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30 Sep 2019, 11:01
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| FROM Manhattan GMAT Blog: How to Review a Data Sufficiency Question |
 You’ve heard it here before: reviewing practice problems is even more valuable than doing them. Here’s a step-by-step guide to reviewing your GMAT Data Sufficiency problems. Which Data Sufficiency questions should I review? If you had infinite time, you’d want to review every Data Sufficiency problem you do. But, let’s be realistic! You have my permission to not review these types of problems:
Okay, so you have a list of problems to review. What does reviewing a problem actually look like? Reviewing a Data Sufficiency problem The first step is to redo the problem. However, you’re going to do the problem differently this time. When you redo while reviewing, don’t use a timer. Feel free to use any outside resources you’d like, such as a calculator or the All the Quant Guide. That’s right — you’re allowed to “cheat” as much as you want! The only thing you can’t use is the explanation. I’ll say that again, because it really matters: DO NOT READ THE EXPLANATION (YET)! When you read the explanation too soon, you’re robbing yourself of a chance to solve the problem. And you’ll learn more from solving the problem—even if it’s a struggle and even if you need to cheat!—than you will from watching someone else solve it. If you get stuck, check the explanation, but stop reading as soon as it gives you a good clue. Then, go back to your own paper and try to finish the work yourself. If you absolutely can’t get anywhere, even with multiple clues from the explanation, the problem might be too hard right now. Save it for later — and if this happens repeatedly with the same type of problem, that’s a sign that you should review that topic! Once you’re satisfied with your own redo of the problem, feel free to read the rest of the explanation. Take note of anything that the explanation did that you didn’t do, or vice versa. Sometimes, the explanation can point you in the direction of a faster or simpler solution. Learning from a Data Sufficiency problem Now, it’s time to take some notes. But you aren’t just going to write down how to solve the problem. That would help you remember how to solve this exact problem, but that’s not the point. Here’s what your goals really are at this stage:
A bookstore that sells used books sells each of its paperback books for a certain price and each of its hardcover books for a certain price. If Joe, Maria, and Paul bought books in this store, how much did Maria pay for 1 paperback book and 1 hardcover book? (1) Joe bought 2 paperback books and 3 hardcover books for $12.50. (2) Paul bought 4 paperback books and 6 hardcover books for $25.00. Do the problem now! Next, we’ll walk through which notes you should take in your problem log. A Data Sufficiency problem has two different things you need to analyze while solving: the question stem, and the statements. Take some notes on each. First, write down anything that stands out about the question stem, and what you think you should do when you see those things in a Data Sufficiency question. Your exact notes will vary depending on your strengths and weaknesses, how you solved the problem, and why you’re reviewing it. Here are some examples. Student 1 spent too long on this problem because she dove into the statements without understanding the problem. She didn’t realize, until too late in the process, that solving with equations would have been much simpler. Here are her notes on the question stem: Word problem = turn into variables BEFORE dealing w/ statements! Student 2 read the question stem and assumed she’d need to solve for the price of each book individually, instead of solving for the sum of two prices. Here are her notes: Look for “combos” where the ? asks for a sum: hardcover AND paperback price = H + P Could still solve even without H or P separately Write down the exact question, don’t assume! Student 3 got this one right, but still thought it was an interesting problem! Here are her notes: Q is “what is H + P” : look out for tricky statements that tell you the sum, like “2H + 2P = 10”! Next, go through the statements one at a time. Here’s where things really get interesting. If you missed the problem, then you either thought an insufficient statement was actually sufficient, or thought a sufficient statement was actually insufficient. Figure out where things went wrong first: which statement(s) did you analyze incorrectly? (For a very deep dive into these two types of mistakes, check out our articles on type 1 errors and type 2 errors.) If you thought a statement was sufficient and you were wrong, figure out why you thought it was sufficient. Then, in your notes, prove that it was insufficient. That will probably involve writing down specific cases, even if you wouldn’t take the time to do that on test day. When you’re reviewing, take all the time you need! If you thought a statement was insufficient and you were wrong, figure out why you thought it was insufficient. Then, prove that it was sufficient. That means demonstrating to yourself, in your notes, exactly how the statement helps you answer the question, and what answer it leads to. Student 1 got the problem right eventually, but realized when reviewing that she didn’t need to test cases. Here are her notes on the statements: DS word problem: turn into math equations and see if the algebra is easy BEFORE you think about cases…cases work but take a long time! Student 2 made the first type of mistake when she put the statements together. She thought the statements were sufficient together, but they actually weren’t. Let’s see her notes: Statements were insufficient together! I thought they were sufficient b/c there were two equations and two variables in the question. Proof: statements simplify to the same thing, 2p + 3h = 12.5. If the statements are the same, C CAN’T be the right answer. The answer must be either