need to know for the GMAT.

Property of the Exponent 1

Any number to the power of 1 is just itself, which is why you don’t really see numbers with exponents of 1 next to them, as it just isn’t necessary.

$$2^1 = 2$$
$$8^1 = 8$$
$$5093^1 = 5093$$

Property of the Exponent 0

Any number to the power of 0 is 1:

$$2^0 = 1$$
$$5^0 = 1$$
$$217^0 = 1$$
$$509395934234^0 = 1$$

Squaring a Number Between 0 and 1

As you can see from the examples above, when you square (or raise to any higher power than 2) a base number that is greater than 1, the result will be a larger number.

When you square (or raise to any higher power than 2) a base number that is between 0 and 1, the result will be a smaller number. Here’s an example:

$$(1/2)^2 =1/4$$
$$1/4 < 1/2$$

Positive and Negative Powers

Positive and negative powers and their roots have particular properties.

Every Positive Number Has Two Square Roots

Every positive number has two square roots: the positive square root, and the negative square root. This is because a negative multiplied by a negative is a positive. Here’s an example:

$$√4 = 2  (-2)$$
$$2 × 2 = 4$$
$$(-2) × (-2) = 4$$

Cubes and Other Odd Powers Have Only One Real Root

Cubes, on the other hand, have only one real root, because a negative times a negative times a negative equals a negative, and a positive times a positive times a positive equals a positive.

$$√^3{8} = 2$$
$$2^3 = 8$$
$$√^3{-8} = -2$$
$$(-2)^3 = -8$$

Odd powers will always have the same sign as their roots.

Negative Squares

The square root of a negative number is not a real number.

$√(-9)$ = not a real number

This applies to all even powers ($x^2$, $x^4$, $x^6$…and so on)

Negative Exponents

Any base number to a negative power equals 1 divided by the base number to the positive version of the exponent:

x^-r = 1/x^r  , where $r$ is any positive integer and $x$ is any positive number.

$$5^(-2) = 1/(5^2) = 1/25$$

Fractional Exponents

Fractional exponents look tricky at first. Here are all the equivalencies ($x$ is any positive number and $r$ and $s$ are any positive integers):

$$x^{r/s} = (x^{1/s})^r = (x^r)^{1/s} = √^s{r}$$

The two middle steps here simply illustrate the ‘exponent to the power of another exponent’ rule; the most important thing to remember is that x^r/s = ^s√(x^r). Let’s see this in action:

$$27^{2/3} = (27^{1/3})^2 = (27^2)^{1/3} =√^3{27^2} = √^3{729} = 9$$

$$8^{1/3} =√^3{8} = 2$$

$$9^{1/2} = √9 = 3$$

So any number to the power of $(1/2)$ is just the square root of that number, and any number to the power of $1/3$ is just the cube root, and so on.

The Cyclicity Property

Successive powers have what’s called a “cyclicity” that manifests in the units digit. Take 3, for example:

$$3^1 = 3$$
$$3^2 = 9$$
$$3^3 = 27$$
$$3^4 = 81$$
$$3^5 = 243$$
$$3^6 = 729$$

Pay attention to the units digits. Notice a pattern? The last digit repeats itself after a cycle of 4, and the cycle is 3, 9, 7, 1.

This repetition of numbers after a particular stage is called the cyclicity of numbers. This comes in handy when you need to find the unit digit of a given number to a certain power on a GMAT question, as you just need to find the number on which the cycle stops.

Rules for Manipulating Exponents

Below are the rules for doing algebra and arithmetic with exponents that you’ll need to know for GMAT exponent questions.

Multiplying and Dividing With Exponents

Below are the rules for multiplying and dividing with exponents. Note: You can’t combine bases or exponents when adding or subtracting terms—the algebraic equivalents are much more complex. Which is why we’re jumping first into multiplication and division!

Multiplying and Dividing with Same Base, Different Exponents

If you have to multiply two values together that have the same base number but different exponents, you can simply add the exponents together. Here’s an example:

$$3^2 × 3^5 = 3^(2+5) = 3^7 = 2187$$

Algebraically, this rule is represented as follows:

$$x^r × x^s = x^(r+s)$$

where $x$ is any positive number and $r$ and $s$ are any real numbers.

This division rule is the opposite of the rule above. If you have to divide two values together that have the same base number but different exponents, you can simply subtract the exponent of the denominator from the exponent of the numerator:

$${x^r}/{x^s} = x^(r-s)$$

where $x$ is any positive number and $r$ and $s$ are any real numbers. Here’s an example:

$$4^5/4^2 = 4^(5-2) = 4^3 = 64$$

Multiplying and Dividing with Different Bases, Same Exponent

If you have to multiply numbers with the different base numbers but the same exponent, you simply multiply the base numbers and keep the exponent as it is:

$$x^r × y^r = (xy)^r$$

where $x$ and $y$ are any positive numbers and $r$ is any real number. Here’s an example

$$3^2 × 5^2 = (3 × 5)^2 = 15^2 = 225$$

For division, the opposite rule applies. A fraction to any positive power equals the numerator to that power divided by the denominator to that power:

$$(x/y)^r = {x^r}/{y^r}$$

where $x$ and $y$ are any positive numbers and $r$ is a real number.

$$(3/4)^2 = {3^2}/{4^2} = 9/16$$

Exponents Raised to Another Power

Exponents can be layered, like in this example:

$$(4^2)^3$$

When you have a value with an exponent raised to the power of another exponent like this, you simply multiply the two exponents:

$$(4^2)^3 = 4^(2×3) = 4^6 = 4096$$

In general terms, we can write the rule as such:

$$(x^r)^s = x^{rs}$$

where $x$ is a positive number and $r$ and $s$ are real numbers.

Simplifying Exponents and Base Numbers With Factors

Base numbers that are already squares, cubes, etc of other numbers can be simplified. To use the square root as a base number, you multiply the exponent by 2 to get an equivalent expression. Here’s an example:

$$4^14 = (2^2)^14 = 2^28$$

For the cube root, you’d multiply the exponent by 3:

$$8^7 = 2^21$$

And so on for all the powers.

GMAT Exponent Practice Problems

Below are examples of the key kinds of GMAT exponent questions you will encounter on the exam, including data sufficiency and problem solving varieties.

GMAT Exponent Question 1: Exponents and Cyclicity

This question is simpler than it looks! We just need to find the cyclicity of powers of 4 and powers of 9. One thing you can do is plug in number values for $a$ and $b$, starting with 1 for each. Let’s do $a$ first:

If $a$ = 1, $x$ = 4¹ = 4
If $a$ = 2, $x$ = 4² = 16
If $a$ = 3, $x$ = 4³ = 64
If $a$ = 4, $x$ = 4⁴ = 256

…Notice a pattern yet? There is a cycle of 2: the units digits for powers of 4 is either 6 or 4.

Now let’s do $b$:

If $b$ = 1, $y$ = 9¹ = 9
If $b$ = 2, $y$ = 9² = 81
If $b$ = 3, $y$ = 9³ = 729
If $b$ = 4, $y$ = 9⁴ = 6561

The units digits for powers of 9 is either 9 or 1, so there’s also a cyclicity of 2.

Now, let’s multiply the possibilities of units digits for $x$ with the possibility of units digits for $y$. A cycle of 2 possibilities times a cycle of 2 other possibilities = 4 possible combinations: (4×9), (4×1), (6×9), and (6×1)

$$4 × 9 = 36$$
$$4 × 1 = 4$$
$$6 × 9 = 54$$
$$6 × 1 = 6$$

So we’re looking for either 6 or 4. (B) is the answer.

GMAT Exponent Question 2: Exponents, Cyclicity and Remainders

Cyclicity is a concept that comes up a lot on the more challenging GMAT exponent questions, so we’ve included another example. Unlike the last question, this one doesn’t ask directly about units digits, which makes it even tougher!

We’re given that $n$ is a positive integer, so the cyclicity rule applies here. First, let’s find the cyclicity of 3, so we can determine the units digit of 3⁽⁸ⁿ⁺³⁾ :

3¹ → the units digit is 3
3² → the units digit is 9
3³ → the units digit is 7
3⁴ → the units digit is 1
3⁵ → the units digit is 3 again

… and so on

So, the units digit of 3 in positive integer power has a cyclicity of 4 for the units digit (3, 9, 7, 1).

3⁽⁸ⁿ⁺³⁾ will have the same units digit as 3³, which is 7, which we can see when we plug in values for $n$ in 3⁽⁸ⁿ⁺³⁾:

$n$ = 1 → 3¹¹, units digit is 7
$n$ = 2 → 3¹⁹, units digit is 7
$n$ = 3 → 3²⁷, units digit is 7

Thus, the units digit of 3⁽⁸ⁿ⁺³⁾ + 2 = 7+2 = 9.

Lastly, we have to divide by 5. Any positive integer with the units digit of 9 divided by 5 gives the remainder of 4. The answer is (E).

You could also just plug in an easy number for $n$ from the start and do some heavy multiplication and long division, but this will take much longer, since the calculations are very unwieldy.

