Math (DS)

Set consists of a certain number of even integers divisible by 3. Is standard deviation of positive?

1. All elements of set are positive
2. The range of set is 0

OA and Explanation

Verbal (CR)

A study attempting to link fertility with increased sexual availability concluded that women unconsciously dress more attractively during ovulation. The study was conducted using pairs of photographs of 200 women and volunteer viewers who chose the photograph in which they thought the woman appeared more attractive. Researchers found that 67% of the time viewers chose the photo taken when the woman was ovulating.

The methodology of the study above is flawed for which of the following reasons?

(A) The study fails to specify what is meant by the word attractive, leaving it up to the opinion of the individual viewer.
(B) Because all the viewers were male, the results of the study were skewed by individual responses to attractive women.
(C) The study fails to account for the psychological complexity of sexual desire in women
(D) The study assumes that women will dress more attractively when they have greater sexual desire.
(E) Most women do not know when they are ovulating, and so would not dress more attractively on that day.

OA and Explanation

NOTE: This is #5 in a series of blog posts on the topic, “How to Select the Right MBA Programs.” To see previous segments, link to the following:

Post #1, Introducing the Series

Post #4, Weighting Your Needs and Wants

It’s now time to determine what types and levels of MBA programs you’re competitive and qualified for, and what if any are out of reasonable reach.   I use the following categories:

Reasonable reach: acceptance is not likely but with a great application is within reach.

• On-par: with a great app you’ll have a solid chance of acceptance.
• Safety: you will likely be admitted if you present your case credibly.

There’s a fourth category, out-of-reaches.  Conceding the wisdom and validity of “never say never” and “nothing’s impossible,” there are still much, much better ways to expend your energy and time than applying to such schools.

Several factors determine your qualification for various levels of programs.  Keep in mind that they all work together holistically.

First the basics – GPA and GMAT.  How do yours stack up versus the mid 75-80% of students in a given program?  To be fundamentally qualified you’ll want to be in the higher two-thirds of that range at least.  If you’re above or in the upper one-third of this range, you’re competitive in this area.  If you’re in the middle third you’re qualified, and if you’re in the lower third or below, you’re reaching.

Work experience is the next factor to consider, specifically, quality of experience.  The more competitive the MBA program, the more important it is to have strong and demonstrable advancement, impact, and leadership relative to accomplished peers, regardless of your function, industry, or organization.  Quality of work experience is a key factor in the level of program you would be competitive in; top tier programs turn down many applicants with near perfect stats who lack the requisite professional accomplishment.

Being in an overrepresented or underrepresented industry, demographic group, or global region/country will affect your competitiveness.  Perhaps the largest overrepresented group is Indians in technical fields, a group that also has relatively high average stats.  Schools that might be reasonable reaches for others will be almost out of reach for many in this group.  On the other hand, no matter how underrepresented you are, if the adcom doubts you can handle the program, you won’t be admitted. As you can see, this factor influences what programs would be reasonable reaches, on-pars, and safeties.

A myriad of other factors will also affect your qualification and competitiveness.  Having fewer than three or more than eight years of work experience or already holding an MBA from another program makes you less competitive.

If you have an unconventional background, such as teaching or airline pilot, you face extra burdens in making your case. However once you successfully make the case for your qualifications and need for an MBA, your non-traditional background may become a plus in this competitive process.

Qualified means you meet the basic standards of a given program.  You can be fully qualified but not competitive – this is exactly the problem that many excellent Indian IT applicants face.  Competitive is more nuanced; it encompasses the preferences and character of the program, the commonality or distinctiveness of your background, and even sometimes political and/or economic trends and events.  When you happily conclude that you are qualified for Columbia, don’t forget to ask yourself whether you are also competitive there.

As you research and visit MBA programs, determine how qualified and competitive you are for them.

By Cindy Tokumitsu, co-author of The Finance Professional’s Guide to MBA Success, The Consultant’s Guide to MBA Admission, The EMBA Edge, and author of several articles and the free, email mini-course, “Ace the EMBA.”

Lesson #4 of a five-part series for drafting exemplary essays.

Now that you have a clear sense of what makes an essay effective, and have reflected on the questions that have helped you develop your theme, it’s time to start writing.

