GMAT For Dummies 2020

Lisa Zimmer Hatch, MA, and Scott A. Hatch, JD, have been helping students succeed on standardized tests since 1987. They have written curricula and numerous test-prep guides and have taught internationally through their online forums, live lectures, DVDs, and study programs.

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


Why you should (almost) never 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 26


Tackling a Case of Nerves with Relaxation Techniques 26


Devising a Plan of Attack 27


Chapter 3: Mastering Business School Admissions 29


Choosing a Business School 29


Lining Up Your Ducks — Applying to Business Schools 31


When to apply 32


What to submit 32


Crafting Effective Business School Essays 33


Part 2: Vanquishing the Verbal Section 35


Chapter 4: Applying What You Learned (We Hope) in Grammar Class: Sentence Correction 37


Building a Solid Foundation: Grammar Basics 38


Getting wordy: The parts of speech 38


Pulling together: The parts of a sentence 40


Pointing Out Mistakes: Common Sentence Correction Errors 42


Can’t we all just get along? Errors in subject-verb and noun-pronoun agreement 43


Building code violations: Faulty construction 45


Follow the idiom: Correct use of standard expressions 48


Implementing an Approach to Sentence Correction Questions 51


Spotting the error 51


Eliminating answers that don’t correct errors 52


Eliminating choices that create new errors 52


Rereading the sentence 53


Reviewing the process and guessing on sentence corrections 53


Sentence Correction Practice Problems with Answer Explanations 53


Practice problems 54


Answer explanations 56


Chapter 5: Not as Enticing as a Bestseller: Reading Comprehension 59


Judging by Appearances: What Reading Comprehension Questions Look Like 59


Approaching Reading Passages 60


Mastering the message: The main point 60


Absorbing the ambiance: Author’s tone 61


Finding the framework: The passage’s outline 61


Sticking to the Subject: Types of Passages 62


Experimenting with natural science passages 62


Gathering in social circles: Social science passages 62


Getting down to business passages 63


Approaching Reading Comprehension Questions 63


Identifying the question type 63


Eliminating answer choices 66


Dealing with exception questions 67


Reading Comprehension Practice Questions with Answer Explanations 70


Reading comprehension practice questions 70


Answer explanations 74


Chapter 6: Thinking This through Logically: Critical Reasoning 79


Focusing on “Critical” Concepts: An Overview 79


Understanding the structure of the questions 80


Figuring out how to answer the questions 80


Making a Case: Essentials of Informal Logic 81


Fighting fair: The elements of an argument 81


Getting from Point A to Point B: Types of reasoning 81


Thinking Inside the Box: Question Types 83


Stalking Your Prey: How to Approach Each Question Type 84


Strengthening or weakening arguments 84


Delving into drawing conclusions 88


Spotting those sneaky assumptions 89


Using your noggin to make inferences 91


Critical Reasoning Practice Questions and Answer Explanations 94


Critical reasoning practice questions 94


Answer explanations 98


Chapter 7: Bringing It Together: A Mini Practice Verbal Section 103


Working Through Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions 104


Understanding What’s Right with Answer Explanations 113


Part 3: Acing the Analytical Writing Section 121


Chapter 8: Analyze This: What to Expect from the Analytical Writing Assessment 123