GMAT Exponent Question 3: Factors and Simplifying

First, let’s simplify 4¹⁷ to get to the same base number:

4¹⁷ = 2³⁴, so we have 2³⁴ – 2²⁸

Remember, this is a subtraction equation with exponents, which means we can’t do the same simple swapping that we can with division: 2³⁴ – 2²⁸ does NOT equal 2⁶. Instead, let’s do a factoring and utilize the distributive property. A common factor of 2³⁴ and 2²⁸ is actually 2²⁸:

$$2^34 – 2^28 = 2^28 × (2^6 – 1) = 2^28 × (64 – 1) = 2^28 × 63$$

Suddenly, this problem is a lot easier. 2²⁸ is made up of all only 2’s, so the greatest prime factor is just going to be 2. What about the prime factors of 63?

$$63 = 9 × 7 = 3 × 3 × 7$$

So the prime factors of 2²⁸ × 63 are 2, 3, and 7. Hence, the largest prime factor is 7, and (D) is the answer.

GMAT Exponent Question 4: Negative Exponents

Remember: odd powers have the same sign as their roots, so given that $-37 = x^5$, then $x$ must also be negative.

The next thing to acknowledge is that, since we don’t have a calculator, we’re not going to be able to find the 5th root of -37. And the GMAT wouldn’t want us to: they want us to use our understanding of exponent rules and properties to get to the right answer.

So first, let’s try to find a known number whose value when raised to the fifth is in the ballpark of -37, so we can establish a baseline. $x = -2$ fits the bill:

$$(-2)^5 = -32$$

That’s pretty close. What happens when we try $x = -3$?

$$(-3)^5 = -243$$

That’s way off. So $x$ must be a teeny tiny bit less -2 (remember, we’re in the negatives here, so less means a tiny bit closer to -3 on the number line). Something around (-2.1). Even though that sounds vague, that’s all we need to know to estimate our way to the right answer.

We can easily eliminate (B), since we’ve already shown that $x$ must be less than -2.

We can also eliminate (C), since $(-2)^2 = 4$, and $x$ is actually a little more like (-2.1), so it’s definitely not going to be less than 4.

We can also get rid of (A). $√-x$ is about equal to $√-(-2.1)$, and the double negative cancels out, leaving $√2.1$. There’s no way the $√2.1$ is greater than 2.

$x^4$ would be $(-2.1)^4$, or 16.something, so it’s definitely not greater than 32.

That leaves us with (D). Let’s check it:

$$x^3 ≈ (−2.1)^3 ≈ −8.something.$$

-8.something, no matter what that “something” is, is definitely less than −8.nothing, so option (D) must be true.

GMAT Exponent Question 5: Exponents and Consecutive Integers

Some GMAT questions combine exponents with the concept of consecutive integers. Here’s an example:

Let’s solve this one by picking numbers.

Let $r$ = 1, $s$ = 2, and $t$ = 3:

$$3^r + 3^s + 3^t = 3 + 3^2 + 3^3 = 3 + 9 + 27 = 39$$

The greatest prime factor of 39 is 13 (13 × 3 = 39).

Does this work for every consecutive integer set? Let’s pick another and see. Let $r$ = 2, $s$ = 3, and $t$ = 4:

$$3^r + 3^s + 3^t = 3^2 + 3^3 + 3^4 = 9 + 27 + 81 = 117$$

The greatest prime factor of 117 is 13 (13 × 3 × 3 = 117).

We can now see that this will work for every consecutive integer set. (E) is the answer.

GMAT Exponent Question 6: Data Sufficiency and Exponents

Here is a typical data sufficiency exponents question:

Rather than jumping right to the statements, let’s first simplify the question stem. The rule for dividing with the same base, different exponents tells us that $x^(r-s) = x^r/x^s$. So:

$$5^(−k) < 5^(1−2k)$$
$$= 5^(−k) < 5^1/5^2k$$
$$= 5^(k) < 5$$

Now, onto statement 1. Let’s rearrange it slightly:

$$2 < 1 – k$$
$$2+k < 1$$
$$k < -1$$

If $k$ is less than -1, then $5^k$ will always be less than 5, as $5^k$ would equal $1/5^(+ version of k)$. So statement 1 is sufficient.

Onto statement 2.

$$2k<3$$
$$= k < 3/2$$

If $k$ is less than 3/2 or 1.5, $k$ could still be some value like 1.4, and 5^1.4 is greater than 5. So statement 2 is insufficient.

The answer is B.

4 Key Tips for GMAT Exponents

GMAT exponent practice problems can be challenging. Here are our top tips for nailing them.

#1: Memorize the Exponent Rules and Properties Above

The key to GMAT exponent questions is to know the above exponent rules and properties cold. Many exponent questions will not explicitly say so, but they’ll require you to spot the applicability of one of the rules for multiplying, dividing, cyclicity, etc. Implementing these rules with ease will help you simplify equations that seem more complex than they really are.

#2: Memorize Squares of 2-15 and Units Digits Cycles Through 12

Just like you drilled your multiplication tables as a kid, you should drill all the squares of 2 – 15. Also, for those pesky digit and remainder questions, it’s helpful to memorize the units digits exponent cycles for 2-12.

For the lower numbers (like 2 – 5), you may even want to memorize up to the fifth power.

This instantaneous knowledge comes in very handy, like on GMAT Exponent Question 4 above, in which it was extremely helpful to know offhand that 2⁵ = 32.

Here are all the squares of 2-15:

2² =4
3² =9
4² =16
5² =25
6² = 36
7² =49
8² = 64
9² = 81
10² =100
11² = 121
12² = 144
13² = 169
14² = 196
15² = 225

For cyclicity questions, here is an ordered list of units digit cycles for 2-12 powers:

2 = 2, 4, 8, 6
3 = 3, 9, 7, 1
4 = 4, 6
5 = 5
6 = 6
7 = 7, 9, 3, 1
8 = 8, 4, 2, 6
9 = 9, 1
10 = 0
11 = 1
12 = 2, 4, 8, 6

#3: Pick Numbers Strategically

Many GMAT exponent practice problems don’t require you to solve all of the equations within them. Sometimes picking a simple number and substituting it for the unknown variable works even better—and makes the problem simpler and easier—than actually solving a complex algebraic equation. Just like in example question 5 above, picking a value to stand in for the unknown can save time and make it much easier to visualize and solve the problem.

#4: Estimate When Given Irrational Roots

Some GMAT questions will give you values they know you can’t find without a calculator, like the fifth root of 37 in one of the examples above. In these kinds of questions, you really are supposed to estimate! Use the value that gets you the closest to approximate, and eliminate answer options that can’t possibly work. By that point, there will be only one left.

What’s Next?

Looking for more GMAT exponents practice? We’ve got you covered.

Alternatively, maybe you’d like to move on to everything you need to know about GMAT integers.

We also have some more general GMAT Quant tips and tricks to help you develop strategies to master the Quant section.

Happy studying!

The post GMAT Exponents: Rules, Tips, and Practice appeared first on Online GMAT Prep Blog by PrepScholar.

What’s the difference between “which” and “that”? When is it correct to use one or the other? What kinds of questions will you see about them on the GMAT? These are all great questions. The good news: that vs. which GMAT sentence correction questions aren’t as tough as they appear—even if you’re not a native English speaker.

In this post, we’ll give you all the rules you need to know about which vs. that GMAT questions, an in-depth breakdown of all the kinds of sentence correction questions that test this concept, and some tips for easily distinguishing between the two pronouns (even in long, complex sentence constructions)! By the time we’re done, you’ll be able to nail any that vs. which GMAT question that comes your way.

What Do “That” and “Which” Mean? Why Are They Confusing?

“That” and “which”—along with “who,” “whose,” and “whom”—are in the group of words called relative pronouns. Relative pronouns are found at the beginning of a relative clause. Relative clauses function the same way adjective clauses do: they are used to define, identify, or give extra information about the noun that precedes them.

Here’s an example of a sentence with a relative clause:

Correct: Baklava, which many people love, can be tricky to make.

Here, “which” is the relative pronoun standing in for “baklava.” This sentence is correct as written, but many of you might be wondering: Why can’t it be written with “that?”

Incorrect: Baklava, that many people love, can be tricky to make.

And why does it need commas?

Relative clauses are a category of grammar that the GMAT loves to test you on; fortunately, the two rules below will clarify how to pick correctly between “that” vs. “which” every time.

Rule #1: That vs. Which = Restrictive vs. Nonrestrictive

Consider the following two examples:

In the first example, the relative clause “which were on the counter” isn’t necessary to specify which apples you’re talking about. The subject of the sentence is clear and defined without the additional information. The reader can assume you mean all the apples present, and the same goes for the strawberries.

However, in the second example, the relative clause “that were on the counter” is necessary to specify which apples you’re talking about. Of all the apples, specifically the ones that were on the counter went bad. If you got rid of the “that” clause, the subject would be unclear—so the clause is essential to the meaning of the sentence. It’s not “by the way” information, like the “which” clauses in the first example are.