D or E. Word problem to algebra = check to make sure the statements aren’t identical, don’t assume C if it seems easy! Student 3 got this one right, but she’s still taking notes so she remembers any tricks this problem tried to play! Here are her notes. DS linear equations: simplify statements to double check that the statements aren’t = to each other. If 2 statements are different, you can solve for two variables. But if they’re the same, you can’t solve at all (unless the statement is the same as the question.) By the way, the answer to the question was (E). I didn’t tell you until now because of exactly what I wrote earlier — the more you play around with a problem on your own before letting somebody else tell you what to do, the more you’ll remember about it later. What do I do with all of these notes? From each problem you’ve reviewed, you’ve learned something about the GMAT—and you’ve hopefully learned something about how you tend to approach problems and the mistakes you make most often. What do you do with all of this information? GMAT instructor Elaine Loh suggests a method in this article that everybody should try out. For each problem you learned something from, set a date about two weeks in the future to redo it again. For instance, you could have a study session once per week where you redo all of the old problems from a couple of weeks ago. Write down these dates in your problem log, and build a habit of checking it regularly and actually redoing the problems you’ve listed. Also, she recommends that when you have a few minutes of spare time, you simply read over the notes you’ve taken in your problem log. No need to do anything fancy — just quickly reread your takeaways once or twice a week, to jog your memory of the interesting DS problems you’ve reviewed so far. If Data Sufficiency is a strong area for you, it’s okay to keep your problem logging low-key. Just jot down a couple of notes on problems you missed (unless they’re way too hard!). But if you want to improve your DS performance, be more aggressive in reviewing DS problems for a couple of weeks, and you may notice a change in how you think about these problems. [b]Chelsey Cooley  is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Seattle, Washington. [/b]Chelsey always followed her heart when it came to her education. Luckily, her heart led her straight to the perfect background for GMAT and GRE teaching: she has undergraduate degrees in mathematics and history, a master’s degree in linguistics, a 790 on the GMAT, and a perfect 170Q/170V on the GRE. Check out Chelsey’s upcoming GRE prep offerings here. The post How to Review a Data Sufficiency Question appeared first on GMAT. |
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01 Oct 2019, 08:01
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| FROM Manhattan GMAT Blog: How To Read A Reading Comp Passage |
 How can we efficiently tackle Reading Comp Passages on the GMAT? What are we supposed to do and look for during the initial few minutes before we start to answer the first question? Note: this article doesn’t address how to answer reading comprehension questions; it focuses on the initial read-through and note-taking. If you do that well, though, then that should help you answer any kind of question. Goals for Reading Comp Problems Whenever we start a specific type of problem, we should have certain goals in mind (depending, of course, on what that problem type is). Reading Comprehension (RC) is no exception. First, we have some timing goals. I aim to complete an initial read-through of an RC passage in 2 (shorter) to 3 (longer) minutes. I try to answer general questions (e.g., main idea) in about 1 minute and specific questions in about 1.5 to 2 minutes. I also take some short notes while I read through the passage; these notes will be based upon the goals discussed in the next several paragraphs. My notes will be heavily abbreviated; see the Taking Notes section below for more on this topic. Next, we have some goals for the initial read-through of the passage. Every passage has a topic and what I call The Point. The topic is what you would probably expect: the basic topic under discussion in the passage. The Point is the main reason the author is writing this specific passage (you can also think of The Point as the thesis statement). For instance, a passage topic might be the curious decline of bees in recent years (entire hives have been dying, losing the ability to find their way back to the hive, and so on). The Point might be that, out of three possible causes (all mentioned in the passage), a certain pesticide is the most likely cause (according to the author). Back to our Goal: when I read the passage, I need to make sure I understand The Point, not just the topic. Further, I also need to make sure I understand the purpose of each paragraph. These passages follow the same rules we’re supposed to use when we write an essay: each paragraph should have one distinct purpose or message (and, often, that message is delivered via a topic sentence, usually the first or second sentence of the paragraph). Finally, I also need to make sure that I do NOT fully understand or remember all of the detail in each paragraph. That was not a typo. I’m trying to read this passage in 2 to 3 minutes maximum; I don’t have time to try to fully understand, let alone remember, all of the detail. My goal is to know in which paragraph the different kinds of detail reside–that’s all. Wait, How Can I Get Away With NOT Understanding the Detail? This is where we can take advantage of the fact that the GMAT is a standardized test. An individual test-taker is given only about half of the questions that were written for that passage. That little piece of knowledge has major implications for how we conduct the initial read-through. I know that I’m going to have to understand The Point, because that permeates the entire passage and even, to some extent, every question that I answer. I also know that I will not get asked about