GMAT For Dummies 2021

Lisa Zimmer Hatch, MA, has created and administered standardized test preparation and legal career courses for more than 300 universities. Scott A. Hatch, JD, has been helping students prepare for standardized tests and legal careers since 1980. He develops courses for a variety of careers.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 2

Beyond the Book 3

Where to Go from Here 3

Part 1: Getting Started with the GMAT 5

Chapter 1: The Lowdown on the GMAT 7

Knowing Why the GMAT is Important 7

Timing It Perfectly: When to Take the GMAT (and What to Bring) 8

When to register for and take the GMAT 8

Things to take to the GMAT (and things to leave at home) 10

Forming First Impressions: The Format of the GMAT 10

Getting familiar with what the GMAT tests 10

Understanding the computerized format 11

Honing your computer skills for the GMAT 12

Knowing Where You Stand: Scoring Considerations 13

How the GMAT testers figure your score 13

How the GMAT testers report your score 13

When should you cancel your GMAT score? 14

Repeating the Process: Retaking the GMAT 15

Chapter 2: Maximizing Your Score on the GMAT 17

Discovering Strategies for Successful Guessing 17

Forcing yourself to guess so you can move on 18

Understanding the importance of completing each section 18

Winning the Race against the Clock 19

Giving each question equal treatment 19

Making time for the last ten questions 19

Keeping track of your pace 20

Getting Rid of Wrong Answers 20

Keeping track of eliminated answer choices for the computer test format 20

Recognizing wrong answers 21

Playing It Smart: A Few Things You Shouldn’t Do When Taking the Test 25

Don’t lose your focus 25

Don’t read questions at lightning speed 25

Don’t waste all your time on the hardest questions 25

Don’t cheat 25

Tackling a Case of Nerves with Relaxation Techniques 26

Chapter 3: Mastering Business School Admissions 27

Choosing a Business School 27

Lining Up Your Ducks — Applying to Business Schools 29

When to apply 30

What to submit 30

Crafting Effective Business School Essays 31

Part 2: Creating a GMAT Study Plan 33

Chapter 4: Planning Your Approach 35

Using the Preassessment: The How-To 35

Evaluating Section 1: Quantitative 35

Evaluating Section 2: Verbal 36

Evaluation Section 3: Integrated reasoning 36

Devising a Plan of Attack 36

Chapter 5: GMAT Practice Assessment 39

Section 1: Quantitative 40

Section 2: Verbal 44

Section 3: Integrated Reasoning 48

Chapter 6: Scoring and Interpreting the Practice Assessment 53

Section 1: Quantitative Reasoning 53

Section 2: Verbal 61

Section 3: Integrated Reasoning 64

Answers at a Glance 67

Part 3: Vanquishing the Verbal Section 69

Chapter 7: Applying What You Learned (We Hope) in Grammar Class: Sentence Correction 71

Building a Solid Foundation: Grammar Basics 72

Getting wordy: The parts of speech 72

Pulling together: The parts of a sentence 75

Pointing Out Mistakes: Common Sentence-Correction Errors 76

Can’t we all just get along? Errors in subject-verb and noun-pronoun agreement 77

Building code violations: Faulty construction 79

Follow the idiom: Correct use of standard expressions 83

Implementing an Approach to Sentence Correction Questions 85

Spotting the error 86

Eliminating answers that don’t correct errors 86

Eliminating choices that create new errors 87

Rereading the sentence 87

Reviewing the process and guessing on sentence corrections 87

Sentence Correction Practice Problems with Answer Explanations 87

Practice problems 88

Answer explanations 90

Chapter 8: Not as Enticing as a Bestseller: Reading Comprehension 93

Judging by Appearances: What Reading Comprehension Questions Look Like 93

Approaching Reading Passages 94

Mastering the message: The main point 94

Absorbing the ambiance: Author’s tone 95

Finding the framework: The passage’s outline 95

Sticking to the Subject: Types of Passages 96

Experimenting with natural science passages 96

Gathering in social circles: Social science passages 96

Getting down to business passages 97

Approaching Reading Comprehension Questions 97

Identifying the question type 97

Eliminating answer choices 100

Dealing with exception questions 101

Reading Comprehension Practice Questions with Answer Explanations 104

Reading comprehension practice questions 104

Answer explanations 109

Chapter 9: Thinking This through Logically: Critical Reasoning 115

Focusing on “Critical” Concepts: An Overview 115

Understanding the structure of the questions 116

Figuring out how to answer the questions 116

Making a Case: Essentials of Informal Logic 117

Fighting fair: The elements of an argument 117

Getting from Point A to Point B: Types of reasoning 117

Thinking Inside the Box: Question Types 119

Stalking Your Prey: How to Approach Each Question Type 120

Strengthening or weakening arguments 120

Delving into drawing conclusions 124

Spotting those sneaky assumptions 125

Using your noggin to make inferences 127

Critical Reasoning Practice Questions and Answer Explanations 130

Critical reasoning practice questions 130

Answer explanations 134

Chapter 10: Bringing It Together: A Mini Practice Verbal Section 139

Working through Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions 140

Understanding What’s Right with Answer Explanations 148

Part 4: Acing the Analytical Writing Section 155

Chapter 11: Analyze This: What to Expect from the Analytical Writing Assessment 157