Before you begin, write an outline, even if it’s only a very informal list of the main points you want to cover. Using the answers to the questions posed in Lesson 2, you should have a list of experiences, anecdotes, and ideas that you want to include in your essay.

Now let’s break the job down further to keep the task manageable. First, how long is your essay? Grad school application essays can range from as short as 300 words to more than 1,000. Ironically, it’s much harder to write a very short, very good essay than it is to write a very good, longer one. Writing a super-short essay is like being six feet tall and stuck in a coach airline seat — you’re going to feel cramped even when writing as economically as possible. Assuming you have more leg room, so to speak, and have 750 words, you still have to estimate how much space you will have, approximately, for your introduction, the main body, and conclusion. Dividing your essay into parts like this will help you gauge how much you can afford to write in each section. I encourage my clients to write up to 25 percent above their essay’s word limit in their early drafts, since I know I will be able to trim the fat, creating more space for the meat and potatoes of their story. You can follow this rule as well, assuming you have an editor ready to help you streamline.

In Lessons 1 and 3 we saw examples of strong, yet different, introductions. Don’t get hung up on crafting the perfect introduction before moving on to the rest of the essay. If you aren’t confident about your introduction, experiment with different ones, but don’t stay stuck at the beginning. Often, the perfect introduction will come to you when you are well into writing the rest of the essay. Finally, keep in mind the picture you want to paint of yourself to the admissions committee. As you read your draft, are you getting a sense of that amazing, talented, focused person? Stay focused on how best to paint that picture through your own lively, meaningful examples. Do not just claim to be something without backing it up with evidence.

In our last lesson, we’ll talk about revising and polishing your essay.

Summary Tips:

1. Make an outline, even if it’s informal.

2. Estimate how much space you have for each section of your essay to avoid overwriting.

3. Keep working on the body of the essay even if you haven’t perfected the introduction. The introduction does not have to come first!

By Judy Gruen, Accepted.com editor and co-author of the ebook, MBA Letters of Recommendation That Rock.

Math (DS)

If sets and are united into a single set, will the mean of this set be smaller than the sum of means of sets and ?

1. and are one-element sets
2. Neither set nor set contains negative numbers

OA and Explanation

Verbal (CR)

The average age of chief executive officers in a large sample of companies is 57.The average age of CEO’s in those same companies 20 years ago was approximately eight years younger. On the basis of those data,it can be concluded that CEO’s in general tend to be older now.

Which of the following casts the most doubt on the conclusion drawn above?

(A) The dates when the CEO’s assumed their current positions have not been specified.
(B) No information is given concerning the avg no of years that CEO’s remain in office.
(C) The information is based only on companies that have been operating for at least 20 years.
(D) Only approximate information is given concerning the avg age of the CEO’s 20 years ago.
(E) Information concerning the exact number of companies in the sample has not been given.

OA and Explanation

Lesson #3 of a five-part series for drafting exemplary essays.

The MBA career goals essay, a close cousin to the graduate school statement of purpose, demands a laser-like focus. Unlike personal statements, which may discuss career goals but also allow for more flexibility in content, the MBA career goals essay has a specific and packed agenda. In fact, most MBA career goals essay questions contain several questions in one, so make sure to address each of them. (For example, some ask “Why is now the right time for you to earn an MBA?” or “What do you hope to gain from the XYZ program?”) Your essay must have a theme, of course, but should also do the following:

That is a very tall order.

Let’s see how this was achieved in the sample Goals Essay from Accepted.com’s MBA section. Based on our first two lessons, you’ll easily recognize why the opening is attention-getting for all the right reasons. The writer introduces herself as the supremely busy executive she envisions herself becoming in the future: She trades large amounts of stock, then dashes to a teleconference, rushes down stairs, hails a taxi, then catches a plane. With all those busy verbs, we can practically feel her heart pumping as she rushes towards her flight.

She establishes her theme in this opening, and then gives the context for her MBA goal. Notice that in writing about her work as an accountant for a major firm, she provides relevant details, including how many years she has been in this field, her bilingual abilities, and specialty area as an auditor. This is the springboard from which she explains why she is pursuing the MBA: Her role as an accountant is too limited for her to achieve her career goals as a money manager.