Fitting in the AWA with the Rest of the GMAT 123


Calling 411: Your AWA Writing Tools 124


Analyzing an Argument 124


Racking Up the Points: How the GMAT Scores Your Essay 125


Getting to know your readers 125


Interpreting the scores 126


Requesting your essay be rescored 126


Chapter 9: Present Perfect Paragraphs: How to Write a GMAT Essay 127


Avoiding Grammar, Punctuation, and Mechanics Errors 127


Punctuation errors 128


Sentence-structure problems 129


Faulty forming of possessives 129


Spelling issues 129


More dos and don’ts 130


Practice makes perfect! 130


Building a Better Essay: Ten Steps to a Higher Score 131


Chapter 10: Deconstructing Sample GMAT Essays 133


Defining GMAT AWA Scores 133


Taking a Look at Sample Essays 134


Sample essay #1 135


Discussion of sample essay #1 136


Sample essay #2 136


Discussion of sample essay #2 137


Sample essay #3 138


Discussion of sample essay #3 139


Sample essay #4 139


Discussion of sample essay #4 140


Chapter 11: Sampling a Series of Writing Prompts 141


Sample Prompt #1 141


Sample response to essay #1 142


Dissection of essay #1 142


Sample Prompt #2 143


Sample response to essay #2 143


Dissection of essay #2 144


Sample Prompt #3 144


Sample response to essay #3 145


Dissection of essay #3 145


Sample Prompt #4 146


Sample response to essay #4 146


Dissection of essay #4 146


Part 4: Conquering the Quantitative Section 149


Chapter 12: Getting Back to Basics: Numbers and Operations 151


Just Your Type: Kinds of Numbers 151


It’s Not Brain Surgery: Basic Operations 153


Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing 153


Checking out the real estate: Properties of real numbers 155


Using Little Numbers for Big Values: Bases and Exponents 157


Adding and subtracting with exponents 158


Multiplying and dividing with exponents 158


Figuring out the powers of 0 and 1 158


Dealing with fractional exponents 159


Working with negative exponents 159


Checking Out the Ancestry: Roots 160


Order of Operations: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally 161


Splitting Up: Fractions, Decimals, and Percentages 162


Defining numerators, denominators, and other stuff you need to know about fractions 163


