{"id":2680,"date":"2010-03-22T13:43:11","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T21:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=2680"},"modified":"2010-03-22T13:46:03","modified_gmt":"2010-03-22T21:46:03","slug":"veritas-prep-gmat-tips-you-have-nothing-to-fear-but-fear-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/veritas-prep-gmat-tips-you-have-nothing-to-fear-but-fear-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"Veritas Prep GMAT Tips: You Have Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

When developing any GMAT question, the authors of the test have two goals in mind. They want to:<\/p>\n

1)\tCreate a high likelihood that you will answer the question incorrectly
\n2)\tWaste your time on your way to selecting your answer so that you answer subsequent questions incorrectly<\/p>\n

And, naturally, they need to do this fairly \u2013 impossible-to-answer questions, or questions that cannot possibly be solved in ~2 minutes are out of the question, as the test needs to reward those test takers best suited for business school and separate them from those who may not be as qualified.<\/p>\n

Overall, though, the authors of the GMAT do not want to ask you any questions that you\u2019ll definitely answer correctly \u2013 with only 37 quant and 41 verbal opportunities to separate you from your competition, they cannot afford any \u201cgimmes\u201d, and you shouldn\u2019t want that. You want to demonstrate that you are more qualified for school than most other applicants, and difficult questions give you the best opportunity to do so.<\/p>\n

With that task \u2013 simply phrased, to keep your score down \u2013 in mind, the authors of the GMAT employ several devices to challenge you and waste your time. While some math questions may ask specifically for the Lowest Common Denominator concept, others will simply employ one of humanity\u2019s lowest common denominators: fear.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in a marketing track in business school, you may watch the television show Mad Men, which is set in the formative years of the advertising industry. One classic Mad Men scene (check it out here<\/a>) involves the marketing of Lucky Strike cigarettes. The ad agency focuses on one seemingly-unimportant part of the manufacturing process for cigarettes \u2013 \u201cthey\u2019re toasted\u201d \u2013 as the focus of an ad campaign. When the client protests that \u201call cigarettes are toasted\u201d, the agency reply centers on customers\u2019 propensity for fear, noting that if Lucky Strike\u2019s ads focus on that portion of the company\u2019s process, it will create fear in consumers\u2019 minds that the competitive brands are sufficiently toasted. Simply introducing this fear proved to be a powerful motivator in the marketplace, and is also a key concept to remember about human nature \u2013 fear just may be the human emotion that trumps all others.<\/p>\n

The authors of the GMAT \u2013 mad men in their own right \u2013 know this, and introduce fear in to many GMAT questions. Think of this notion of fear when you see certain GMAT elements that tend to intimidate most candidates:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Multiple variables
\n\u2022 Variables contained within exponents
\n\u2022 Long, verbose stimulus paragraphs
\n\u2022 Obscure idioms
\n\u2022 Technical language in Reading Comprehension passages
\n\u2022 Function or symbol problems (i.e. if a \u00b5 b = a2 +2b for all values of a and b\u2026)<\/p>\n

When the authors of the GMAT use these devices, their primary goal is to strike fear in your heart, because they know that fear can break your spirit, or at least your focus, and may not only cause you to answer that question incorrectly, but will likely carry over to self-doubt on future questions. Know going in to the test that the authors will engage in \u201cpsychological warfare\u201d with you, using fear as their central weapon. If you\u2019re simply looking for those elements and can confidently smile knowing that you\u2019re a step ahead of them, that should increase your score. Also know that:<\/p>\n

\u2022 When the GMAT employs multiple variables, one can typically eliminate at least a few variables by finding relationships between them.<\/p>\n

\u2022 When variables are contained within exponents, your job is to factor the bases of each exponent to form concrete relationships between the exponents. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Function\/symbol problems may be the biggest smokescreen of all; that symbol looks intimidating, but your job is simply to be deliberate in arranging your math to look just like the function, and then it\u2019s a matter of algebra.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Technical language in Reading Comprehension passages is a good thing \u2013 the longer the word, the more it acts as a \u201cbookmark\u201d for you when you need to return to that portion for a specific detail question, and because this isn\u2019t the MCAT, you won\u2019t need to be an expert on the science behind the term.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Long, verbose stimulus paragraphs can almost always be broken down sentence by sentence and put in your own simpler terms; those paragraphs tend to test your patience more than they test your intelligence, so just be calm and methodical.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Obscure idioms are never the primary element of the sentence being tested, so use them as a cue to search for the cleverly-disguised major error theme that the sentence contains.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, know that the GMAT is going to try to intimidate you, and that your greatest defense is a calm, confident demeanor. When you know that your biggest fear should be fear itself, you can derive that confidence from knowing that you\u2019re winning the psychological battle against the testmaker. <\/p>\n

Read more GMAT advice on the Veritas Prep blog<\/a>. Ready to sign up for a GMAT course<\/a>? Enroll through GMAT Club and save up to $180 (use discount code GMATC10)!<\/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. When developing any GMAT question, the authors of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2680","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=2680"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2683,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2680\/revisions\/2683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}