In official terms, the first example contains nonrestrictive or nonessential relative clauses, and the second example contains a restrictive or essential relative clause.

Restrictive clauses contain information that is necessary for identifying or specifying the nouns they modify. They begin with “that” (or “who,” if you’re referring to a person).

Nonrestrictive clauses contain information that is additional—it may be important stuff to know, but the nouns they’re modifying are clear and defined, even if you got rid of the clause. They begin with “which” (or “who,” if you’re referring to a person).

Rule #2: Nonrestrictive Clauses Get Commas, Restrictive Clauses Don’t

Nonrestrictive clauses are “set off” by commas: one always comes before the clause, and one always comes after. Restrictive clauses do not get commas, as they are integral to the meaning and shouldn’t be “set off” from the rest of the sentence.

This rule is actually pretty intuitive; you’ve likely been doing it correctly without even thinking about it. To illustrate, here are some more examples of restrictive information and nonrestrictive information—and what happens to the meaning of a sentence when you confuse the two.

Restrictive Clauses (“That” Clauses) Have No Commas

Restrictive clauses, as essential parts of the sentence, get no commas (neither a comma before nor a comma after the clause). Here’s an example:

Correct: The gardens that were weeded carefully looked pristine and beautiful next to the ones that were neglected.

Here, of all the gardens, specifically the gardens that were weeded carefully are the ones that look pristine and beautiful. If we took out the relative clauses, the sentence would lose its meaning. Therefore the underlined clauses are restrictive and don’t get commas.

Incorrect: The gardens, which were weeded carefully, looked pristine and beautiful next to the ones, which were neglected.

This sentence is now nonsensical. What are “the ones?” This example illustrates why avoiding commas around restrictive clauses is vital for maintaining the meaning of the sentence.

Here’s another example of what happens when you try to make a restrictive clause nonrestrictive:

Correct: “To run outside in the summer heat, I need a shirt that is loose and comfortable.”

To run outside in the heat, I need specifically a loose and comfortable shirt—not all shirts.

Incorrect: “To run outside in the summer heat, I need a shirt, which is loose and comfortable.”

So…any given shirt is loose and comfortable? This sentence doesn’t make sense!

Nonrestrictive Clauses (“Which”) Have Commas Before and After

You can think about nonrestrictive clauses as more or less a subcategory of parenthetical information (parts of a sentence that you could put in parentheses). A comma is needed before and after the clause, because it’s “interrupting” the flow of the sentence. If the clause were to be removed, the essential meaning of the noun it modifies would stay the same.

Correct: “When I go running, I wear my favorite shirt, which is really worn out.”

In this sentence, the fact that the writer’s favorite shirt is worn out doesn’t change the meaning of the noun “favorite shirt.” It’s simply a detail she decided to add—“favorite shirt” is already specific enough to be clear. Therefore, the clause is nonrestrictive and gets a comma before it, and it would have a comma afterward had the sentence not ended. The clause can be removed without making the noun it modifies suddenly unclear.

Look at what happens when you try to write it as a restrictive clause:

Incorrect: “When I go running, I wear my favorite shirt that is really worn out.”

Now, this sentence implies that of all of her favorite shirts, she specifically wears the one that is really worn out. But this implication is nonsensical, as when we say “favorite” we implicitly mean that there’s only one possible favorite.

What about “Who”?

“Who” is used instead of both “that” and “which” when modifying people—so “who” can go with both restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses.

Here’s an example of a restrictive clause with “who”:

Correct: “Artists who sell thousands of paintings should make millions of dollars.”

In this sentence, the clause “who sell thousands of paintings” is a restrictive clause. It indicates that only those artists who are able to sell thousands of paintings should be paid millions of dollars.

If you tried to set this clause off with commas, it reads as such:

Incorrect: “Artists, who sell thousands of paintings, should make millions of dollars.”

Now, this sentence nonsensically suggests that all artists sell thousands of paintings, and all artists should make millions of dollars.

Here’s an example of a nonrestrictive clause with “who”:

Correct: My mother, who is an excellent seamstress, hems my jeans for me.

If we took out the relative clause, the subject of the sentence would still be clear: my mother. So this “who” clause is nonrestrictive and gets surrounded with commas.

It naturally follows that proper nouns (capital-letter nouns like names or official/branded places and things) can only use nonrestrictive relative clauses. This is because we already know exactly who or what we’re talking about—no additional specifying is needed to be clear. Here’s an example:

Correct: “Robert Frost, who wrote ‘The Road Not Taken,’ is one of the most famous American poets.”

Even if we removed “who wrote ‘The Road Not Taken’”, we’d still know that the subject of the sentence is Robert Frost.

Incorrect: “Robert Frost who wrote ‘The Road Not Taken’ is one of the most famous American poets.”

This probably sounds weird to you anyway, but if it doesn’t, all you need to do is memorize the rule: proper nouns, which include all names, always get nonrestrictive relative clauses.

Rule #3: Pronouns Must Have a Clear Antecedent

Restrictive versus nonrestrictive aside, all pronouns have to have a clear and precise antecedent—meaning, there can’t be any ambiguity about what the pronoun is referring to.

Here’s an example:

Incorrect: Jake was surprised to find he had been voted team captain by his teammates who never had much self-confidence.

Who “who” is referring to in the above sentence is structurally unclear: is it Jake or the teammates who never had much self-confidence?

Presumably the author means that Jake didn’t have much self confidence, so let’s rewrite the sentence to make that apparent:

Correct: Jake, who had never had much self-confidence, was surprised to find he had been voted team captain by his teammates.

Jake is a proper noun, so the “who” clause is nonrestrictive.

If you see a sentence correction question on the GMAT in which it’s ambiguous what noun “that,” “who,” or “which” is standing in for, chances are that you need to reorganize the sentence completely. The right answer will never leave any doubt as to exactly what the relative pronoun is referring to.

Sometimes, the wrong answers will indicate the wrong antecedent for the pronoun, in which case you’ll still need to reorganize the sentence somehow.

3 Which vs. That GMAT Examples

In this section, we’ll walk through one prime example of each kind of that vs. which GMAT sentence correction question.

Example 1: Restrictive Clauses

First, let’s figure out what this question is testing. Look at the answer options: we have a few with “that” after the word “music,” a few with “which,” and varying comma placements throughout. So we can tell that this is a classic which vs. that GMAT question (i.e., restrictive vs. nonrestrictive relative clauses).

Now, we’re ready to solve it. To do so, we first have to identify the noun being modified, to see if the relative clause provides information that it is essential in specifying it.

The noun being modified by the relative clause in this question is the subject “baroque style music.” We don’t need any further specification: of all the music, we already know that talking about specifically baroque style music. Therefore, the clause after “music” should be nonrestrictive, so it should use “which” and have commas before and after it. Already, we can cross off (A), (B), and (D).

Of the two remaining, one contains a different mistake: (C) uses “were,” the past plural form of to be, even though the subject “baroque style music” is singular. (E) is correct as written—there’s no final comma after the nonrestrictive clause because the sentence ends, so that’s okay. (E) is the answer.

Example 2: Nonrestrictive Clauses

Again, let’s take a look at the answer options to identify what concept(s) we’re being tested on. In the first part of the sentence, the placement of the word “only” moves around from option to option, so we’ll have to figure out where it should go to create the most clear sentence. In the second part of the sentence (after “society”), we have a relative clause that needs the correct pronoun, i.e., another classic “that” vs. “which” GMAT question.

For the “that” vs. “which” part, the first step is to identify the noun being modified, just like we did in the first question. The noun being modified by the relative clause is “society”—the author is stating that society compels man to compare himself to others.

To figure out if it’s restrictive or nonrestrictive, let’s ask ourselves: what would happen to the noun “society” if we removed “that compels man to compare himself to others.” Does the noun suddenly become less clear?

In this case, it doesn’t: That society “compels man to compare himself to others” is just additional info about all of society—it doesn’t indicate some specific type of society. Therefore, this clause should be nonrestrictive and use “which” after the comma. Already, we can eliminate (A), (B), and (C).

Let’s get back to the first part of the sentence now. (D) misplaces the “only” so that the sentence becomes nonsensical, so we can rule it out. (E) fixes both issues in the sentence and it’s the correct answer.

Example 3: Ambiguous Pronoun Use

You’ll often encounter sentence correction questions that “bury” which vs. that underneath more obvious errors. In fact, many of the wrong GMAT sentence correction answer options will fix the most obvious error in the sentence but contain other, more subtle errors (like ambiguous pronoun use). They do this on purpose: the incautious test-taker will pick the answer that corrects the main issue without double-checking that other errors aren’t present.

Here’s a classic example:

As always, let’s look over the answer options. We have to decide between “as an expert does” and “like an expert” in the first part of the sentence, and then we have to decide on the best way to format the list of use cases for AI-enhanced computers. At first blush, there doesn’t appear to be any pronoun issues.

