一战被鸡杀570(m50 v18)，休息一阵，再考虑什么时候二战吧！GMAT分数算法在98楼介绍

donganyuan

上午上课

下午去实习单位把实习手册章改了，评语写了，顺便买了10.1回家的车票。这样一个下午就荒废了。

晚上在网上查了一下昨天的PREP CR错题  41-60的；

一会准备看一下Manhattan cr；

加油！！

donganyuan

今天下大雨，准备在寝室好好看看Manhattan 的cr sc 和rc 能看多少看多少吧！

donganyuan

今天同学过生日，只在上午看了50多页的Manhattan sc  ，剩下的时间都荒废了，大家快来鄙视我吧！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！

donganyuan

继续看Manhattan sc

livia2012

上午上课

下午去实习单位把实习手册章改了，评语写了，顺便买了10.1回家的车票。这样一个下午就荒废了。

晚上在网上查了一下昨天的PREP CR错题  41-60的；

一会准备看一下Manhattan cr；

加油！！

-- by 会员 donganyuan (2010/9/17 21:41:50)

个人觉得Manhattan CR稍微有点偏，别太在乎正确率

donganyuan

上午上课

下午去实习单位把实习手册章改了，评语写了，顺便买了10.1回家的车票。这样一个下午就荒废了。

晚上在网上查了一下昨天的PREP CR错题  41-60的；

一会准备看一下Manhattan cr；

加油！！

-- by 会员 donganyuan (2010/9/17 21:41:50)

个人觉得Manhattan CR稍微有点偏，别太在乎正确率

-- by 会员 livia2012 (2010/9/19 7:38:54)

那请问cr应该看什么资料好一些呢？

donganyuan

今天上午把Manhattan sc看了，下午睡过去了~~~

晚上看rc

donganyuan

How To Read A Reading Comp Passage----------------from beat the gmat
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/23/how-to-read-a-reading-comp-passage
Recently, a Beat The GMAT member asked me to write an article on the reading part of reading comprehension – specifically, what are we supposed to do and look for during the initial few minutes before we start to answer the first question? I thought it was a great idea; a lot of people struggle with this. (By the way, if you ever have an idea for an article, send me a PM!)

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
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 “NOT” 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.

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 (“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

donganyuan

How To Find The Point in an RC Passage-----from beat the gmat
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/07/06/how-to-find-the-point-in-an-rc-passage
Last week, a Beat The GMAT student asked me to write an article on finding “The Point” in a reading comprehension passage – specifically, what is The Point and how do we find it? I thought it was a great idea; a lot of people struggle with this. (By the way, if you ever have an idea for an article, send me a PM!)

Note: this article doesn’t address how to answer reading comprehension questions; it focuses on the initial read-through in order to understand the main point of the passage. If you do that well, though, then that should help you answer any kind of question.


This article will expand upon the paragraph that discusses The Point in this article on How To Read an RC Passage. We’re going to discuss a particular passage from The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 12th Edition, but I cannot reprint the full text of the passage here, so you may want to get your book first in order to follow along.

What is “The Point”?
Here’s an excerpt from the article I linked to above:

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).

So, when I read a passage, I need to make sure I understand the author’s main Point, or purpose for writing the passage. You can also think of the Point as the one thing that the author wants to make sure you get out of the passage: not just that bees are mysteriously dying off, but why – some pesticide. If you ran into the author in the elevator, and he or she asked you to provide a 1-sentence summary, in your own words, of why the author wrote the passage, could you do so?

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.

There are a few common ways in which The Point often shows up. You do not need to attempt to classify The Point when taking the test or doing practice questions; the below descriptions are just to help you to recognize The Point when you see it.

(1) Resolution: there’s some kind of problem or issue; the author describes the problem and offers some kind of resolution or solution. The author might also provide several possible resolutions (and, if so, the author may or may not indicate which one the author prefers)

(2) Answer: there’s some kind of question – something which people don’t know or about which they’re unsure – and the author describes the question at hand and provides some kind of answer; the author might also provide several possible answers (and, if so, the author may or may not indicate which one answer the author prefers)

(1) and (2) are very similar. Examples of these in OG12 (The Official Guide for GMAT Review 12th Edition) are the “Predator-prey dynamics” passage and the “Economic development strategy” passage.

(3) New Idea: there’s an old way of looking at things – an old theory, an old idea, and old principle – and a new theory or idea; the author presents the old idea as context, describes the new idea, and contrasts the old with the new.

