Has the increase in business schools accepting the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) as an admissions alternative swayed prospective applicants away from the GMAT? Not so much, a recent Kaplan Test Prep survey reveals.

Just 16% of prospective MBA students said they considered taking the GRE route. Of the 84% who said they never considered taking the GRE instead of the GMAT, 60% said the primary reason was because some or all their target schools only accept the GMAT; 19% said it was because they felt applicants who submit a GMAT score have an admissions advantage over applicants who submit a GRE score; and 8% said it was because they thought they’d do better on the GMAT than on the GRE.

Lee Weiss, director of graduate programs at Kaplan Test Prep, says students reporting that they never considered the GRE due to it not being accepted at their target schools may have skewed the numbers out of a lack of information. Many of them would be surprised to know that most, if not all, of the business schools they plan on applying to accept the GRE in addition to the GMAT, Weiss adds.

“However, it’s still a smart business school admissions strategy to take the GMAT if you are only applying to business school, and not considering applying to graduate school too.  According to a separate Kaplan survey of business school admissions officers, applicants who submit a GMAT score have a slight admissions advantage over applicants who submit a GRE score.”

Kaplan Test Prep believes an increasing number of business school will accept the GRE in the years to come, though applicants who submit a GMAT score may continue to hold an advantage, especially because the GMAT is adding an Integrated Reasoning section in June to reinforce its status as the best predictor of student success in business school.  Kaplan will continue to track this trend.

Meanwhile, ETS announced last week that starting in July 2012, anyone taking the GRE will be able to take advantage of a new option called ScoreSelect, which allows test-takers to decide which test scores to send to the institutions they designate, so they can send the scores they feel reflect their personal best.

Aside from manipulating the GMAT’s favorite numbers (72, 64, etc.), one of the calculations you’ll do most often when working through GMAT problems is dividing and multiplying by five. It’s common in the real world, too. As with most common calculations, there’s a better way to do them than long division or traditional multiplication.

For both division and multiplication, the key concept here is that 5 is simply 10 divided by 2. So, anywhere you see a 5 in an equation, you can substitute (10/2). You won’t always want to do that, but in some cases, I guarantee you that working with 10s and 2s is preferable to working with 5s.

Using that trick, consider multiplying 36 and 5. (If you automatically know that, work through the example with a less common number, like 47.) Using the trick outlined above, 36(5) = 36(10/2). You now have two options: you can multiply 36 and 10 and then divide by 2, or divide 36 by 2 and then multiply by 10. Either way, both steps are quite simple.

This is an excerpt from a longer article by Jeff Sackmann, originally published at GMAT Hacks.  Jeff has created several valuable GMAT-preparation resources, including Total GMAT Math and Total GMAT Verbal.

Interested in reading more? Click HERE to see more test prep advice.

The number of GMAT scores sent by Chinese citizens to schools around the world nearly tripled (from 48,664 to 126,090) in the past five years, says a new report on GMAT score-sending patterns in Asia from the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC).

With 40,069 exams taken by Chinese citizens in the testing year ending June 30, 2011, growth has been driven by women test takers and those younger than 25, who are largely interested in specialized master’s programs outside of China.

According to an interview with Dave Wilson, president and chief executive of GMAC, the reason for this shift is that a lot of young people realize that the best time to take the GMAT is when they are in the last year of undergraduate program, when they’re used to exams and have the time to study.

The 2012 Asian Geographic Trend Report also illustrates the globalization of management education and the quality options within Asia and around the world. Programs in Asia saw a 63 percent increase in the number of GMAT scores received from test takers in testing year 2011 (42,933) when compared with 2007 (26,296). India remains the region’s leading destination for GMAT scores, receiving 11,484 score reports in 2007 and increasing to 17,638 in 2011, with the vast majority of scores coming from Indian citizens.

Overall, Asian citizens sent 69 percent of their scores to management programs in the U.S. in 2011, compared with 74 percent in 2007. Other study destinations among the top 10 that received more than 10,000 score reports from Asian citizens included India, United Kingdom, Singapore, and Canada.

The report also shows that Asian citizens sent an average of 3.4 GMAT scores per exam taken in 2011, significantly higher than the global average of 2.9.  However, there were substantial regional differences in score-sending habits. For example, Indian citizens sent the highest average number (4.4), and South Koreans sent the lowest (2.0).

“The significance of the Asian impact on management education is real,” says Wilson. “The flows of graduate management students to, from and within the region have positive benefits for Asian firms as well as multi-national companies that operate there.”

The Evening MBA admissions office at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School announced Tuesday that it will offer a GMAT strategy course —designed to supplement individual study plans—for prospective candidates who have completed portions of their application.

During the two weekend sessions, held April 28-29 and May 5-6 at Goizueta Business School, participants will review more than 60 Math concepts tested on the GMAT, learn simple tips and techniques to solve high-level GMAT problems and understand how to develop a study plan to achieve a desired GMAT score.

In order to participate in the GMAT Strategy Session, a candidate must have completed their Emory Evening MBA application, excluding the GMAT score, prior to April 27, 2012. Applicants must take the GMAT exam and submit their score by the June 15th deadline for admission and scholarship review.

Additional details on the EvMBA Program are available online; here’s the link to register for the session.

This guest post comes to us courtesy of our friend Brent Hanneson of GMAT Prep Now. Thanks, Brent!

