If you’re a student, halfway through your class you can try 2 Midterm Challenge Quizzes, high-difficulty 15-question mini-tests geared toward 700+ scorers. At the end of the course, take two Final Challenge Quizzes for even more focused practice.

This challenge practice is a great supplement to your core work, so all you high-achievers get ready. You can access your challenge quizzes right from your syllabus page; they’re attached to Session 6 and Session 12.

Happy quizzing!

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We realize that the questions of whether to answer an optional essay and, if so, what to say are ones that loom large for many b-school applicants at this time of year. While we’ve been offering a great deal of school-specific essay advice over the past few months, we wanted to take some time to suggest a few considerations that applicants might want to take into account when making this call.

Is it relevant?
Perhaps this goes without saying, but the only information worth sharing in an optional essay is that which will make a material difference in your candidacy. Whether you wish to comment on an exciting leadership role you’ve just taken on or explain that you were overextended extracurricularly during that one bad semester in college, make sure to think carefully about whether this information will affect and enhance the reader’s perception of your business school candidacy.

Was it requested?
Most schools do request that applicants use an optional essay to address certain issues, such as a failing grade in a degree program or the absence of a letter of recommendation from one’s current direct supervisor. In spite of the technically optional nature of the question, it’s very important to follow directions and provide this information if a school requests it.

Also along the lines of what information is requested, it’s wise to think carefully about a school’s other essay questions before deciding to use an optional essay or provide additional information, as each of these topics affords applicants a chance to introduce the information about their background and interests that they consider to be most important. Your objective should be to provide as complete a picture of your candidacy as possible within the framework of a school’s required essays (as these are a good indication of what a given program is most interested in hearing about) and to only introduce information in an optional essay that you could not have covered elsewhere without sacrificing something more essential.

Is it constructive?
Once you’ve decided that a detail is relevant to your candidacy and merits mentioning in an optional essay, the next step is to think carefully about the way this information might be perceived and make sure that the impact it makes on your chances of admission is a positive one. For instance, an essay that simply alerts the adcom to a serious medical condition might help its author stand out from other applicants, but could also leave the reader wondering whether this person could handle the demands of a rigorous academic program. On the other hand, a few details about this applicant’s strategies for achieving success in spite of some kind of disability and commitment to supporting others with a chronic illness or impairment might make him or her seem like a very valuable addition to the business school community.

Is it concise?
It’s always a good idea to keep in mind that by answering an optional essay, you are creating extra work for the person reading your file. While this should not dissuade you from addressing a topic that you have deemed important based on the considerations above, it’s very important that you demonstrate good judgment by limiting your comments to the most relevant information and keeping your response as direct and concise as possible.

We hope that these general guidelines have helped to clear up some confusion and shed some light on the optional essay issue. For more tailored feedback on your personal situation, feel free to send your resume or CV to info@clearadmit.com for a free initial consultation.

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To ace the SC section, start by learning to identify the most commonly tested errors on the GMAT. Here are 10 concrete tips to get you on track:

1. Watch the prepositions.

Do answer choices use different prepositions? If so, check for idiomatic errors. Sometimes the difference between a correct idiom and an incorrect one comes down to which preposition is used (i.e., a consequence of vs. a consequence from).

2. Check for parallelism.

The word “and” should send you looking for parallelism errors. If the word “and” connects items on a list, the items connected must be parallel. If you see a comma plus “and” (or another conjunction like for, and, nor, but, or, etc.) connecting two clauses, make sure that each of the clauses is independent; if not, you’ve found a sentence structure error.

3. Know the time.

Use time cues (ex. before, during, as, in 1960…) to eliminate options that contain verb tense errors. Remember, events that occur during the same time period must be in the same tense!

4. Look for agreement.

See a collective noun, like committee, company or team? Check for subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement. Even better, check to see that EVERY underlined pronoun agrees with its antecedent (the word to which the pronoun is referring).

5. Skip the filler.

When sentences are injected with modifiers, like prepositional phrases, ignore the filler words between the subject and the verb to make sure that you have subject-verb agreement. If you have a hard time spotting the subject-verb pair amidst all the clutter in the sentence, find the verb and think, “What subject logically corresponds to this action?” Remember: The subject of a sentence will never be inside of a prepositional phrase.

6. Know which noun goes with which.

See the word which in an answer choice? When which introduces a clause (called an adjective clause), make sure that the clause introduced IMMEDIATELY follows the noun or idea it modifies. Just as an adjective must describe a noun, so an adjective clause must describe a noun. If the clause introduced by “which” describes an abstract idea and not a specific noun, you’ve found a modifier error.