Fitting in the AWA with the Rest of the GMAT 157

Calling 411: Your AWA Writing Tools 158

Analyzing an Argument 158

Racking Up the Points: How the GMAT Scores Your Essay 159

Getting to know your readers 159

Interpreting the scores 160

Requesting your essay be rescored 160

Chapter 12: Present Perfect Paragraphs: How to Write a GMAT Essay 161

Avoiding Grammar, Punctuation, and Mechanics Errors 161

Punctuation errors 162

Sentence-structure problems 163

Faulty forming of possessives 163

Spelling issues 163

More dos and don’ts 164

Practice makes perfect! 164

Building a Better Essay: Ten Steps to a Higher Score 165

Chapter 13: Deconstructing Sample GMAT Essays 169

Defining GMAT AWA Scores 169

Taking a Look at Sample Essays 170

Sample essay #1 170

Discussion of sample essay #1 172

Sample essay #2 172

Discussion of sample essay #2 173

Sample essay #3 174

Discussion of sample essay #3 175

Sample essay #4 175

Discussion of sample essay #4 176

Chapter 14: Sampling a Series of Writing Prompts 177

Sample Prompt #1 177

Sample response to essay #1 178

Dissection of essay #1 178

Sample Prompt #2 179

Sample response to essay #2 179

Dissection of essay #2 180

Sample Prompt #3 180

Sample response to essay #3 181

Dissection of essay #3 181

Sample Prompt #4 182

Sample response to essay #4 182

Dissection of essay #4 182

Part 5: Conquering the Quantitative Section 185

Chapter 15: Getting Back to Basics: Numbers and Operations 187

Just Your Type: Kinds of Numbers 187

It’s Not Brain Surgery: Basic Operations 189

Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing 189

Checking out the real estate: Properties of real numbers 191

Using Little Numbers for Big Values: Bases and Exponents 194

Adding and subtracting with exponents 194

Multiplying and dividing with exponents 194

Figuring out the powers of 0 and 1 195

Dealing with fractional exponents 195

Working with negative exponents 196

Checking Out the Ancestry: Roots 196

Order of Operations: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally 198

Splitting Up: Fractions, Decimals, and Percentages 198

Defining numerators, denominators, and other stuff you need to know about fractions 199