The scenario: For the past three months, you’ve consistently answered GMAT practice questions within the recommended times. Test day has finally arrived, and up to this point in the test, things have gone okay. Sure, you ran out of time on the Quantitative section and had to guess on the last 2 questions, but you’ve already put that behind you. Now, as you near the end of the Verbal section, you glance at the clock and realize that there are only three minutes remaining . . . . and you still have eight questions to answer!! As you struggle to figure out what went wrong, your target score quickly slips away.

 Perhaps you’ve already experienced this scenario.

If you’re lucky, these events happened during an unpleasant dream. If you’re not so lucky, they happened at the testing center.

This video provides a strategy to help you avoid unfortunate scenarios such as the one described above.

Learn what sophisticated GMAC research reveals about last-minute time-crunch strategies on the GMAT.

It’s All About Timing

Of course, learning to solve problems under time pressure is an important part of preparing for the GMAT.  Of course, you should do everything you can do to maximize your ability to perform at the highest level on as many questions as possible.  Of course, that’s what any responsible person preparing for the GMAT will strive to do.

All true, but as our friend Robert Burns (1759 – 1796) reminds us, the best laid plans of mice and men go oft astray.  As well as you prepare, as diligently as you practice, you may find yourself at the end of a section on a real GMAT running out of time. What should you do? Guess randomly or omit the question?

Guessing vs. Solution Behavior

First, I need to clarify what I mean by “guessing.”  By “guessing”, or “random guessing”, I mean you have no earthly clue which of the five answer choices is right.  The right answer could equally be any of the five as far as you are concerned.  This would most often occur if you are doing rapid guessing in the last few seconds of a session — answering, say that last 5 question in the last 10-15 seconds, for example (we’ll talk about the wisdom of that below.)  Conceivably, a question could occur in the middle of the test which utterly befuddles you, but given that you have been preparing diligently for the GMAT, the likelihood of something so arcane as to stymie you completely is remote at best.

If you study the question, and can eliminate some answers, but don’t know which of the remaining answers is right, this is called “solution behavior“. On average, solution behavior will benefit you. It is always, 100% of the time, much better than either random guessing or omitting.  If you have any clue about a question, and can narrow the answers down to three or two choices, then guess from among those and move on.  NEVER leave such a question blank. I cannot underscore that enough.

On the Verbal Section: Omit (AKA Skip)!

GMAC, those folks that design the GMAT, did a study in 2009 trying to answer the question about guessing or omitting in the final moments of the test.  They looked at patterns in tens of thousands of GMATs, and culled through the data.  You can read the whole paper at the link below, but I really summarize everything you need in this blog article.

It turns out, on the verbal section, it appears there is no substantial difference between guessing on the last few question or omitting them.  Your score will be, on average, the same regardless of which way you choose.  This is invaluable information, because it implies undoubtedly the best strategy to use in that situation.  I quote the GMAT gurus in the article: “If an examinee found herself with only a minute remaining to answer the last four items of the verbal section, it would be to her benefit to spend time trying to answer at least one of the remaining questions with thought while feeling confident that leaving the remaining items blank would not affect the score much differently than random responding” (p. 12).  Thus, when running out of time on the Verbal section of the GMAT, your focus should be: remain calm, and simply do your best working thoroughly with each question one at a time, even if that means there are two or three questions you simply don’t see.    That’s the univocal strategy for the precious last minutes on the GMAT Verbal section.

On the Quantitative Section: Know Thyself!

The data from test takers is far more nuanced on the quantitative section.  Here, the advice varies widely, depending on your abilities.  I will assume you have at least a rough idea about whether you are a top scoring math student or someone who really struggles with math.

For folks who struggle with math, who are anticipating a relatively low grade on math (i.e. below 25), it turns out that, as in the verbal section, it is advantageous to omit questions. If you don’t know, simply leave the question blank instead of randomly guessing.  Again, if you have enough insight to eliminate even one answer choice, that’s no longer guessing but rather solution behavior, and you should guess from the remaining answers.  But if you truly have no clue, and especially if you are running out time, plan to omit questions, and do you best with the ones which you can either solve or apply solution behavior.

For folks at the other end of the spectrum, folks very talented in the quantitative section and shooting for one of the highest scores, the advice is the polar opposite: omitting a question is one of the worst things you can do.  If you are that caliber of math student, probably few GMAT PS or DS questions will outright stump you, but if you don’t work quickly, running out of time might be a problem. If worst comes to worst, and you have less than a minute to do the last handful of questions, you will be much better served by randomly guessing than leaving anything blank.

What about the many folks in between, folks headed for a decent score on GMAT Quantitative, but not planning to blow the doors off?  Well, if you’re really good at math, omitting answers hurts you a lot.  If you medium at math, omitting answers hurts you a little. Basically, you are better off answering every question, even if that means random guessing in a last mad dash at the end.

Summary

Those are the most sophisticated data-driven recommendations on GMAT guessing strategies available. Of course, if at any point you can practice solution behavior — that is, you can intelligently eliminate some answer choices and after that get stuck — then you should always guess from the remaining choices and never leave such a question blank.  And, of course, the more you practice against the clock, and practice a wide variety of GMAT questions, the less the dilemma of a last-minute crunch will be your problem at all.

Work Cited:

Talento-Miller, Eileen and Ranimn Guo. Guess What? Score Differences with Rapid Replies versus Omissions on a Computerized Adaptive Test.  GMAC Research Reports, RR-09-04, February 1, 2009.

Original paper available at: http://www.gmac.com/NR/rdonlyres/14987E08-3220-4D52-BDC3-D5EB12EAA7AC/0/RR0904_GuessWhat.pdf

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This post was written by Mike McGarry, GMAT expert at Magoosh, and originally posted here.