7. Run the numbers.

If a sentence is about some sort of numerical quantity (ex. the percentage of homeowners in Minneapolis or the number of women studying French) check for idiomatic errors. Remember: “fewer” describes a countable quantity, like people; “less” describes an uncountable quantity, like sugar. Also check for redundancy (ex. “went up by a 20% increase”).

8. Comparison shop.

The words “as,” “than,” and “like” should send you looking for comparison errors. Make sure that the items compared make sense; if a sentence says more X than Y, X and Y have to be items of the same type.

9. Well, this is awkward.

If an option is wordy or awkward, do not immediately eliminate it unless you find a concrete error. Hold on to the choice unless you find another choice that also contains no errors. Compare the two constructions, and if you still cannot find an error in either construction, choose the less wordy, less awkward, and/or more active construction.

10. Keep things logical.

Don’t forget about the logic of the sentence. When down to those last two options, plug each one back into the sentence and see which one makes more sense intuitively. You can always use your ear to check for clear and logical modification.

Related posts:

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“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” – Sherlock Holmes

Someone walks in front of you with a piece of toilet paper attached to his shoe; your friend walks up to you and you notice a small bandage on his face, which smells of aftershave; a smiling woman playfully rubs her leg against her conversation partner’s under the table.

All of these situations lend themselves to inferences, because we can make an educated guess as to the causes and motivations behind each scenario. You’ll have to be an expert at making similar guesses on the GMAT. That’s why you can learn some lessons from the master of inferences, Sherlock Holmes:

Every day in our every interaction with others, we unconsciously make hundreds of inferences about all sorts of observations – the meaning of a friend’s brief text message, a coworker’s glance, a stain on a shirt, or a clicking sound under the front left wheel. (Turned out to be my brake pads.)

Note that an inference is the converse of an implication; the stimulus implies, the observer infers. The smell of chocolate chips implies the presence of fresh baked cookies in the kitchen. My assumption about their presence is an inference.

The GMAT too makes use of implication and inference in its Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning sections. Broadly speaking, there are two sorts of inference questions on the GMAT: global inference questions (which ask you think of a title or conclusion for a passage or argument, or to make a conjecture related to the text as a whole), and more targeted inference questions (related to passage claims, authors’ viewpoints, or tone). Inference questions aren’t hard to spot since they tend to use the words “imply” and “inference” in the stem.

Unlike assumption or strengthen/weaken questions, it is not always useful to come up with a possible answer for inference questions before looking at the actual answer choices. Since passage details often lend themselves to numerous possible inferences, we almost have no choice but to just go through each and every answer choice to find the best fit.

So what’s the most efficient way to handle these problems?  Your best bet is to take a page from the master of inferences himself, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

If you’ve read his stories then you know of his Jedi-like ability to know all about a person after a single casual glance. In the classic tale “The Red-Headed League,” for example, the good detective immediately deduces that Mr. Jabez Wilson is a former manual laborer who recently went to China simply by examining a few details about the man’s hands.

Holmes didn’t use any sort of secret technology or demonic powers; he just extrapolated from what was right in front of him. In the same way, GMAT questions don’t demand any sort of outside knowledge. Therefore, the first thing you should do for any question that starts, “We can infer from the above argument that…” is to eliminate any answer choices that reference topics outside of the argument’s scope.

Once you remove the irrelevant, try to rule out answer choices that are extreme, or try to substitute similar terms or confuse passage wording. These are harder to see, particularly for global inference questions. One shortcut method, if you’re stuck, is to look for synonyms for words in the answer choices in the text.

CR and RC inference questions invariably have at least a couple of answer choices that are either irrelevant, out of scope, extreme, or manipulative of passage wording. Other questions will try to hit you with answer choices that sound logical but aren’t actually implied by the text. Science topics, for example, may offer answer choices that accurately describe a phenomena but are still wrong since the passage does not say as much.

Eliminate two or three answer choices, and your odds will improve significantly for each question.  If two answers sound both sound totally right to you, re-read the relevant section of the text and go with your gut. After enough practice, hopefully your response to GMAT inference questions will be the same as Mr. Wilson’s after Sherlock Holmes explained how he deduced all of the details of Wilson’s background:

Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. “Well, I never!” said he. “I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it, after all.”

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Gearing up for Round 1 admissions?  Here’s your weekly dose of MBA news to keep up to date with what’s going on with aspiring b-school students and people in the field.