Outstanding career goals essays don’t simply list what the applicants have done and what they want to do; they also convey real enthusiasm for the applicant’s career choice. This writer achieved this in the first paragraph and returned to it at the end, where she painted her idealized (if frantically busy) future. She also proved her seriousness by registering for CFA examinations.

Some career goals essays also ask why you have chosen that particular school. If you are faced with such a question, make sure to leave enough room to write knowledgably and enthusiastically about that specific program. This will be easier if you have made campus visits, attended student recruitment meetings, participated in chats, read school blogs, communicated with current students or recent alumni, and otherwise familiarized yourself with the program and the courses and specializations it offers that are relevant to your goals.

In our next lesson, we will plan the actual essay draft. It’s about time!

Summary Tips:

1. Focus on answering each and every question asked in an MBA career goals essay; usually there is more than one.

2. Be specific when writing about your experiences so that your achievements and motivations are clear and compelling.

3.  Do your homework about why the school is a good fit for you so you can write about it with genuine enthusiasm.

By Judy Gruen, Accepted.com editor and co-author of the ebook, MBA Letters of Recommendation That Rock.

Math (PS)

If is a positive integer, is defined as the number of positive integers which are less than and do not have common factor with other than 1. If is prime then

(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E) 2

OA and Explanation

Verbal (CR)

According to psychoanalytic theory, people have unconscious beliefs that are kept from becoming conscious by a psychological mechanism termed “repression.” Researchers investigating the nature of this mechanism observed occasions on which a patient undergoing therapy became aware of and expressed a previously unconscious belief. They found that such occasions were marked by an unusual decrease in the patient’s level of anxiety.

If the information above is true, and if the researchers’ investigation was properly conducted, then which of the following must also be true?

(A) Changes in the patient’s anxiety level during therapy can generally be used as an accurate measure of the extent to which the patient is becoming conscious of previously repressed beliefs.
(B) Even when one of a patient’s unconscious beliefs remains unconscious, researchers are sometimes able to discover this belief.
(C) If psychoanalytic theory is correct, then most conscious beliefs originate as unconscious beliefs.
(D) Researchers were able to distinguish expressed beliefs that had previously been unconscious from those that had long been conscious but that the patient had not previously expressed.
(E) Although the beliefs on which the mechanism of repression works are all unconscious, the operation of the mechanism itself is something of which patients are consciously aware.

OA and Explanation

A verb is a word used to express an action or a state of being. The tense of a verb indicates the time of the action or state of being that the verb expresses.

Verbs that describe actions or states of being that take place at the same time must be in the same tense.

John whistled while he walks his dog.

(Incorrect. The word while indicates that the two actions expressed by the verbs whistled and walks must take place at the same time. Therefore, they should be expressed in the same tense. However, whistled is in the past tense, while walks is in the present tense.)

John whistles while he walks his dog.

John whistled while he walked his dog.

(Correct. The verbs in these two sentences are consistent in tense; the first sentence locates these actions in the present, while the second locates these actions in the past.)

George wanted to root for the Giants, but his father sees this as an act of betrayal.

(Incorrect. The verbs wanted and sees describe actions that take place at the same time, but these verbs are in different tenses.)

George wanted to root for the Giants, but his father saw this as an act of betrayal.

(Correct. The verbs wanted and saw describe actions that take place at the same time; both are in the same tense, the past tense.)

–
Click here for more information on Knewton GMAT prep.

Lesson #2 of a five-part series for drafting exemplary essays.

All effective essays have a distinctive voice and theme. Referring back to the essays we looked at in “Identifying the Ingredients of a Winning Essay,” we might say that our MPH candidate’s theme was his passion for finding answers to significant public health issues. Our law school applicant’s theme was her yearning for greater intellectual challenge while remaining in the health care field.

It takes time and introspection to find your voice and your theme. The questions below are designed to stimulate your thought process and help you define your essay’s main message. Your answers will also help you express your goals, values as they relate to your career choice, motivations for pursuing a graduate degree, and your professional dreams. While introspection isn’t as popular an activity as, say, tennis or watching a favorite TV show, it’s an important part of this process. Give it some time; your essay will be much better for it.