For the first part of the sentence, “as an expert does” is a perfectly fine substitute for “like an expert.” So we can’t eliminate any choices there. Let’s go ahead and tackle the second part of the sentence. As written, is contains an issue of parallelism—it should be “decide” and not “deciding.” So (A) is out.

(B) fixes the parallelism issue, but it creates another problem: the use of “which” is unclear. Computers should be the antecedent, but the placement suggests that “expert” could be the antecedent as well. Ambiguous pronoun use is always wrong, so (B) can be crossed off—along with (D) and (E), which suffer from the same issue.

(C) fixes the parallelism issue in the original version and avoids unclear pronoun use by putting “computers” back into the clause. (C) is correct.

2 Tips for Which vs. That GMAT Questions

Below are the key tips for choosing the right answer on that vs. which GMAT questions.

Tip 1: Read The Sentence Without the Clause

To figure out if a clause is restrictive or not, ask yourself if the information is necessary to identify the noun. Does the meaning of the sentence significantly change when you state the sentence without the clause? Does the noun become unclear or undefined?

If yes, the clause is restrictive. Pick “that” and do not put commas around it.

If no, the clause is nonrestrictive. Pick “which” and put a comma before and after it (unless the sentence ends, then it just gets a comma before).

If you’re dealing with people, pick “who” either way, and use the above rules to decide if it gets set off by commas or not.

Tip 2: All or Some?

If you’re still stumped after removing the clause and seeing if the meaning of the sentence holds up, ask yourself if the noun that the clause is modifying is referring to all things of its type or some specific things of its type.

As you may have noticed, the third example GMAT question above happened to contain two restrictive clauses—one before and one after the em-dash. It was restrictive because the author was not talking about all computers, just some specific computers. Of all the computers in the world, the computers that specifically are artificially intelligent enough to understand languages and could do human-level recognition and reasoning tasks were the ones being discussed.

In the second example, the relative clause was modifying the noun “society.” There, the author was talking about all of society—not some specific subtype. This made the clause nonrestrictive.

So, if the clause indicates some specific subtype of the noun it’s modifying, the clause should likely be restrictive; if not, it should be nonrestrictive.

What’s Next?

Our guide to the 11 best GMAT sentence correction strategies is a must read if you’re looking to ace these tricky question types.

Be sure to read through our guide to the six GMAT grammar rules you must know as well.

As always, the best way to get good at sentence correction questions is to practice, practice, practice.

Happy studying!

The post Which vs. That on the GMAT: What’s the Difference? appeared first on Online GMAT Prep Blog by PrepScholar.

Never fear! In this post, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about fractions and decimals for the GMAT. We’ll give you a refresher on all the relevant rules and formulas, tips and tricks for every question you’ll see on them on the GMAT, and some example questions with thorough explanations so you can see these strategies in action.

GMAT Fractions: Rules to Know

Below are all the rules that you need to know about fractions for the GMAT.

Definition of a Fraction

A fraction is a visual representation of a number divided by another number. The top number of a fraction is called the numerator, and it’s the number being divided. The bottom number is called the denominator, and it’s the number that the top number is divided by. 

In the fraction $n/d$, $n$ is the numerator (the top number) and $d$ is the denominator (the bottom number). The fraction 1/2, for example, is 1 divided by 2 or one-half.

0 can’t be the denominator in a fraction, because dividing by 0 is undefined.

Two fractions are equivalent when they represent the same number. For example: 2/8 and 4/16 are equivalent, because they both equal 0.25.

When both the numerator and the denominator can be be divided evenly by the same number, the fraction can be simplified into its lowest terms (the smallest equivalent fraction). The largest number that both the numerator and the denominator can be divided by is called the greatest common factor (GCF) or greatest common divisor (GCD). Dividing both by the GCD simplifies the fraction into its lowest form.

For example, 2 is the greatest common factor of both 2 and 8. For the fraction 2/8, when you divide the numerator and the denominator by 2, you get 1/4—the lowest or most simplified form of the fraction. When dealing with fractions in equations, you almost always want them to be in their simplest forms, so that they’re easier to do calculations with.

Multiplying and Dividing With Fractions

Multiplying with fractions is easy: you just multiply the numerators and multiply the denominators.

For example:

$7/10 × 4/9 = 28/90$ or  $14/45$

To divide with fractions, “flip” the fraction after the division sign (called the divisor) so that the denominator becomes the numerator and vice versa, and then multiply with that number.

Example:

$${7/10} ÷ {4/9} = 7/10 × 9/4 = 63/40$$

This “flipped” version of a fraction is called its reciprocal or inversion. The reciprocal or inversion of any fraction $n$/$d$ is $d$/$n$ (where $n$ and $d$ ≠ 0).

Adding and Subtracting With Fractions

Two fractions with the same denominator can be added or subtracted easily. You simply add or subtract the numerators, and leave the denominators the same.

$$3/8 – 2/8 = 1/8$$
$$5/9 – 1/9 = 4/9$$

If you need to add or subtract with fractions that don’t have the same denominator, then you can do the opposite of simplifying and express them as equivalent fractions with the same denominator. As long as you multiply or divide the numerator and the denominator of a fraction by the same number, it will remain equivalent:

$$3/8 × 9/9 = 27/72$$
$$2/8 = 27/72$$

This gives us an always true rule, which is helpful in algebraic expressions:

$${x + y}/z = x/z + y/z$$

When adding or subtracting fractions with different denominators, multiplying the fractions so that the denominators represent the least common multiple (the lowest number that both denominators factor into) is usually the simplest way to go and makes doing calculations easier than working with larger numbers.

Example:

$$1/3 + 3/4$$
$$LCM = 12$$
$$1/3 × 4/4 = 4/12$$
$$3/4 × 3/3 = 9/12$$

$$1/3 + 3/4 = 4/12 + 9/12 = 13/12=1 1/12$$

By multiplying 3 and 4, we see that the LCM is 12. We then convert both fractions so that they both have a denominator of 12. Then it’s easy to add them together!

Mixed Numbers

A number made up of a whole number and a fraction (like 1 and 1/12 above) is called a mixed number. To change a mixed number into a fraction, multiply the whole number by the denominator and then add the result to the numerator. This then becomes the new numerator.

$$6 4/9 = {(6 × 9)+ 4}/9 = {54 + 4}/9 = 58/9$$

GMAT Decimals: Rules to Know

Below are all the rules you need to know about decimals for the GMAT.

Definition of a Decimal

Decimals and fractions are both ways of representing number values in between integers or whole numbers.

In the decimal system, the distance from the decimal point represents the place value of each number. For example, the number 412.735, has 4 in the “hundreds” place, 1 in the “tens” place, and 2 in the “ones” or “units” place; and then after the decimal, 7 in the “tenths” place, 2 in the “hundredths” place, and then five in the “thousandths” place. Here’s a table illustrating this information:

The Zero Rule

After you pass the decimal point, you can add an infinite number of zeros to the end of a number:

$$1.435 = 1.4350 = 1.4350000000000000000 = 1.43500000000000000000000000000000000000000$$

This rule only applies to after the end of the number after the decimal point:

$$1435 ≠ 14350$$
$$1435 = 1435.0 = 1435.0000000000000000000000000$$

Adding and Subtracting With Decimals

To add or subtract two decimals, the decimal places of each need to line up. You can use the zeros rule above if one number has fewer digits to the after decimal place than the other:

7.872 + 6.30285 =

    7.87200
+  6.30285
= 14.17485

Multiplying and Dividing With Decimals

When multiplying decimals, do not line up the decimal point: the decimal gets inserted afterward. Instead, multiply the two numbers as if they were whole numbers. Once you have the product, it’s time to put the decimal back in.

But how do you figure out where the decimal place goes? The rule is that you add up the amount of numbers after the decimal of each number you multiplied, and that sum is the number of decimal places that should be in the product: 

1.56 (two numbers after the decimal)
× 2.3 (one number after the decimal)
= 3.588 (three decimals—sum of one and two above)

To divide any number (a dividend) by a decimal (the divisor) using long division, move the decimal point of the divisor to the right however many places it takes to get to a whole number, and then move the decimal point in the dividend over by that many places as well. If there’s still a decimal left in the dividend after this, make sure you place it directly above the dividend in the answer.

Finally, do the division as you normally would. For example,

90.625 ÷ 12.5 becomes 906.25 ÷ 125

Then you do the long division with 906.25 as the dividend and 125 as the divisor, making sure to place the decimal in the answer directly above its place in the dividend.

Converting Decimals to Fractions

Every decimal can be expressed as a fraction with these steps:

1. Move the decimal point over however many places to the right until it becomes a whole number
2. Use that as the numerator
3. Place in the denominator the power of 10 that corresponds to however many places you moved the decimal over:

$$0.5 = 5/10$$
$$0.05 = 5/100$$
0.005 = 5/1000 or  1/200

Another way to think of it is that the number of places you move the decimal to the right to make the numerator a whole number is the number of 0’s you’ll add after 1 in the denominator.