every detail on the screen because I’m never going to see half of the questions. So why learn all of that annoying detail unless I know that I’m going to get a question about it? (And I won’t know that until the question pops up on the screen.) Instead, as we discussed above, my goal for the detail is to know in which paragraph it resides. That way, if I do get a question about the chemical mechanism by which the pesticide affects a bee’s nervous system, I’ll immediately know that I can find that detail in paragraph 2. I won’t have any idea how to answer the question yet; I’ll have to read that detail now to see whether I can figure it out. Note: did you hit a word you don’t know? Skip it. Is some sentence really convoluted? If it’s the first sentence of a paragraph, use your SC knowledge to find the subject and verb, just to get a basic understanding of what it says. If it’s a detail sentence, skip it. Reading Comprehension: The Initial Read-through Most of the time, The Point can be found in one discrete sentence somewhere in the passage (though sometimes we have to combine two sentences to get the full Point). Most often, The Point can be found in the first few or last few sentences of the entire passage, but it is possible for The Point to show up anywhere. So, a new passage pops up on the screen and we, naturally, start reading. Read the first sentence, then stop. Rephrase it in your mind (put it into words that you can understand very easily), and jot down a note or two. Then do the same with the second sentence. Once you think you understand the purpose of that one paragraph, you can start skimming the rest of the paragraph. While you skim, you’re trying to make this distinction: is this information just detail that goes along with whatever I decided was the purpose of this paragraph? Or is this information something new: does it represent a new idea or a change of direction? If it’s just detail, jot down the basic kind of detail it is (e.g., “bees dying”) and move on. If it represents a new idea or change of direction, then pay a little more attention and take some short notes. Do the same with the other paragraphs, though you can be a bit more aggressive about skimming. If, for example, you think you understand the purpose of the second paragraph after reading only the first sentence, that’s fine. Start skimming (but take note of anything that represents a new direction). When you’re done, take a moment to articulate The Point to yourself. Is that already in your notes? Put a star next to it. If it isn’t in your notes, jot it down. Taking Notes Your notes should be heavily abbreviated–much more aggressively abbreviated than notes you would typically take at work or school. In fact, if I look at my notes for a passage a few days later, I should have a lot of trouble figuring out what they say (without using the passage as a reference). How can we get away with abbreviating this heavily? Again, we’re taking advantage of the nature of this test. You’re going to spend perhaps 6 to 8 minutes with this passage and then you can forget about it forever. You don’t need to commit anything to long-term memory, nor do you need to take notes from which you can study in a week. (Of course, if you’re just practicing, you are going to review your work later, but you should still practice as though it’s the real thing.) Analyzing Your Work Everyone already knows that it’s important to review your work on the problems you do, but did you know that it’s also important to review how you read and take your notes? When you’re done with a passage and the associated questions, start your review with the passage itself. When you were done reading (but before you answered questions), what did you think The Point was? What did you think the purpose of each paragraph was? Did that knowledge or understanding change as you worked your way through the questions? If you misunderstood something after the first read-through, why do you think you misunderstood it? Did you read too quickly and overlook something? Did you not take the time to rephrase what you read? How could you do this better next time? Next, match your initial notes to your current knowledge of what information is contained in the passage. Were you able to find the right paragraph easily when answering a specific question? If not, why not? What should you have jotted down on the initial read-through to make that easier? Conversely, did you have too much information jotted down? Maybe you were able to answer a specific question just from your notes, or maybe you had a lot of detail written down that you never had to use. If so, you wrote down too much information and you spent too much time on the initial read-through. Could you have abbreviated even more? Write down what that might have looked like, from the beginning. (In general, if you feel your notes were fairly far from your ideal for any reason, then re-write the notes the way you should have written them the first time.) Take-aways (1) You do NOT want to learn or comprehend every single thing that the passage says (2) Know your goals: (a) Find The Point (b) Find the purpose of each paragraph (c) Know where (in which paragraph) to find different kinds of detail (3) Practice sticking to your timing and practice abbreviating heavily (4) When you review your work, also review how you read and took notes on the passage RELATED: What NOT to Read on Reading Comprehension Passages Don’t forget that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free. We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.  Stacey Koprince is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, California. Stacey has been teaching the GMAT, GRE, and LSAT for more than 15 years and is one of the most well-known instructors in the industry. Stacey loves to teach and is absolutely fascinated by standardized tests. Check out Stacey’s upcoming GMAT courses here. The post How To Read A Reading Comp Passage appeared first on GMAT. |