Adding and subtracting fractions 164


Multiplying and dividing fractions 165


Calculating percent change 167


Taking it further: Repeated percent change 168


Making Comparisons: Ratios and Proportions 169


Playing the Numbers: Scientific Notation 170


Chapter 13: Considering All the Variables: Algebra 171


Defining the Elements: Algebraic Terms 171


Braving the unknowns: Variables and constants 171


Coming together: Terms and expressions 172


Knowing the nomials: Kinds of expressions 172


Maintaining an Orderly Fashion: Algebraic Operations 173


Adding to and taking away 173


Multiplying and dividing expressions 175


Extracting Information: Factoring Polynomials 177


Something in common: Finding common factors 177


Two by two: Factoring quadratic polynomials 178


Minding Your Ps and Qs: Functions 179


Standing in: Understanding function terminology 180


Taking it to the limit: Domain and range of functions 181


Putting On Your Thinking Cap: Problem Solving 184


Isolating the variable: Linear equations 184


Bringing in the substitution: Simultaneous equations 185


Not playing fair: Inequalities 187


Solving quadratic equations 189


Reading between the lines: Word problems 190


Burning the midnight oil: Work problems 192


Going the distance: Distance problems 193


Chapter 14: Getting the Angle on Geometry: Planes and Solids 195


Fishing for the Answers: Lines and Angles 195


Trusting Triangles 198


Triple treat: Types of triangles 198


The area of a triangle 200


The Pythagorean theorem and other cool stuff about right triangles 200


A striking resemblance: Similar triangles 203


Playing Four Square: Quadrilaterals 204


Drawing parallels: Parallelograms 205


Raising the roof: Trapezoids 206


Showing Their Good Sides: Other Polygons 207


Eating Up Pieces of Pi: Circles 208


Ring measurements: Radius, diameter, and circumference 208


Blueprints for Noah: Arcs 208


Line ’em up: Chords, inscribed and circumscribed figures, and tangents 209


Getting a Little Depth Perception: Three-Dimensional Geometry 211


Chipping off the old block: Rectangular solids 211


Sipping from soda cans and other cylinders 213


Chapter 15: Keeping in Step: Coordinate Geometry 215


Taking Flight: The Coordinate Plane 215


Line dancing: Understanding coordinate geometry 215


What’s the point? Finding the coordinates 216


On all fours: Identifying quadrants 216


Slip-Sliding Away: Slope and Linear Equations 217


Taking a peak: Defining the slope of a line 217


Using the slope-intercept form to graph lines 219


Meeting in the middle 221


Going the distance 222


Considering other shapes on the coordinate plane 223


Fully Functioning: Graphing Functions 224


Passing the vertical line test 224


Feeling at home with domain and range 226


Chapter 16: Manipulating Numbers: Statistics and Sets 229


Joining a Clique: Groups 229


Setting Up Sets 231


Set terminology 231


Getting a visual: Venn diagrams 231


Making Arrangements: Permutations and Combinations 233


Positioning with permutations 233


Coming together: Combinations 235


Meeting in the Middle: Mean, Median, and Mode 237


Straying from Home: Range and Standard Deviation 239


Scouting out the range 239


Watching out for wanderers: Standard deviation 239


Predicting the Future: Probability 241


Finding the probability of one event 241


Finding the probability of many events 242


Chapter 17: It’s All in the Presentation: GMAT Quantitative Question Types 245


Enough’s Enough: Data Sufficiency Questions 245


You don’t need the solution to find the answer 246


Steps to approaching data sufficiency problems 246


Taking a Look at Data Sufficiency Practice Problems 249


Practice questions 249


Answer explanations 251


Houston, We Have a Problem: Problem Solving Questions 255


Trying Out Some Problem Solving Practice Problems 257


Practice questions 257


Answer explanations 259


Chapter 18: All Together Now: A Mini Practice Quantitative Section 263


Tackling GMAT Math Practice Questions 263


Checking Out the Answer Explanations 270


Part 5: Excelling on the Integrated Reasoning Section 281


Chapter 19: Best of Both Worlds: The Integrated Reasoning Section 283


Understanding What the IR Section is All About 283


Skills tested 284


Question format 284


Figuring Out How the IR Section is Scored 286


Making the Most of Your Time 286


Approaching Each Question Type 287


Table analysis 287


Two-part analysis 290


Graphics interpretation 293


Multi-source reasoning 294


Chapter 20: Deciphering Data in Charts and Graphs 299


Approaching Integrated Reasoning Data in Five Easy Steps 299


Translating Information in Tables 300


Making Comparisons with Bar Graphs 301


Simple bar graphs 301


Graphs with many bars 301


Segmented bar graphs 302


Evaluating Line Graphs 304


Basic line graphs 304


Scatter plots 304


Complex scatter plots 306


Clarifying Circle Graphs (Also Known as Pie Charts) 307


Extracting Data from Venn Diagrams 307


Part 6: Practice Makes Perfect 311


Chapter 21: GMAT Practice Test 313


Answer Sheet 315


Section 1: Analytical Writing Assessment 318


Section 2: Integrated Reasoning 319


Section 3: Quantitative 320


Section 4: Verbal 327


Chapter 22: Practice Test Answers and Explanations 339


Section 1: Analytical Writing Assessment 339


Section 2: Integrated Reasoning 341


Section 3: Quantitative Reasoning 341


Section 4: Verbal 356


Answers at a Glance 365


Part 7: The Part of Tens 367


Chapter 23: Ten Question Types You’ve Got a Good Shot At 369


Main-Theme Reading Questions 369


Specific Information Reading Questions 369


Sentence Corrections 370


Exception Questions for Reading Passages 370


Strengthening or Weakening Critical Arguments 370


Data Sufficiency Math Questions 370


Math Problem Solving with Figures 370


Math Problems Involving Basic Operations 370


Substitution Math Problems 371


Graph- and Table Analysis Questions 371


Chapter 24: Ten Writing Errors to Avoid 373


Composing Complicated Sentences 373


Presenting Your Text in Passive Voice 373


Wasting Time with Unfamiliar Words 373


Using Unclear (Or Zero) Transitions 374


Going Overboard with Generic Terms 374


Writing in Informal English 374


Giving a Laundry List of Examples 374


Succumbing to Sentence Fragments 374


Announcing a Position without Explanation 374


Putting Aside Proofreading 374


Chapter 25: Ten Ways to Increase Your Chances of Getting into Business School 375


Accumulate a Little Work Experience 375


Ace the Interview 375


Apply Early 376


Apply While You’re Upwardly Mobile 376


Capitalize on What Makes You Unique 376


Demonstrate Interest 376


Focus on Fit 376


Get the Right Recommendations 377


Study for the GMAT 377


Write a Memorable Admissions Essay 377


Index 379