1. 30 Under 30: The Top Young Entrepreneurs of 2010
Inc. Magazine highlights these rising business stars. Learn about how they got started – and where they’re headed.

2. B-School, Day One: A Primer
Learn how to be proactive in your business school adventure with this helpful BusinessWeek article, aimed at first-year MBA students.  Take notes, folks.

3. What Women Do With Their MBAs
An increasing number of women are attending business school. Forbes examines which fields they choose to enter with their MBAs.

4. Graphic Novel Replaces Business School Textbook
Imagine studying from a comic book!  This business school textbook brings out the little kid in all of us.  USA Today reports.

5. What the Best Business Schools Seek in an Ideal MBA Applicant
This video features Chioma Isiadinso, author of The Best Business School Admissions Secrets, giving advice on how to make sure you have a strong application when applying to b-school.

6. Harvard Business School Drives Yale and MIT’s Edifice Complex
It’s a constant race for Yale and MIT to match HBS’s facilities and state-of-the-art buildings.  This Bloomberg article discusses the high price and the extended benefits of keeping up with Harvard.

7. Graduates Going to Great Lengths to Get Ahead
The BBC reports that many young professionals are eyeing China to gain the work experience they believe they need to get their ideal jobs.

8. Six Keys to Being Excellent At Anything
Want to be successful? Who doesn’t? Get tips from the Harvard Business Review on developing a stellar work ethic and a mentality conducive to success. There are book recommendations, too!

9. Some Business Skills to Go With the Passion
Why an entrepreneurial mindset is not just for an entrepreneur, but for everyone.  In this New York Times article, a student who has taken an MIT entrepreneurship course says, “You see that the essence of the entrepreneurial spirit isn’t so much about money as it is about passion.”

10. Expensive Executive MBAs: A Costly Lesson
Why is it that executive MBAs cost twice as much as full-time MBAs?  This article in The Economist compares this sharp increase in price to an exclusive VIP membership to a senior level networking group.

Check out Knewton’s MBA News Roundup every Monday for all the GMAT, MBA, and business-related news that’s fit to print. And don’t forget to follow KnewtonGMAT on Twitter for more MBA updates!

Related posts:

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Jonathan A. Bethune is a Content Developer for Knewton’s GMAT prep course.

So you’ve perfected your application, done 50+ internships, put together a dazzling essay, and scored a 900 on the GMAT. Fantastic. But what awaits you in the world of business once you get your MBA? You can only learn so much from watching The Office after all. To help you guys out, I have amassed a list of ten classic business movies.

Without further ado, the must-see list:

1. Office Space

This classic office comedy ought to be required viewing at all business schools. Nothing cures possessed copy machine-induced stress or a bad case of the Mondays faster than watching Peter spar with his dull and annoying bosses.

2. Wall Street

An iconic 80’s film about greed and morality. Michael Douglas is fantastic as Gordon Gekko, the apostle of the “greed is good” ideology. He may be on to something in terms of economic theory, though the SEC may not be so understanding, as the film depicts.

3. Working Girl

Harrison Ford and Sygourney Weaver are fantastic in this thoroughly enjoyable romantic comedy. Melanie Griffith teaches us a valuable lesson as Tess the precocious administrative assistant: Never take your secretary for granted.

4. Network

A 70’s masterpiece about the business of the media. It took home four Academy Awards and gave us the catchphrase “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Uncannily prescient and brilliantly acted, this is one that stays with you.

5. Gung Ho

This 1986 comedy stars Michael Keaton as a foreman at an American car factory that gets taken over by a Japanese manufacturer. Consider it a hilarious lesson on labor management and the importance of understanding different cultures.

6.  The Hudsucker Proxy

The Coen brothers, Tim Robbins, and Paul Newman come together for a good old fashioned screwball comedy. It’s a funny flick that demonstrates the importance of looking for innovators in all levels of a company.

7. The Aviator

A tale of entrepreneurship and obsession, the life of Howard Hughes should be of interest to any future mogul. Trailblazers in the communication and transportation industries have often had to content with opportunistic politicians. Though Hughes does admirably well, you might not want to copy some of his lifestyle choices.

8. Other People’s Money

Danny DeVito shines as “Larry the Liquidator” in this smart, early 90’s drama. In this story we see a conflict as old as time itself: Love, or money? Which would you choose?

9. Boiler Room

Similar to Wall Street in theme, this 2000 drama uses the stock game to teach a valuable business lesson: Always be skeptical of deals that seem too good to be true. Giovanni Ribisi is great as a talented rookie broker.