Examples of this type in OG12 are the “Archaeology as a profession” passage and the “Beta vs. VHS” passage.

(4) Reason: there’s some particular observation made or data gathered or phenomenon observed; the author explains this information and offers a reason why this thing is the way that it is or happened the way that it happened. Often, the author mentions an existing, widely-accepted reason and says either that the existing reason is not quite comprehensive enough or that some new reason would better explain the observation or phenomenon.

Examples of this type in OG12 are the “Florentine textile industry” passage and the “Temporary employment” passage.

How Do I Find The Point?
The Point can occur at any position in the passage. Approximately 80% of the time in short passages, The Point is found in the first two sentences or the last two sentences of the entire passage. On long passages, The Point is found in the first two paragraphs approximately 70% of the time. Further, when The Point is found in the middle or towards the end of the passage, the first paragraph often contains “foreshadowing” of The Point: information that gave clues to or more strongly represents The Point before it is stated later in the passage.

In the “Predator-prey dynamics” passage, for example, the first two sentences introduce the overall topic for the passage. The final sentence of the first paragraph provides an issue or question: there is a surprising result in the data. After reading that paragraph, we now know the general topic but we don’t yet know why the author is writing this passage.

The first sentence of the second paragraph offers significant foreshadowing:

“In considering possible explanations for this finding…”

Stop right there! Okay, now I know that at least part of this next paragraph is going to talk about possible explanations for this surprising data mentioned in the first paragraph. At this point, I have a pretty good idea (because I’ve examined the structure of lots of passages) that one of two things is going to happen:

(1) The author mentions multiple possible explanations but does not indicate which explanation the people in the passage or the author finds most plausible. In this case, the point is usually: there are multiple possible explanations for phenomenon X but we don’t know which one is best.

(2) The author mentions multiple possible explanations and indicates which one the people in the passage or the author prefers. In this case, the point is usually: there are multiple possible explanations for phenomenon X and we think this one is the best one.

So, now, I’m going to look for that as I continue to read. The second sentence in the second paragraph tells me one explanation that the researchers “rejected.” The third sentence tells me another explanation that they “ruled out.” The fourth sentence begins:

“The explanation they consider most plausible…”

Bingo! Now I know why author wrote this passage: to tell me that there were three possible explanations for some phenomenon and here’s the one explanation that researchers “consider most plausible.”

Take-aways
(1) Understand what The Point is: the single primary reason why the author bothered to spend a bunch of time writing this passage

(2) Read actively; think critically about the purpose behind different pieces of information in the passage and look for language that foreshadows what might be coming next.

(3) Know the kinds of structures that you might see when you read a passage so that you can recognize similar patterns and anticipate what The Point might be.

(4) When you review your work, also review The Point. Now that you’re done, do you still think you were right about The Point? If not, why not? In future, how might you get The Point right the first time?

Copyright note: the text excerpted above from The Official Guide for GMAT Review 12th Edition is copyright GMAC (the Graduate Management Admissions Council). The short excerpts are quoted under fair-use statutes for scholarly or journalistic work; use of these excerpts does not imply endorsement of this article by GMAC.

donganyuan

Encountering “Inference” Questions on the GMAT   from beat the gmat
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/07/encountering-inference-questions-on-the-gmat

Whenever you encounter an inference question on the GMAT, in either the reading comprehension or the critical reasoning section, you should always keep one phrase in mind: “must be true.”

While one or two of the answer choices provided may be verifiably false, at least one, but usually more, answer choice will be a statement that might or could be true based on the information in the passage or stimulus.  Do not be tempted by these answers.  They are always wrong on GMAT inference questions.


So, how can we quickly differentiate between choices that might be true and choices that must be true on test day?  We have two strategies at our disposal that can help us.

Look for an answer choice that is directly supported
First, keep in mind that in order to reach the conclusion that an answer choice must be true, we need very specific support in the passage.  Therefore, the correct answer on an inference question will, by necessity, not be much of a leap from the details provided in the passage.  If you find an answer choice that is not directly supported, eliminate it.

Watch out for extreme language
Second, always watch out for extreme language in answer choices.  Extreme language, on the GMAT, refers to words and phrases that are absolute.  Be especially careful if words such as “always,” “never” and “only” appear in an answer choice.  This is not to say that extreme language will never be correct in an inference question, but rather to keep in mind that extreme language in an answer choice must link directly back to extreme language in the passage/stimulus.

Make sure to keep both these strategies in mind next time you come across an inference question and always remember: “must be true.”