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03 Oct 2019, 09:01
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| FROM Manhattan GMAT Blog: How to Review a Sentence Correction Question |
 I’ve often heard that studying GMAT Verbal feels less straightforward than studying Quant. Even though Quant is tough, it does have a lot of clear rules and techniques to memorize. Verbal, on the other hand, feels much fuzzier. But is that really the case? Start by reading this article, which investigates whether GMAT Verbal questions are “fair.” Once you’re thinking methodically about the rules of GMAT Verbal, come back to this article to learn how to deep dive a Sentence Correction problem. Which Sentence Correction questions should I review? Ideally, you’d review every problem you do. But you don’t have to go through the whole process in this article every single time. The most important Sentence Correction problems to review are ones that fall into these categories:
Reviewing Sentence Correction Problems Once you’ve decided to review a Sentence Correction question, commit to reviewing it at least twice. When you review for the first time, do it shortly after originally doing the problem — for instance, on the following day. As with any type of problem, the first step is to redo the problem. Take it easy this time! Don’t use a timer. Your goal right now is to dig into the problem and reflect. You can even look up the grammar rules in the All the Verbal guide while you’re trying to figure it out. If you got the problem wrong the first time, you have a specific task to do at this point. Look at what the right answer was, but don’t look at the explanation at all just yet. Instead, try to figure out on your own why the right answer was right. It’s fine if you have to guess why it was right. If you think about it on your own before reading the explanation, you’re far more likely to remember the explanation long-term. If you really get stuck, glance at the explanation, but try not to passively read the whole thing. For instance, you might glance at the explanation for just one of the answer choices at a time. Learning from a Sentence Correction problem The next step is where the most valuable learning happens. It’s time to reflect on the problem in a methodical, organized way, and take notes that will help you later on. Before we go further into the process, let’s do a Sentence Correction problem from GMATPrep as an example: Displays of the aurora borealis, or “northern lights,” can heat the atmosphere over the arctic enough to affect the trajectories of ballistic missiles, induce electric currents that can cause blackouts in some areas and corrosion in north-south pipelines.
The Big Picture Start by looking at the whole problem again, after redoing it. What major lessons are worth remembering? If you missed it, was there something about the problem you should have noticed? Here are some examples. Student A spent a long time solving this problem, because they spent 90 seconds going back and forth between the answer choices starting with “to” and the ones starting with “that.” In the end, they weren’t able to make a confident decision. Here are their brief big-picture notes:
Focusing on the splits Next, zoom in on the differences among the answer choices. When you actually solve a Sentence Correction problem, you’ll do so one split at a time. For each split in the problem, make sure you can explain the following:
Student A
Student B focused on the Parallelism issue right away, but they struggled to pick the right answer because they misunderstood the sentence structure. That’s what their notes focus on:
Next-level Sentence Correction review Depending on your own strengths and weaknesses, you may or may not stop there. It’s great if you can just get one or two clear, actionable lessons out of each Sentence Correction problem you review. However, if Sentence Correction is a weakness for you, you may want to add more steps to your review process. For example, if you have a hard time finding the subject and verb of a complex sentence, you could try breaking the sentence down to its core every time you review a problem. If you’re struggling to remember the modifier rules, you could jot down each different type of modifier that appears in the sentence. It can also be helpful to jot down what caused you to miss a problem. This will help you notice patterns you may otherwise miss. Did you miss a problem because you skimmed over a small but critical word late in the sentence? Or because you picked the answer that “sounded okay” rather than the one that followed all of the grammar rules? Write it down! You could be making the same mistake more often than you realize. Once you’ve taken some notes on the problem, set it aside for a week or two. If you’re using a GMAT study calendar, build in a review session once per week, and just redo old problems you’ve already tried. During this review session, go back to the Sentence Correction problems you’ve reviewed that week, and try them with a timer one more time. If you get them right this time and you’ve learned everything there is to learn from the problem, you can set them aside for now! If you miss a problem when you redo it in a week or two, though, you may have a weak area that needs some extra time and attention. Don’t forget that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free. We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here. [b]Chelsey Cooley is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Seattle, Washington. [/b]Chelsey always followed her heart when it came to her education. Luckily, her heart led her straight to the perfect background for GMAT and GRE teaching: she has undergraduate degrees in mathematics and history, a master’s degree in linguistics, a 790 on the GMAT, and a perfect 170Q/170V on the GRE. Check out Chelsey’s upcoming GRE prep offerings here. The post How to Review a Sentence Correction Question appeared first on GMAT. |
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