10. Glengarry Glen Ross

Based on an excellent play by David Mamet, this Hollywood take features an all-star cast that includes, Ed Harris, Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, Jack Lemmon, and Jonathan Pryce. Required viewing for people looking to get into the real estate game.

Honorable Mentions: Antitrust, Jerry Maguire, Erin Brokovich, Trading Places, Michael Clayton, The Insider, Barbarians at the Gate, Pirates of Silicon Valley, The Pursuit of Happyness

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1. History of the Internet

Getting online GMAT prep and an online MBA was unheard of half a decade ago, but thanks to the Internet, it’s possible today.  This infographic from OnlineMBA shows the growth of the “Intergalatic Network” to all of its current glory.

2. The Pros and Cons of B-School

This BusinessWeek article features Andy Rinehart, a JD/MBA candidate at Wake Forest University.  Rinehart discusses how his army background prepared him for b-school and how only after his first year, he already has a good sense of where he wants to be post-MBA.

3. Ten Mistakes You’ll Make When Starting a Business

Neil Patel from QuickSprout provides a good reality check and straightforward advice for everyone with entrepreneurship dreams.

4. Cornell Admissions Q&A

An admissions director at Cornell’s Johnson School gives a wide range of advice for b-school applicants including which round to apply and what to do if you’re waitlisted.  This BusinessWeek Q&A also provides information about Johnson’s Sustainable Enterprise Center, scholarship availability, and the correlation between strong GMAT scores and strong performance in core classes at b-school.

5. Forgive and Remember: How a Good Boss Responds to Mistakes

Robert Sutton from the Harvard Business Review advises people not to forget mistakes, but to remember them as lessons to make better decisions in the future.  This article contains great tips for bosses and future bosses alike.

6. Five Steps to a Fantastic LinkedIn Profile

Lindsey Pollack, a campus spokesperson for LinkedIn, provides great tips on how to get the best use out of your profile.

7. The High-Intensity Entrepreneur

This Harvard Business Review article explains how growing a business from scarce resources is still possible and definitely encouraged.  A must read for aspiring entrepreneurs, especially those in developing countries.

8. B-Schools All A-Twitter Over Social Media

Who would’ve thought that Facebook and Twitter tips would one day be taught in the classroom?  B-schools are launching courses in Internet marketing and social media strategies, two integral features of today’s businesses that are bringing companies closer to consumers than ever before.

9. The MBA is Dead — Get An MBS Instead

This Poets and Quants article discusses how renaming the degree could revamp its image and eliminate the ambiguity of “business administration.”

10. Boot Camp Teaches Vets to Work for Themselves

An NPR interview with Michael Haynie, assistant professor at the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University and founder of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities, a company that helps veterans start their own businesses.

Be sure to follow KnewtonGMAT on Twitter for more MBA news updates!

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3. College News Roundup from Knewton SAT

Simple: Address 5 fundamental questions every MBA program wants answered, even if they don’t ask!

On Monday, August 30, join Knewton and MBA Prep School for an inside look at the essential questions you’ll need to address as a b-school candidate.

This live workshop will be run by Tyler Cormney, a veteran MBA admissions consultant and co-founder of MBA Prep School, where he helps MBA applicants get into all the top b-schools. He’ll tell you exactly what admissions officers want to hear—and how to craft an application that addresses the key questions you must answer when you apply.

Update: To view an archived recording of this workshop, just click here.

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There are many options out there:  one and two-year full-time MBAs, part-time MBAs, executive MBAs, etc. The types are as varied as the people that apply to each, and each program is designed to serve a particular type of applicant. Here are some of the biggest advantages and disadvantages of each:

Two-year, full-time MBAs

In a two-year, full-time MBA program, students go to school (you guessed it) full-time. While the focus on academics is intense, this structure creates the opportunity for internships in between school years to provide specialized training.  One advantage of programs like this is that core classes are usually taken by a cohort of students in your graduating class, thus providing a network of other MBA students that may become valuable business relationships in the future.

Two-year, full-time programs are best suited for career-changers, since the overwhelming majority of full-time MBA students don’t maintain full-time jobs while in school.  It is not well suited for students without clear career objectives (since you’ll be looking to launch a new endeavor right out of school) or without some means of funding their education while not working.

One-year, full-time MBAs

A one-year full-time MBA is similar to a two-year full-time MBA only in that students do not generally work while in school.  One-year programs are often more difficult to get into since they are accelerated and have additional requirements, such as prerequisite graduate or undergraduate courses in business. For those who are eligible, however, this program offers the distinct advantage of taking less time to complete, thus allowing students to enter the workforce much more quickly than the other MBA options.