Adding and subtracting fractions 201

Multiplying and dividing fractions 201

Calculating percent change 203

Taking it further: Repeated percent change 204

Making Comparisons: Ratios and Proportions 205

Playing the Numbers: Scientific Notation 206

Chapter 16: Considering All the Variables: Algebra 209

Defining the Elements: Algebraic Terms 209

Braving the unknowns: Variables and constants 210

Coming together: Terms and expressions 210

Knowing the nomials: Kinds of expressions 211

Maintaining an Orderly Fashion: Algebraic Operations 211

Adding to and taking away 211

Multiplying and dividing expressions 213

Extracting Information: Factoring Polynomials 216

Something in common: Finding common factors 216

Two by two: Factoring quadratic polynomials 216

Minding Your Ps and Qs: Functions 218

Standing in: Understanding function terminology 218

Taking it to the limit: Domain and range of functions 220

Putting On Your Thinking Cap: Problem Solving 222

Isolating the variable: Linear equations 222

Bringing in the substitution: Simultaneous equations 224

Not playing fair: Inequalities 225

Solving quadratic equations 227

Reading between the lines: Word problems 229

Burning the midnight oil: Work problems 230

Going the distance: Distance problems 231

Chapter 17: Getting the Angle on Geometry: Planes and Solids 233

Fishing for the Answers: Lines and Angles 233

Trusting Triangles 236

Triple treat: Types of triangles 236

The area of a triangle 237

The Pythagorean theorem and other cool stuff about right triangles 238

A striking resemblance: Similar triangles 241

Playing Four Square: Quadrilaterals 242

Drawing parallels: Parallelograms 242

Raising the roof: Trapezoids 243

Showing Their Good Sides: Other Polygons 245

Eating Up Pieces of Pi: Circles 245

Ring measurements: Radius, diameter, and circumference 246

Blueprints for Noah: Arcs 246

Line ’em up: Chords, inscribed and circumscribed figures, and tangents 247

Getting a Little Depth Perception: Three-Dimensional Geometry 249

Chipping off the old block: Rectangular solids 249

Sipping from soda cans and other cylinders 250

Chapter 18: Keeping in Step: Coordinate Geometry 253

Taking Flight: The Coordinate Plane 253

Line dancing: Understanding coordinate geometry 253

What’s the point? Finding the coordinates 254

On all fours: Identifying quadrants 255

Slip-Sliding Away: Slope and Linear Equations 255

Taking a peak: Defining the slope of a line 255

Using the slope-intercept form to graph lines 257

Meeting in the middle 259

Going the distance 260

Considering other shapes on the coordinate plane 261

Fully Functioning: Graphing Functions 262

Passing the vertical line test 262

Feeling at home with domain and range 264

Chapter 19: Manipulating Numbers: Statistics and Sets 267

Joining a Clique: Groups 267

Setting Up Sets 269

Set terminology 269

Getting a visual: Venn diagrams 269

Making Arrangements: Permutations and Combinations 271

Positioning with permutations 271

Coming together: Combinations 273

Meeting in the Middle: Mean, Median, and Mode 275

Straying from Home: Range and Standard Deviation 277

Scouting out the range 277

Watching out for wanderers: Standard deviation 277

Predicting the Future: Probability 279

Finding the probability of one event 280

Finding the probability of many events 280

Chapter 20: It’s All in the Presentation: GMAT Quantitative Question Types 283

Enough’s Enough: Data Sufficiency Questions 283

You don’t need the solution to find the answer 284

Steps to approaching data sufficiency problems 284

Taking a Look at Data Sufficiency Practice Problems 287

Practice questions 287

Answer explanations 289

Houston, We Have a Problem: Problem Solving Questions 293

Trying Out Some Problem Solving Practice Problems 295

Practice questions 295

Answer explanations 297

Chapter 21: All Together Now: A Mini Practice Quantitative Section 301

Tackling GMAT Math Practice Questions 301

Checking Out the Answer Explanations 309

Part 6: Excelling on the Integrated Reasoning Section 319

Chapter 22: Best of Both Worlds: The Integrated Reasoning Section 321

Understanding What the IR Section is All About 321

Skills tested 322

Question format 322

Figuring Out How the IR Section is Scored 324

Making the Most of Your Time 324

Approaching Each Question Type 325

Table analysis 325

Two-part analysis 328

Graphics interpretation 331

Multi-source reasoning 332

Chapter 23: Deciphering Data in Charts and Graphs 337

Approaching Integrated Reasoning Data in Five Easy Steps 337

Translating Information in Tables 338

Making Comparisons with Bar Graphs 339

Simple bar graphs 339

Graphs with many bars 340

Segmented bar graphs 340

Evaluating Line Graphs 342

Basic line graphs 342

Scatter plots 342

Complex scatter plots 344

Clarifying Circle Graphs (also Known as Pie Charts) 345

Extracting Data from Venn Diagrams 345

Part 7: Practice Makes Perfect 349

Chapter 24: GMAT Practice Test 351

Answer Sheet 353

Section 1: Analytical Writing Assessment 356

Section 2: Integrated Reasoning 357

Section 3: Quantitative 358

Section 4: Verbal 365

Chapter 25: Practice Test Answers and Explanations 377

Section 1: Analytical Writing Assessment 377

Section 2: Integrated Reasoning 379

Section 3: Quantitative Reasoning 379

Section 4: Verbal 394

Answers at a Glance 403

Part 8: The Part of Tens 405

Chapter 26: Ten Question Types You’ve Got a Good Shot At 407

Main-Theme Reading Questions 407

Specific Information Reading Questions 407

Sentence Corrections 408

Exception Questions for Reading Passages 408

Strengthening or Weakening Critical Arguments 408

Data Sufficiency Math Questions 408

Math Problem Solving with Figures 408

Math Problems Involving Basic Operations 408

Substitution Math Problems 409

Graph and Table Analysis Questions 409

Chapter 27: Ten Writing Errors to Avoid 411

Composing Complicated Sentences 411

Presenting Your Text in Passive Voice 411

Wasting Time with Unfamiliar Words 412

Using Unclear (or Zero) Transitions 412

Going Overboard with Generic Terms 412

Writing in Informal English 412

Giving a Laundry List of Examples 412

Succumbing to Sentence Fragments 412

Announcing a Position without Explanation 413

Putting Aside Proofreading 413

Chapter 28: Ten Ways to Increase Your Chances of Getting into Business School 415

Accumulate a Little Work Experience 415

Ace the Interview 416

Apply Early 416

Apply While You’re Upwardly Mobile 416

Capitalize on What Makes You Unique 416

Demonstrate Interest 416

Focus on Fit 417

Get the Right Recommendations 417

Study for the GMAT 417

Write a Memorable Admissions Essay 417

Index 419