Numbers less than -1 or greater than +1 with decimals can be expressed as fractions using the above rule in combination with the mixed number rule:

$$7.5 = 7 5/10$$
$$= {(7 × 10) + 5}/10$$
$$= [70 + 5]/10 = 75/10$$

And this can be simplified:

$$75/10 = 15/2$$
$$7.5 = 15/2$$

Converting Fractions to Decimals

When you plug in a fraction as a division problem into a calculator, it automatically gives you the decimal equivalent. Unfortunately, we don’t have access to a calculator on the GMAT Quant section, but the manual conversion isn’t too hard.

You can always find the decimal equivalent of a fraction with long division, by using the numerator as the dividend and the denominator as the divisor. But there’s an alternative method that can be handy as well.

First, find a number you can multiply the denominator of the fraction by to make it 10, or 100, or 1000, or any 1 followed by 0s. Next, multiply both numerator and denominator by that number to get its equivalent expression. Finally, write down just the top number, putting the decimal point in the corresponding place: one space from the right hand side for every zero in the bottom number.

Here’s an example using the fraction 3/4:

$$3/4 = ?/100$$
$$4 × 25 = 100$$
$${3 × 25}/{4 × 25} = 75/100$$
$$= 0.75$$

Scientific Notation of Decimals

“Moving over” decimal places with powers of 10 is a useful concept. Sometimes, numbers are expressed as the product of a number multiplied by 10 to a certain power. The power represents how many places you need to “move” the decimal point to get to its decimal expression. The sign of the exponent indicates which direction: a positive exponent moves the decimal over to the right, and a negative exponent moves it to the left.

Examples:

$$0.0489 = 4.89 × 10^{-2}$$
$$60235 = 6.0235 × 10^4$$
$$540 = 5.4 × 10^2$$
$$29 = 2.9 × 10^1 = 2.9 × 10$$

Terminating and Recurring Decimals

Terminating decimal GMAT questions sound scary if you don’t know what a terminating decimal is, but it’s actually deceptively simple.

All of the decimals in the examples above have an end. They are called terminating decimals because there aren’t an infinite amount of numbers after the decimal point. Any terminating decimal is can be represented as a fraction with a power of ten in the denominator. For example, 0.0462 = 462/10000 = 231/5000.

It’s possible to have an infinite amount of numbers after the decimal point. 1/3 is an example of a recurring decimal, as we can see when we convert it with long division:

$$1/3 = 0.333333333… = 0.\ov 3$$

The above are equivalent expressions: Both the ellipses and the line above the three indicate that the threes after the decimal point go on forever.

Recurring decimals are tough to work with. Knowing which fractions have infinite decimal expressions, like 1/3 and 1/9, helps significantly in deciding whether to convert it into a decimal or leave it as a fraction in solving problems.

The Key Rule for Fractions That Are Terminating Decimals

If the prime factorization of the denominator of a fraction has only 2 and/or 5, then it can be written as something over a power of ten, which means its decimal expression terminates.

If the denominator doesn’t have only 2 and/or 5 as factors, then the decimal expression is recurring. Here are some examples:

1/24 is recurring (24 = 2³ × 3, so 24 has a prime factor of 3 in addition to 2)

1/25 is terminating (25 = 5²)

1/28 is recurring (28 = 2² x 7, so there’s a prime factor of 7 in addition to 2)

1/40 is terminating (40 = 2³ x 5)

1/64 is terminating (64 = 2⁶)

Importantly, this rule only applies for fractions in their simplest forms. For example, 9/12 terminates, even though 12 has 3 as a prime factor, because 9/12 is really just 3/4, which is 3/2²

One key way to express this rule is that that the denominator must be some value equivalent to 2^m5ⁿ, where $m$ and $n$ are integers. So any fraction that can be expressed as $x$/2^m5ⁿ will terminate, and any other fraction won’t.

Note that the number 1 as a denominator satisfies those requirements, as any number to a power of 0 equals 1, and 0 is an integer, so it can be the value of $m$ and $n$:

1 = 2⁰5⁰

If you need a refresher on what prime factorization is, head to our guide to integer properties for the GMAT, which includes an entire section devoted to explaining prime factorization.

GMAT Fractions Questions

Below are the key kinds of GMAT fraction questions. Note that fractions as a concept overlap with some of the other types of questions, such as rate questions and average questions. The line is often blurry between fractions and decimals as well, and sometimes actually converting the given value to decimals from fractions or vice-versa can make the problem clearer. We’ll see an example of that below.

Example GMAT Fractions Question 1: Problem Solving and Averages

Here’s a GMAT averages problem involving fractions:

This is a fraction question baked into an averages question with algebra. As you may know, the formula for averages is simply to add all the numbers together and then divide by the total number of numbers, which is 4 in this case. This gives us the below fraction:

$${(n+2) + (2n-3) + (4n+1) + (7n+4)}/4$$

We also know from the question that the average is 15, so that equation is equal to 15:

$${(n+2) + (2n-3) + (4n+1) + (7n+4)}/4 = 15$$

To simplify this equation, let’s get rid of the fraction by multiplying both sides by 4 (the denominator):

$${{(n+2) + (2n-3) + (4n+1) + (7n+4)}/4} × 4 = 15 × 4$$
$$(n+2) + (2n-3) + (4n+1) + (7n+4) = 60$$

Since the right side of this equation is all addition and subtraction now, we don’t need the parentheses. Let’s simplify and solve:

$$14n + 4 = 60$$
$$14n = 56$$
$$n = 56/14$$
$$n = 4$$

(B) is the answer.

Example GMAT Fractions Question 2: Problem Solving and Rates

Here is a fraction problem in the context of a GMAT rate problem:

First, let’s make sure we understand what the numerator and the denominator represent in these fractions. The rate is per hour, so we’re talking about tanks (the numerator) per hour (the denominator).

So the rate of the small pump is 1/2 tank/hour, and the rate of the larger pump is 2 tank/hour, or 2/1 (in fraction expression). Together, the combined rate of the two pumps is:

$$1/2 + 2/1$$

You probably know this off the top of your head, but just to illustrate the addition of fractions, I’ll show you how to do it out. We need the lowest common multiple of the denominators so that we can render them both as expressions with the same denominator.

The LCM is 2, so:

$$2/1 + 2/1 = 1/2 + 4/2 = 5/2 \tanks \per \hour$$

To get to the time it takes to fill the tank, we need to divide the job (filling 1 tank) over their collective rate (5/2 tanks per hour).

Hence together they will fill the tank in $1/(5/2)$. Let’s use the rule about fraction division—that it’s simply multiplication with the numerator and denominator flipped—to simplify this:
$$1/(5/2) = 1 × 2/5$$
$$= 2/5 \hours$$

The answer is (C).

Example GMAT Fractions Question 3: Problem Solving and Probability

A basic knowledge of fractions is required for GMAT probability problems as well. Here’s an example:

As with many questions on the GMAT, this problem is simpler than the lengthy wording makes it sound.

We can think of the first 2 cards as cards that have already been turned “face up” and are therefore out of the pile. So the probability of picking a stock card goes from 8/48 to 8/46. Let’s simplify:

$$8/48 = 4/23$$

(E) is the answer.

Example GMAT Fractions Question 4: Problem Solving With Algebra

Sometimes it will be useful to come up with your own algebraic equation to solve a GMAT fractions question. Here’s an example:

Let the price of basic computer be $c$, and the price of the printer be $p$.

What do we know? We know that $c$+$p$=2500. We also know that the price of the enhanced computer will be $c$+500, since the question stem tells us that it’s 500 dollars more than the basic computer. So the total price of the enhanced computer and the printer is 500 dollars more than 2500, or 3000 dollars.

Now, we are told that the price of the printer is 1/5 of that new total $3000 price. Let’s figure that out:

$$p = 1/5 × $3000$$
$$= $3000/5$$
$$= $600$$

Now that we know how much $p$ (the printer) is, we can plug this value in the first equation to solve for $c$ (the basic computer):

$$c + $600 = $2500$$
$$c = $2500 – $600$$
$$c = $1900$$

The answer is (D).

Example GMAT Fractions Question 5: Data Sufficiency

Here is a relatively simple data sufficiency fraction problem:

So all we know from the prompt is that 4 servings of Malik’s dish require 1 and 1/2 or in decimal expression 1.5 cups of pasta.

Statement 1 is insufficient because it just says: “Malik will make half as many servings as he did the last time he prepared the dish.” However, we have no idea how many servings Malik prepared last time. Since we don’t know the servings, we can’t find how much pasta is required. Hence, insufficient. Eliminate (A) and (D).

Statement 2 says Malik used 6 cups of pasta the last time he prepared this dish. Just looking at this statement by itself (without statement 1), it doesn’t really indicate anything: if 6 cups of pasta was the last time, we clearly can’t say how many cups of pasta Malik will use the next time. Hence, insufficient. Eliminate (B).

Now, let’s combine statements 1 and 2. We know that Malik used 6 cups of pasta the last time and that he will make half as many servings as he did the last time. That being the case, Malik will clearly require 3 cups of pasta next time (1/2 of 6 = 3). Sufficient.

Thus, (C) is the answer.