Due to the intensity of a one-year program, there is no room for internships, which can be a major drawback for career-changers or those looking to explore different areas of business while in school.  In addition, some companies do not accept one-year MBA degrees for career advancement and promotions, as many specialty and/or core curriculum courses are eliminated.

Part-time MBAs

A very popular option for those who wish to advance their current career without having to take time off work is the part-time MBA program. This type of MBA is by far the most popular option out there – nearly 2/3 of all MBA students are enrolled in either a part-time or distance learning program.

The main advantage of a part-time MBA degree is that courses are generally scheduled before or after normal working hours to allow students to earn their degree while holding down a job.  This is often ideal for those students who wish to advance their current career without losing opportunities — or wages! — while in school.

The disadvantages of a part-time MBA program are that tuition assistance is not always an option since the coursework is spread out over longer periods of time; overtime or work-related travel could interfere with classes if working while in school; and business school career placement services are usually not open after regular business hours.  Additionally, part-time MBA credits frequently do not transfer to full-time programs, and vice-versa.

These are just a few of the factors that you should consider when deciding on the program that’s right for you. Which program type is the best fit for your needs? Leave your answer, or any MBA questions, in the comments below.

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If you look at the graph of y = 1/x, the y value approaches +∞ as x approaches zero from the right, and the y value approaches –∞ as x approaches zero from the left. But the graph never reaches x = 0, because you cannot divide by zero. Dividing 1 by smaller and smaller fractions results in larger and larger quotients, because many tiny bits can fit into one whole. But you can’t answer the question of how many zeros fit into 1; the question doesn’t make sense conceptually.

All this is interesting, and the history of zero is at least a little bit interesting, too. But for the purposes of the GMAT, we have already thought much more about zero than we have to. If we remember not to divide by zero, we have remembered everything we need to know for test day. Or have we?

Here is a problem where aspiring GMAT 800′s tend to forget that dividing by zero can cause trouble on the Quant section:

If (x + 4)(3x + 1) = 3x² + x, what is a possible value of x?

(A) 1
(B) 1/2
(C) 1/3
(D) -1/3
(E) -1/2

There are a couple potential approaches to this problem. We could FOIL the expression on the left side of the equation. That won’t take too long, but if we’re really up on our game, we might notice that if we factor an x from the expression on the right side of the equation, there will be a (3x + 1) on both sides, which will let us cancel and simplify. That would be faster, and every second helps, so let’s use that method.

(x + 4)(3x + 1) = 3x² + x →

(x + 4)(3x + 1) = x(3x + 1)

We cancel the (3x + 1) on both sides, giving us:

x + 4 = x

Now we subtract x from both sides and get:

4 = 0

Wait a minute. Something went wrong. It is quite certain that 4 does not equal 0, so what happened? We can go over our calculations, but we didn’t make any errors. And this is the GMAT; 75 minutes are ticking away fast, so we don’t have time to ponder the rift in the universe that allows 4 = 0. Let’s just do the problem again really quickly with the first method. (We’ll take a second look after we finish.)

(x + 4)(3x + 1) = 3x² + x →

3x² + x + 12x + 4 = 3x² + x

Now we combine like terms by subtracting 3x² and  x from both sides, and we solve:

12x + 4 = 0

12x = –4

x = –1/3

So, –1/3 is a possible value of x, and answer choice D is correct.

Now let’s take a look at what went wrong when we factored and canceled. When we first pulled out an x, giving us (x + 4)(3x + 1) = x(3x + 1), everything was going fine. We hadn’t broken any rules yet.

And then we canceled the (3x + 1). When we cancel in this situation, what we are doing is dividing both sides by (3x + 1). The factors essentially go away, since (3x + 1)/(3x + 1) is always equal to 1. Except when (3x + 1) is equal to zero! Hindsight is 20/20, so let’s plug in x = –1/3, and sure enough it turns out that (3x + 1) is zero.

The takeaway: We can never divide by a variable, or by a variable expression, unless we know that the variable or expression does not equal zero. Remember, canceling is dividing, too.

Keep this in mind and you’ll avoid the head-scratching realization that 4=0. This will save you some troubling philosophical pondering, not to mention a lot of valuable time on test day.

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2. Business-like approach to GMAT Math, Part Deux
3. GMAT Idioms: Getting to Know the GMAT Like the Back of Your Hand