{"id":2456,"date":"2010-02-25T14:00:02","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T22:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=2456"},"modified":"2010-02-26T09:44:58","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T17:44:58","slug":"veritas-prep-gmat-tips-the-gmat-case-method","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/veritas-prep-gmat-tips-the-gmat-case-method\/","title":{"rendered":"Veritas Prep GMAT Tips: The GMAT Case Method"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian Galvin is the Director of Academic Programs at Veritas Prep, where he oversees all of the company\u2019s <\/em>GMAT preparation<\/em><\/a> courses.<\/em><\/p>\n

Many top business schools teach using the famous \u201ccase method\u201d, in which you will analyze the real-world situation of a particular business at a time of crisis\/transition\/decision in order to gain practical knowledge of business theory as applied to an actual situation.\u00a0 The theory behind the case method is that, by analyzing how, for example, Kodak needed to transition from a conventional (film) to a new (digital) business model, you\u2019ll gain large-scale understanding of a business principle in general, and not just an intimate understanding of one business.\u00a0 With this experience, you can then apply your theoretical-and-practical understanding of an array of business principles to whatever situations will arise in your future role as a manager.<\/p>\n

The GMAT affords you similar opportunities to glean information from a specific case and extrapolate it to another, perhaps more complicated situation.\u00a0 In fact, while many questions may seem to require you to have memorized a variety of specific tricks, formulas, and rules, the exam will reward you for being able to derive these rules from specific cases, and may even punish you for memorizing-without-understanding.\u00a0 Consider the question:<\/p>\n

What is the sum of the even integers between 300 and 400, inclusive?<\/em><\/p>\n

There are a few \u201crules\u201d that can help you solve this question efficiently:<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For evenly-spaced sets (like a set of consecutive even integers), the mean and median of the set will be the same.\u00a0 In this case, the middle number, 350, will be the average of all the values in the set.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To find the number of values in an inclusive set, take the range of (usable) values, then add one.\u00a0 (The counterpart to this is that, for exclusive sets, you subtract one).<\/p>\n

So here, knowing that we can only use the even numbers \u2013 every second number will count \u2013 we\u2019d take the range (100) divide by 2 (to eliminate the non-useful odd numbers), and then add one (because it\u2019s an inclusive set) to note that there are 51 terms with an average of 350.\u00a0 Accordingly, the answer will be 350*51, or 17,850.<\/p>\n

Now, that seems like a lot of memorization required for a fairly unique question type.\u00a0 Furthermore, memorization can be tough to implement \u2013 you\u2019ll likely remember that for inclusive\/exclusive sets, you add one in one case and subtract one in the other, but it may be tough when you\u2019re under pressure to remember exactly which is which.\u00a0 Therefore, keep in mind that you can use small cases in which you can prove rules like the above to prove your point, then extrapolate it to the question at hand \u2013 like your own personal GMAT \u201ccase method\u201d<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The range 300 to 400 is pretty vast, but once you recognize that it\u2019s an evenly spaced set of consecutive even integers, you can recognize that it will react similarly to any other set of similar numbers.\u00a0 If you take a more manageable set of consecutive even integers, like 2 through 10, you can experiment to see if a pattern exits. In that case, there are 5 values:\u00a0 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10.\u00a0 Playing with those values, you\u2019ll find that the ends (2 and 10) add to 12, and the next values inward (4 and 8) do the same, but that 6 won\u2019t have a pair.\u00a0 The sum, then is, 12+12+6, or 30, a multiple of 6.\u00a0 Looking for patterns in these numbers, you may well find that the average value is the same as the middle value, or at least that you can find pairs to add to the same thing (12) unless there\u2019s an odd-man-out middle value, in which case it will be half the value of each pair (the same logic, just without mathematical terminology like \u201cmean\u201d and \u201cmedian\u201d).\u00a0 If you extrapolate this pattern to a larger set of consecutive even integers like 300-400, you can determine that they\u2019ll have an average value of 350, or that each pair (other than the middle number) will add to 700.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You\u2019re probably at least aware that there\u2019s a rule for inclusive and exclusive sets, but it comes up so infrequently that you may not have it down cold when the time comes to use it.\u00a0 That\u2019s okay!\u00a0 It\u2019s more important to know that a rule exists than to know the specifics of the rule!<\/em><\/strong> If you know that a rule exists for inclusive\/exclusive sets, you can just prove it to yourself using a set like 1, 2, and 3.\u00a0 The range of that set is 3-1 = 2, but you can clearly see that if you include all numbers, there are 3 total. Accordingly, the rule for inclusive sets is to add one to the range.\u00a0 Similarly, if you excluded the ends of the range (1 and 3) there\u2019s only one value left, so you\u2019d have to subtract one from the range.<\/p>\n

Many a GMAT student has read an explanation to a question like the one above and thought to himself \u201csure, that\u2019s great if you remember the rule, but there are so many rules to remember\u201d.\u00a0 When you recognize, however, that you can pretty quickly prove to yourself any rule that you know (or even suspect) exists, you can use small-number case methods to do for you what your memory just may not be able to.<\/p>\n

Read more GMAT advice on the Veritas Prep blog<\/a>. Ready to sign up for a GMAT course? Enroll through GMAT Club and you\u2019ll not only save up to $180 (use discount code GMATC10<\/strong>), but you\u2019ll also get access to all 30 of GMAT Club\u2019s GMAT practice tests! Read more info here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"GMAT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian Galvin is the Director of Academic Programs at Veritas Prep, where he oversees all of the company\u2019s GMAT preparation courses. Many top business schools teach using the famous \u201ccase…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,9,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat-tests","category-gmat","category-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2456"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2485,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456\/revisions\/2485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}