Example GMAT Fractions Question 6: Data Sufficiency With Algebra

Here’s a slightly more advanced data sufficiency question with fractions, involving algebra:

This question is basically asking us if $x$ is a fraction/decimal between 0 and 1. Let’s work methodically through the statements.

Statement 1 is insufficient because there are many values not between 0 and 1 that satisfy the condition of being between -1/2 and 3/2. If that’s not obvious, you might want to convert the statement into decimals. In decimal form, all statement 1 is telling us is that $x$ is between -0.5 and 1.5. So if $x$ was 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, -0.4, etc., it would be between -0.5 and 1.5 but not between 0 and 1. Hence, statement 1 is insufficient. Eliminate (A) and (D).

Now let’s test statement 2. Statement 2 is just an overcomplicated way of saying that:

$$x = 3/4 – 1/4$$

So we solve for $x$ very easily:

$$x = 3/4 – 1/4 = 1/2$$

1/2 is between 0 and 1, so statement 2 is sufficient and the answer is (B).

GMAT Decimal Questions

Below are the key kinds of GMAT decimal questions. Like fractions, decimals questions overlap with other kinds of questions, and often come with a fraction aspect as well. The GMAT particularly loves to test you on the concept of terminating versus recurring decimals, so we’ve included several examples of that below.

Example GMAT Decimal Question 1: Problem Solving With Terminating and Recurring Decimals

This question tests you on both fractions and decimals. One key rule to remember for this question is that a fraction in its simplest form with a denominator that has only 2 and/or 5 its prime factors will convert to a terminating decimal:

x/2^m5ⁿ = terminating decimal

Head back to the section on terminating and recurring decimals above if you need more of a refresher.

Now, onto the question.

First, let’s rephrase it algebraically. Let $p$ = the prime integer that’s greater than 100, which = the sum of all the deposits up to and including the day. Let $d$ be the number of days, up to and including the chosen one ($d$ = 1 would be June 1, $d$ = 30 would be June 30).

The average daily deposit up to and including the chosen day will be the sum of the deposit divided by the number of days, or $p$/$d$.

So the question becomes: What is the probability that $p$/$d$ will have less than 5 decimal places?

Now that we know what we’re being asked, the next step is to hone in on only the days that would have a terminating decimal, since those that yield a recurring decimal will by definition have more than 5 decimal places.

As stated above, to be a terminating decimal, $p$/$d$ must = x/2^m5ⁿ, so $d$ must = 2^m5ⁿ. And luckily, because the numerator $p$ is a prime number, all the possible values of $p$/$d$ will be in their simplest forms, so we can test the denominator without worrying that the terminating decimal fraction rule might not apply. .

The days in June (values for $d$) that can be expressed as 2^m5ⁿ and are thus not recurring are day 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 16, 20, and 25. You can figure this out by doing a prime factorization of each of the 30 days in June, but as long as you’re still know your multiplication tables, you should be able to look at a number between 1 and 30 and realize almost right away if it has a prime factor other than 2 and/or 5.

So now, of days 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 16, 20, and 25, we have to check if any of them have more than 5 decimal places, which is possible even though they do terminate. We can do this using the rule for converting fractions to decimals. 5 decimals is the ten thousandths place, so to have 5 decimal places or less, $p$/$d$ × 10,000 must yield an integer:

p/d × 10000 = an integer (nothing after the decimal point)

For this to work, $d$ will have to be a factor of 10,000. As it happens, all of these numbers go into 10,000 (10,000 is divisible by 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 16, 20, and 25), so for all 9 of these $d$’s, $p$/$d$ = a number with less than 5 decimals.

Thus, out of all of the days of June, there are 9 values for $d$ for which $p$/$d$ has less than 5 decimal places, so the probability is 9/30 = 3/10.

(D) is the answer.

Example GMAT Decimal Question 2: Problem Solving and Scientific Notation Format

Here’s an example of a GMAT terminating decimals question in which knowledge of scientific notation comes in handy.

First, let’s multiply both the numerator and the denominator by 2⁴, so that we can get the exponents of both the base numbers in the denominator to be the same:

$$1/{2^3×5^7} × 2^4/2^4 = 2^4/{2^7 × 5^7}$$

Now we can multiply the bases together, and put the exponent 7 with the result:

$$2^4/{2^7 × 5^7} = 2^4/10^7 = 16/10^7$$

16/10⁷ is the same as 16 × 10^-7

16 × 10^-7 is just the scientific notation for the decimal 0.0000016 (you move the decimal to the left 7 times). Thus, $d$ will have two non-zero digits, 16, when expressed as a decimal. The answer is (B).

Example GMAT Decimal Question 3: Problem Solving and Estimation

This is a great example of a GMAT decimal question in which you should use your powers of estimation instead of solving it:

We don’t want those plus signs in this fraction—let’s do the additions and see what the resulting fraction looks like:

$$1+0.0001/{0.04+10} = 1.0001/10.04$$

Now we can see that these tiny little decimals are negligible: basically, the numerator is 1 and the denominator is 10. So this fraction is virtually 1/10, which equals 0.1. (C) is the answer.

Example GMAT Decimal Question 4: Data Sufficiency and Terminating Decimals

Lots of GMAT data sufficiency decimal questions will ask you if a certain equation or variable is a terminating decimal. Here’s an example:

Statement 1 indicates that $x$, the numerator, is a multiple of 2, which has nothing to do with the terminating or recurring property of decimals—that’s based on the denominator.

We can test this by plugging in multiple-of-2 values for $x$: 2/4 is a terminating decimal, but 4/6 is a recurring decimal. So, statement 1 is not sufficient. Eliminate (A) and (D).

Statement 2 says that y is a multiple of 3. You might be tempted to say that this violates the denominator = 2^m5ⁿ rule, but be careful! Statement 2 gives no information about whether or not $x$ and $y$ have common factors. For instance, 12 is a multiple of 3, but 9/12 is terminating, since it simplifies into 3/4. But 8/12 is recurring, as it simplifies 2/3. into So statement 2 is also not sufficient. Eliminate (B).

Now, let’s plug in numbers to test statement 1 and 2 together. 4/9 satisfies both the statements and it’s recurring, but 18/24 also satisfies both requirements and it’s terminating. So even together the statements are not sufficient and the answer is (E).

Tips for GMAT Fractions and Decimals Questions

Below are the key tips for mastering fraction and decimal questions on the GMAT.

#1: Memorize the Decimal Conversion for All Single-Digit Fractions

When it comes to fractions, being able to convert them to and from decimals with ease will help you get the correct answer faster on many different kinds of GMAT questions. Just because a question is ostensibly asking about medians or areas or probability doesn’t mean that you won’t need to work with fractions at some point to solve the question.

Here’s the conversion for 1/2 through 1/9:

1/2: 0.500
1/3: 0.333
1/4: 0.250
1/5: 0.200
1/6: 0.167 (half of 1/3)
1/7: 0.143 (just need to know this one)
1/8: 0.125 (half of 1/4)
1/9: 0.111

#2: Memorize the Terminating Decimal Rule for Fractions

In addition to the basic conversion, take some time to memorize the rules and properties sections above—especially the x/2^m5ⁿ rule for terminating decimals.

#3: Convert Freely Between Fractions and Decimals as Needed

By the time you take the GMAT, you should be able to fluently convert fractions to decimals or vice versa, depending on what will make a given problem easier. As you do more and more practice questions, you’ll become better at detecting which expression will be the easiest to use to solve the question. The GMAT will often give you the format that is harder to work with to start, as they are testing both your fluency with fractions and decimals and your ability to come up with the best route for solving the problem on your own.

For example, if you’re trying to determine where a variable x falls on the number line, it’s probably easier to work in decimals than in fractions. On the other hand, if you’re given a number like 0.111111111111111 and you have to do algebra with it, it’s probably easier to use 1/9—especially since the answer options will likely be spaced far enough apart that .000000001 of a difference isn’t going to leave you stuck between options.

Remember, you don’t have a calculator for the Quant section, so if you encounter a question on the GMAT that seems impossible to solve without one, there’s almost always a rule, property, or different form of expression that you can use to make it easier. Keep an eye out for strange wording that’s obscuring a very basic principle, and try converting the given fractions to decimals or vice versa if you’re stuck.

#4: Look at the Answer Options Before Solving

In the terminating decimal GMAT question about what the fraction with those tiny decimal points was closest in value to, you may have been tempted to solve for the exact value. But a quick glance at the answer options, which are all spaced out by a power of ten, tells you that all you have to do is get the location of the decimal point correct—not the exact value. That’s a pretty wide margin.

You should always look at the answer choices before even beginning to solve a problem—they’ll clue you in to the right approach.

Whenever you see tricky-looking decimals with widely varying answer choices, as in the terminating decimal GMAT question above, that best approach might be simply to estimate.

#5: Don’t Solve Further Than You Need To

Speaking of approaches, as with the first terminating decimal GMAT question, in the example of Malik’s serving dish you may have been immediately tempted to find how many cups of pasta are needed per serving. 4 servings of the dish required 1.5 cups, so the amount of cups per serving is 1.5/4, or 15/40 when we multiply both numerator and denominator by ten to get rid of the decimal in the fraction. This simplifies to 3/8 a cup of pasta per serving.