1. Why are you passionate about — or at least committed to — your career choice?
2. What experiences in your life (personal, educational, professional) have influenced your career goals and passions the most?
3. Has any individual played a major role in helping you discover these goals or values?
4. What do you hope to achieve in your career?
5. What would career success look like in ten years?
6. What strengths do you bring to this career?
7. What experiences can you write about that will highlight these strengths?
8. After the admissions committee has read your essays, what three words would you hope they would use to describe you? Would you like them to consider you “driven,” “intelligent,” and “creative?” How about “dedicated,” “a leader,” and “focused?” No matter what image you want to create, think about experiences that will illustrate those qualities.

Some answers may spring to mind immediately, while others may require more thought. Some of these experiences might have enough drama or color to make a compelling essay introduction.

Remember that if you are writing multiple essays, such as for MBA programs, each one must have its own theme. The admissions committee members want to see you as a multi-faceted individual. Do not hammer home the same theme repeatedly when you have the opportunity to display different aspects of yourself, your values, and your personality.

Our next lesson will focus on developing the career goal essay.

Summary Tips:

1. Carve out some time for introspection about your career goals, values, and motivation.

2. Develop distinct themes for each essay required for an MBA program, or for any program requiring more than one essay.

By Judy Gruen, Accepted.com editor and co-author of the ebook, MBA Letters of Recommendation That Rock.

NOTE: This is #4 in a series of blog posts on the topic, “How to Select the Right MBA Programs.” To see previous segments, link to the following:

Post #1, Introducing the Series

Post #3, Determining Your Needs and Wants

A little more work is needed on the needs and wants issue.   It will be helpful to weight them – though not rigidly or in detail.  Simply, understanding the basic level of importance of a given factor will save you time up front by not considering schools that don’t meet your core needs no matter how intriguing they seem.  It will also help to uncover any contradictions that you might need to resolve (e.g., prefer to attend schools in the southeast, but also want to be near boyfriend in Boston).

For each of the wants/needs you’ve identified, assign one of the following categories:

Essential – This category applies to things that you must have no matter what.  If you have a family member whom you care for on a regular basis, you have to be able to get to that person in two to three hours.  Period.  If you are making a career change into marketing, you need a program with strong marketing curriculum and recruiting.  Period.

Very important – This category applies to the things that are highly important to you, but are not as absolute as those above.  Things that you would consider compromising on if you really, really had to, but really, really don’t want to.  For some people that might mean a geographic location (or avoiding a geographic location), for others a warm and fuzzy community, for others the chance to take courses in the university’s law or public policy program.

Important – Consider this the “nice to have” category – things that would definitely make a program more attractive to you but wouldn’t necessarily be a deciding factor.  The same examples in “very important” above could apply here for a different set of people.

Neutral – This category means simply not a factor.  Some people would just as readily have curriculum flexibility or structure; would just as readily live in Palo Alto or Fontainbleau.

The main purpose of this exercise is to help you see the factors in meaningful context.   Some people may be comfortable keeping these rankings in their head as they go through the next steps; others will make a spreadsheet with them.  Both approaches are fine.

By Cindy Tokumitsu, co-author of The Finance Professional’s Guide to MBA Success, The Consultants’ Guide to MBA Admission, The EMBA Edge, and author of several articles and the free, email mini-course, “Ace the EMBA.”

Math (DS)

A rectangle is inscribed in a circle of radius 5. Is the area of the rectangle bigger than 48 ?

1. The ratio of the lengths of sides of the rectangle is 3:4
2. The difference between the lengths of sides of the rectangle is smaller than 3

OA and Explanation

Verbal (SC)

Congress has enacted legislation forbidding state and local governments from raising taxes on connections that link consumers to the Internet for the next three years.

(A) forbidding state and local governments from raising taxes on connections that link consumers to the Internet for the next three years.
(B) that forbids state and local governments for the next three years from raising taxes on connections that link consumers to the Internet.
(C) that for the next three years forbids state and local governments to raise taxes on connections that link consumers to the Internet.
(D) forbidding for the next three years to state and local governments the raising of taxes on connections that link consumers to the Internet
(E) that forbids for the next three years state and local governments from raising taxes on connections that link consumers to the Internet.

OA and Explanation