{"id":3109,"date":"2010-05-07T09:48:29","date_gmt":"2010-05-07T17:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=3109"},"modified":"2010-07-24T22:02:15","modified_gmt":"2010-07-25T06:02:15","slug":"veritas-prep-gmat-tips-to-conquer-the-gmat-be-the-gmat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/veritas-prep-gmat-tips-to-conquer-the-gmat-be-the-gmat\/","title":{"rendered":"Veritas Prep GMAT Tips: To Conquer the GMAT Be the GMAT"},"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

Data Sufficiency questions, which will comprise about half of your quantitative section, are a format unique to the GMAT.\u00a0 As you become familiar with this unique type of question, you\u2019ll find it challenging, frustrating, confusing, infuriating, but hopefully in the end satisfying as you master the many challenges that these questions present.<\/p>\n

In this space, we\u2019ve encouraged you to \u201cthink like the testmaker\u201d to better understand how the questions will try to bait you in to making mistakes.\u00a0 Well, the most natural way to think like the testmaker is to actually be the testmaker, and the Data Sufficiency format provides a way for you to do that. To better understand the Data Sufficiency format, try writing a few questions of your own \u2013 and they don\u2019t need to necessarily be about math.\u00a0 If you write them about trivia, pop culture, sports, history, or any other topic of interest and expertise, you can get a feel for how the math-expert GMAT writers will try to use the format to trick you in to incorrect answers.<\/p>\n

The Data Sufficiency format lends itself nicely to a few common traps, including:<\/p>\n

You think you have more information than you really do, and select an answer that is actually insufficient<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t think you have enough information when you really do, and you fail to select an answer that is sufficient<\/p>\n

You incorporate your knowledge of statement (1) alone in to your reading of statement (2), and mistakenly find (2) to be sufficient alone, when in fact it requires the information from (1)<\/p>\n

To recreate these traps, try writing a question about a topic on which you are an expert, so that you can either withhold just enough information to make it tricky, or provide just enough information that it won\u2019t look to be enough.\u00a0 By creating these traps yourself, you\u2019ll likely be more adept at looking for them on test questions.\u00a0 Consider the following example:<\/p>\n

Who is this United States President?<\/p>\n

(1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He took office after 1900<\/p>\n

(2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He has the same first and last name as his father<\/p>\n

The solution?\u00a0 Well, the (devilishly clever) author of the question wants you to think that statement (2) narrows you down to John Quincy Adams and George W. Bush \u2013 the only two presidents whose fathers were also presidents, and who each had the same first and last name.\u00a0 When combined with statement (1), that would lead you to answer C \u2013 John Quincy Adams was president before 1900, so he would be eliminated.\u00a0 Upon a closer read, however, notice that statement (2) doesn\u2019t stipulate that the father must have been a president himself.\u00a0 That being the case, Barack Obama, whose father is also named Barack Obama, would also qualify, and the correct\u00a0 answer is E.<\/p>\n

In writing this question, the author may have trapped you in to making an assumption regarding statement (2) that would have led you to think you had more information than you did \u2013 a very common GMAT device.\u00a0 Because you were thinking along the lines of \u201cUS Presidents\u201d, you may have transferred that assumption to each element of the question, much like you\u2019ll be inclined to make that assumption regarding numbers being integers or having positive values.<\/p>\n

They say that you don\u2019t know a man until you\u2019ve walked a mile in his shoes, and if that holds you may not thoroughly know how the GMAT is written as well as you would if you wrote a few questions yourself.\u00a0 If you try to write a few questions of your own, you\u2019ll likely find that thinking like the test maker allows you to better anticipate the traps that the GMAT will set for you, and you may learn to love the Data Sufficiency format, after all.<\/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

\"Veritas<\/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. Data Sufficiency questions, which will comprise about half of…<\/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-3109","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\/3109","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=3109"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3112,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3109\/revisions\/3112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}