But this information is actually useless for finding sufficiency, as the two statements gave us everything we needed to solve the problem of how many cups of pasta Malik will use the next time he makes the dish.

Bottom line: Glance at the answer choices first, and then focus on solving only what you need to solve to get to one answer choice.

What’s Next?

Another key topic to become familiar with for the GMAT Quant section is integers.

For more general advice, check out our 10 tips to master the Quant section.

If you’re looking for more tips, here’s our list of the best tips and shortcuts for doing well on the Quant section.

Happy studying!

The post GMAT Fractions and Decimals: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on Online GMAT Prep Blog by PrepScholar.

In this post, we’ll give you the best overall GMAT Verbal tricks as well as the best tips for each question type, including sentence correction, critical reasoning, and reading comprehension. By the end, you’ll know all the key tricks and tips you can start using right away to improve your Verbal section score.

But before we dive in, let’s take a second to go over what these GMAT Verbal tips and tricks can and can’t help you with.

GMAT Verbal Tricks: What Can They Help With?

GMAT Verbal tricks are great for helping you find the most advantageous approach to each question type. Some tips are geared toward guessing strategically when you’re stuck, which can be a big help in such a stressful situation.

But here’s the hard the truth: the only way to ensure that you score highly on the GMAT Verbal section is to put in hours of focused, targeted preparation for months before the exam. No tip or trick is going to get you out of the hard work of mastering the fundamental skills tested in the exam. In other words, the number one tip for doing well on the GMAT is to study, study, study!

With that said, let’s dive into the general GMAT Verbal tricks you can use on top of your studying to maximize your performance on this challenging section.

Overall GMAT Verbal Tricks

The GMAT Verbal tips and tricks below apply to all three question types.

#1: Simplify Language

All three question types on the GMAT Verbal section feature sophisticated vocabulary and scholarly concepts. As such, it can be helpful to rephrase confusing language into your own words.

For reading comprehension and critical reasoning questions, this strategy could take the form of boiling down the passage or argument, or it could take the form of simplifying the question itself. For example, a question that asks about “what purpose” a certain reference in the passage serves can be boiled down into: “why did the author include this reference?”

For sentence correction questions, this strategy might involve reading a very complex sentence in your mind but omitting the parts that aren’t being tested and can be removed to make the sentence easier to understand, like an appositive clause or a bit of parenthetical information.

#2: Focus on the Question Being Asked

Many GMAT Verbal questions will give you tempting wrong answers that are true to the content of the prompt, but don’t actually answer the question being asked. Focus only on identifying and addressing the task of the question, and ignore the other noise.

For example, on a critical reasoning question, you may be asked which piece of evidence, if true, would most weaken the conclusion of the given argument. In this case, you don’t have to address whether or not the evidence in an answer choice is sound or if it constitutes a plausible finding giving the context in the passage. You can take all the choices as de facto truths, and simply identify the one that most weakens the argument.

Similarly, many big picture reading comprehension questions (like main idea questions) will give you choices that are true to the content of the passage but are too narrow or detailed to correctly answer the question being asked.

By focusing on the task in the question and not worrying about whether the answer choices are true or not, you can often eliminate wrong answers right off the bat.

#3: Read All the Answer Choices and Use Process of Elimination

Getting rid of wrong answers is an integral part of the process of getting to the right answer. Rather than trying to find the right answer, go choice-by-choice and eliminate the wrong answers until there’s only one left.

This is also a good strategy for when you’re stuck between answer options: focus on disproving each one, and then go with the answer option that is hardest to disprove. It’s almost always easier to weed out the wrong answers than it is to find the right one.

Even if you’re immediately certain of the right answer, you should always take a brief moment to eliminate the other answer options. Even our best instincts can be wrong. Not to mention that you can’t go back to questions on the GMAT—once you click “next question,” your answer is final. So it’s better to spend a little time up front ensuring that all the answers you didn’t pick can be disproven before moving on.

GMAT Critical Reasoning Tricks and Tips

Below are the best GMAT critical reasoning tricks and tips.

#1: Read the Question Stem First

For critical reasoning questions, it’s a great idea to read the question stem before reading the argument. This way, you can determine what type of question you need to answer, and read the argument looking for what you need. For example, if it’s a weaken the argument question, you’ll be looking to identify the conclusion of the argument, and keeping an eye out for any flaws. But if it’s an inference”question, you won’t be looking for flaws, as inferences are an extension of the argument (not something that weakens it).

#2: Look for the Evidence, Conclusion, and Unstated Assumptions

There are essentially three main parts of most GMAT critical reasoning arguments: the conclusion, which you should take care to identify; the evidence that supports the conclusion; and any assumptions (which are often implicit) within the jump to the conclusion from the evidence. Sometimes there will be multiple pieces of evidence, assumptions, and conclusions in the same argument, but one conclusion will always be the “main” conclusion.

Being able to clearly identify these three elements in a given argument helps significantly with answering the different questions.

In fact, the majority of GMAT critical reasoning questions will ask you to do one of four things: strengthen the argument, weaken the argument, find the assumption underlying the conclusion, or draw an inference or conclusion from the argument.

For the first three of these four question types, simply reading the argument with an eye for the flaw in the assumption can help you identify the correct answer.

This trick goes hand in hand with the last one, because you’ll need to have read the question stem first and identified it as one of the three “flaw” questions before diving into the argument.

Example Critical Reasoning Question: Highway Tolls to Pay for a Commuter Rail Line

The following example is a great illustration of how many of these GMAT critical reasoning tricks—and some of the general GMAT Verbal tricks—play out in action:

First, as always, let’s look at the question before diving into the argument. This question doesn’t look like it falls into a familiar question type, but after we simplify it, we realize it’s just a “weaken” question in disguise: we’re being asked what would weaken the argument for the authority’s plan to finance the improvements.

Now, let’s hit the argument. It’s a good thing we read the question stem first, because this question does have a slight twist: it’s not asking us to focus on the main conclusion, which is that the plan is unfair—rather, it’s asking us to cast doubt on the plan’s effectiveness. To answer the question, we’ll need to identify the flaw in the assumption behind the financing plan itself, and then poke holes in it. We don’t need to address questions of fairness.

One big assumption in the financing plan is that drivers are going to continue to use the bridges for those next five years, even after the toll is raised. You may have been able to come up with that assumption on your own, or you may have come up with something else, or you may have gotten stumped. Either way, let’s head to the answer options.

Objections to the plan at a public hearing wouldn’t necessarily stop the plan, so (A) doesn’t much weaken its effectiveness—not to mention that opposition isn’t the same as ineffectiveness, so it doesn’t look like (A) is fully addressing the question being asked. (E) can be ruled out for this same reason. (B) looks good at first, but the one-time fee to change the automated toll machines probably doesn’t outweigh five whole years of increased revenue. (C) suffers from a similar issue: the token hoarding is unlikely to make a huge dent over a period of five years.

What would make a bigger dent is if 20% of bridge-users took an alternate route for the next five years: that one-fifth loss in revenue would be sure to add up to much more of a loss than the one-time fee or the initial token-hoarding. Therefore, (D) most weakens the case for the increased tolls financing the improvements to the commuter rail, and it is the answer.

Even if you weren’t able to identify this assumption beforehand, you can clearly get to (D) using the above process of elimination. And even if (D) jumped out at you immediately, you should always take the time to disprove all answer options before moving on anyway.

GMAT Reading Comprehension Tips and Tricks

Below are the best GMAT reading comprehension tips and tricks.

#1: Read the Passage First

When you come across a passage-based question, read the passage first, not the question. This is often the better strategy for two reasons. First, you can only see one question at a time, but there will be three or four questions for each passage. So if you read the passage trying to “hone in” on the answer to the first question, you might subconsciously disregard aspects of the passage that are important for the subsequent questions.

Second, even questions that seem to be about a small detail or sub-topic will require a holistic understanding of the passage to answer correctly. 

#2: Look for the Main Idea

As stated above, you actually have a better chance of identifying the right answer in the majority of questions if you aren’t biased toward one detail or sub-topic, but are reading for the main idea instead. As you’re reading, ask yourself: what is the “big picture” of this passage?

You’ll always have the passage up on the left of the screen, so you can return to the little details if need be for a certain question—but you don’t want to waste time re-reading for a general understanding. That should be accomplished on your first go-through.

#3: Take Notes

Along these lines, it’s incredibly helpful to use your scratchboard to take notes on the passage. Specifically, you should focus on jotting down the main idea. Some people like to draw a passage map, or a simple outline of the main idea and some key supporting arguments, definitions, or distinctions. But don’t get too in the weeds with your notes: the point of them is to stay out of the weeds and focused on macro-level organization.

Example Reading Comprehension Passage: Meteor Streams

As practice, you may want to take notes on the passage below as you read. We’ll give you our notes at the end.

Passage Summary

If you were taking notes on the passage, did they look something like this?

Note how I drilled the passage down to just the key ideas—this is more or less what your own notes and/or mental summary should look like for this passage.

Example Reading Comprehension Question

Here’s a sample question that’s based on the passage above.

This is a classic “main idea” question. Let’s use our notes with our passage summary and process of elimination to figure it out.

(A) doesn’t quite get at the big picture: although the model confirmed only part of the conventional theory, the passage isn’t mainly concerned with contrasting the predictions of the two competing theories. No further areas for research are mentioned, so (C) is out too. Only one phenomenon is described in the passage, so (D) doesn’t work either. And (E) actually gets it backwards: the model is what churned out the surprising prediction, and data from real-life observations are what confirmed the model’s prediction.

(B) nails it: the passage first describes a new model, and then it explains how real-life observations confirm the new model. Note how (B) is also the closest option to our passage summary as well—it goes to show how helpful passage summaries are in answering questions.

GMAT Sentence Correction Tips and Tricks

Below are the three best GMAT sentence correction tips and tricks. For more content-specific tips, check out our guide to the six GMAT grammar rules you absolutely must know.

#1: When in Doubt, Go Short

In addition to the rules of grammar, you also have to keep an eye out for concision and clarity on sentence correction questions. Often—but not always—the most concise answer will be the correct one. When in doubt, scan the shortest of the answer choices for errors, and then pick it if you can’t find any.

Here’s an example:

In this case, (E) is both error-free and the most concise option. It’s correct.

#2: Abbreviate Big Words

Many sentence correction questions are intentionally filled with technical jargon or other ten-dollar words, which make it harder to discern the errors in grammar and syntax. If you find yourself bogged down by big words, simply abbreviate them when you’re reading the sentence in your mind.

Here’s an example:

In this sentence, you can skip “aurora borealis” and just sub in “northern lights” when reading it back to yourself. Moreover, you can abbreviate “ballistic missiles” to simply “b-missiles,” and “electric currents” to “e-currents.”

With these simplifications, the sentence reads as follows:

Displays of the northern lights can heat the atmosphere over the arctic enough to affect the trajectories of b-missiles, induce e-currents that can cause blackouts in some areas and corrosion in north-south pipelines.

The issue with the sentence is now a bit clearer than it was: the conjunction “and” should replace the comma to show that the missile trajectories changing and the electrical currents getting induced are two separate and equal effects. (E) fixes that issue and is the answer.

Note also that even though (A) is slightly shorter than (E), (E) is still one of the more concise options—so the “go short” trick still holds up here as well.

#3: “Group” Together Wrong Choices

Another sentence correction tip is group together answers that make the same mistake and eliminate them. For example, look at this sample question that tests the simple past tense and modifying clauses:

The “have” from “have often looked” carries over to “saw,” which means that we need to use the past participle “seen” instead. Immediately, all the answer options with “saw” can be eliminated.

We can do a second grouping in this example. The second clause, as it’s written, is incorrectly modifying “branches”—it’s not the branches whose arms and legs are hanging, it’s the monkeys. Eliminate all the answer options in which the clause after the comma begins with with “whose.” Rewording to “with arms and legs hanging” corrects this issue, so (D) is correct.

What’s Next?

Now that you know the best GMAT Verbal tips and tricks, check out our guide to the how to master the three Verbal question types.

It’s important to set score goals when you’re preparing, so be sure to read our guide to figuring out what a good GMAT Verbal score is for you.

Need more Verbal question practice? We’ve got you covered there too.

Happy studying!

The post The 11 Best GMAT Verbal Tricks and Tips appeared first on Online GMAT Prep Blog by PrepScholar.

How much does your GMAT writing score really matter? Business schools only release GMAT score data for their students’ Total scores, so it can be difficult to find information about what constitutes a “good” or “bad” GMAT writing score and how important your GMAT analytical writing score really is.

Luckily, we’ve done the research and figured out the answers for you. In this post, we’ll tell you what business schools have to say about the Analytical Writing Assessment, how they weigh it against other parts of your GMAT score and your overall application, and how your score stacks up against other test-taker worldwide. Finally, we’ll help you figure out what a good GMAT analytical writing score is for you.

How Is the GMAT Analytical Writing Assessment Scored?

The Analytical Writing section is graded on a scale of 0-6 in half-point increments. According to the GMAC AWA score guide, 6 is considered “outstanding,” 5 is “strong,” 4 is “adequate,” 3 is “limited,” 2 is “seriously flawed,” and a 1 is considered “fundamentally deficient.” Like the Integrated Reasoning score, the GMAT writing score does not factor into your Total GMAT score, which is why it’s generally considered to be less important.

Your AWA essay is graded once by a human and once by a sophisticated computer grading program called E-Rater. If the two scores are identical or differ by one point, they are averaged to obtain the final score for that essay. If the scores differ by more than one point, an expert human reader will step in and determine the final score.

Graders are trained to consider the following when assigning a score:

• The overall quality of ideas about the issue and argument presented
• Your overall ability to organize, develop, and express those ideas
• The relevant supporting reasons and examples used
• Your ability to control the elements of standard written English (grammar and syntax), with a bit more leeway given to international ESL students

Along with your scaled score, you will also be given a percentile ranking, which corresponds to the percentage of test-takers whom you scored higher than. For example, if you scored in the 80th percentile on the AWA section, this means you did better on that section than 80% of people who took the exam. This percentile is based on the last three years of GMAT scores, so if you took the test in 2014, your 80th percentile score would encompass all GMAT-takers from 2012 through 2014.

Thus, while scaled scores are static, percentiles can (and do) change over time. Percentiles help contextualize your scores by comparing them with those of other applicants, and they are assessed by business schools along with the scaled score to see how you measure up.

GMAT Writing Score Averages and Percentiles

Most test-takers score highly on the Analytical Writing Assessment: almost half of all test takers score a 5 or higher.  The average GMAT Analytical Writing score is a 4.37.

Below are the current percentile rankings for GMAT Analytical Writing scores.

What’s a Good GMAT Writing Score Overall?

Remember, there’s no score on any section of the GMAT—even an 800 Total score—that is guaranteed to get you into your top choice business school. Plus, your AWA score is certainly the least influential score one way or the other. Business schools definitely care far more about your Total score, and it’s likely that they care more about your IR score as well. While no part of the GMAT should be neglected, the AWA is the bottom of the GMAT totem pole in terms of your MBA application.

The ultimate takeaway is that a good GMAT writing score is is the one that doesn’t hinder your acceptance into the MBA program of your choice. We say “doesn’t hinder” rather than “gets you into” because the majority of test-takers do very well on the AWA, which makes it hard to get a score that truly stands out. Even if you score a perfect 6, that’s unlikely to be impressive enough to boost an otherwise so-so Total score, or a poor GPA, etc. In fact, the difference between a 5 and a 6 isn’t going to affect your application much, if at all.

Statements from the GMAC itself confirm this: they explicitly advise business schools to “not make distinctions among applicants on the basis of a small scoring distinction—one point or less apart.”

So while it’s hard to stand out, on the other hand, the fact that almost half of test-takers score a 5 or above is an encouraging sign: with just a little bit of prep, you can easily achieve a GMAT analytical writing score of 5 or higher.

One thing to note is that even though the AWA isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things, scoring below a 4 could raise a red flag. Business schools say very little about how they weigh the AWA, but a low score like a 3.5 might signal to them that your writing skills aren’t developed enough to handle the rigorous coursework of an MBA program. More importantly, a huge gap between the writing level reflected in your AWA and the writing level reflected in your application essay is disconcerting in that it calls into question your authorship of the latter.

The GMAC itself advises business schools to “consider that the scores are based on 30-minute, first-draft writing samples” and cautions that these essays “are not comparable to prepared essays that may be submitted with a school application.” The GMAC rather recommends that business schools use the AWA as a “diagnostic tool in recommending or requiring additional instruction in writing,” though it’s unclear how much universities actually carry this out.

In Summary: What’s a Good GMAT Writing Score for Me?

As a baseline, a 5 is considered a strong GMAT essay score. At a 5 or above, you’ll essentially be fine in that your GMAT essay score won’t hinder your application. For the vast majority of schools, a 5 is a good score.

However, if you’re applying to some top 10 business schools, you might want to push yourself further. To be safe, you should aim to score a perfect 6, or at least a 5.5. A 5.5 or above puts you in the top 20%, which is a safe area to be in for the AWA for an elite MBA program.

A 4.5 is generally an “okay” score. A 4 or below puts you under the average, which could hurt you if you’re an international applicant or if your application essay is far better. If you’re scoring 4.5s or below on practice tests, this signals that you could use a little extra AWA prep before taking the GMAT for keeps.

What’s Next?

Looking to raise your GMAT essay score? Creating an AWA template is an excellent method.

Also, be sure to read through our essential AWA tips and guide to approaching every kind of GMAT essay prompt.

Happy studying!

The post What’s a Good GMAT Writing Score? Does the Essay Matter? appeared first on Online GMAT Prep Blog by PrepScholar.