GMAT Tip of the Week 6 Reasons That Your Test Day Wont Be A Labor Day

As the northern hemisphere drifts toward autumn, two events have become just about synonymous: Labor Day and Back to School. If youre spending this Labor Day weekend getting yourself ready to go back to graduate school, you may well labor over GMAT study materials in between barbecues and college football games. And if you do, make sure you heed this wisdom: GMAT test day should not be Labor Day! What does that mean? On a timed test like the GMAT, one of the biggest drains on your score can be a combination of undue time and undue energy spent on problems that could be done much simpler. The long way is the wrong way as a famous GMAT instructor puts it those seconds you waste, those extra steps that could lead to error or distraction, theyll add up over the test and pull your score much lower than youd like it to be. With that in mind, here are six ways to help you avoid too much labor on test day: QUANTITATIVE SECTION 1) Do the math in your order, only when necessary. Because the GMAT doesnt allow a calculator, it heavily rewards candidates who can find efficient ways to avoid the kind of math for which youd need a calculator. Very frequently this means that the GMAT will tempt you with calculations that youd ordinarily just plug-and-chug with a calculator, but that can be horribly time-consuming once you start. For example, a question might require you to take an initial number like 15, then multiply by 51, then divide by 17. On a calculator or in Excel, youd do exactly that. But on the GMAT, that calculation gets messy. 15*51 = 765 a calculation that isnt awful but that will take most people a few steps and maybe 20 seconds. But then you have to do some long division with 17 going into 765. Or do you? If youre comfortable using factors, multiples, and reducing fractions, you can see those two steps (multiply by 51, divide by 17) as one: multiply by 51/17, and since 51/17 reduces to 3, then youre really just doing the calculation 15*3, which is easily 45. The lesson? For one, dont start doing ugly math until you absolutely know you have to perform that step. Save ugly math for later, because the GMAT is notorious for rescuing those who are patient enough to wait for future steps that will simplify the process. And, secondly, get really, really comfortable with factors and divisibility. Quickly recognizing how to break a number into its factors (51 = 3*17; 65 = 5*13; etc.) allows you to streamline calculations and do much of the GMAT math in your head. Getting to that level of comfort may take some labor, but it will save you plenty of workload on test day. 2) Recognize that Answers Are Assets. Another way to avoid or shortcut messy math is to look at the answer choices first. Some problems might look like they  involve messy algebra, but can be made much easier by plugging in answer choices and doing the simpler arithmetic. Other times, the answer choices will lead themselves to process of elimination, whether because some choices do not have the proper units digit, or are clearly too small. Still others will provide you with clues as to how you have to attack the math. For example, if the answer choices are something like: A) 0.0024; B) 0.0246; C) 0.246; D) 2.46; E) 24.6, theyre not really testing you on your ability to arrive at the digits 246, but rather on where the decimal point should go (how many times should that number be multiplied/divided by 10). You can then set your sights on the number of decimal places while not stressing other details of the calculation. Whatever you do, always scan the answer choices first to see if there are easier ways to do the problem than to simply slog through the math. The answers are assets theyre there for a reason, and often, theyll provide you with clues that will help you save valuable time. 3) Question the Question Know where the game is being played. Very often, particularly in Data Sufficiency, the GMAT Testmaker will subtly provide a clue as to whats really being tested. And those who recognize that can very quickly focus on what matters and not get lost in other elements of the problem. For example, if the question stem includes an inequality with zero (x 0 or xy 0), theres a very high likelihood that youre being tested on positive/negative number properties. So,  when a statement then says something like 1) x^3 = 1331, you can hold off on trying to take the cube root of 1331 and simply say, Odd exponent =  positive value, so I know that x is positive, and see if that helps you answer the question without much calculation. Or if the problem asks for the value of 6x y, you can say to yourself, I may not be able to solve for x and y individually, but if not, lets try to isolate exactly that 6x y term, and set up your algebra accordingly so that youre efficiently working toward that specific goal. Good test-takers tend to see where the game is being played by recognizing what the Testmaker is testing. When you can see that a question is about number properties (and not exact values) or a combination of values (and not the individual values themselves) or a comparison of values (again, not the actual values themselves), you can structure your work to directly attack the question and not fall victim to a slog of unnecessary calculations. VERBAL SECTION 4) Focus on keywords in Critical Reasoning conclusions. The Verbal section simply looks time-consuming because theres so much to read, so it pays to know where to spend your time and focus. The single most efficient place to spend time (and the most disastrous if you dont) is in the conclusion of a Strengthen or Weaken question. To your advantage, noticing a crucial detail in a conclusion can tell you exactly where the game is being played (Oh, its not how much iron, its iron PER CALORIE; its not that Company X needs to reduce costs overall, its that it needs to reduce SHIPPING costs; etc.) and help you quickly search for the answer choices that deal with that particular gap in logic. On the downside, if you dont spend time emphasizing the conclusion, youre in trouble burying a conclusion-limiting word or phrase (like per calorie or shipping) in a long paragraph can be like hiding a needle in a haystack. The Testmaker knows that the untrained are likely to miss these  details, and have created trap answers (and just the opportunity to waste time re-reading things that dont really matter) for those who fall in that group. 5) Scan the Sentence Correction answer choices before you dive into the sentence. Much like Answers are Assets above, a huge help on Sentence Correction problems is to scan the answer choices quickly to see if you can determine where the game is being played (Are they testing pronouns? Verb tenses?). Simply reading a sentence about a strange topic (old excavation sites, a kind of tree that only grows on the leeward slopes of certain mountains) and looking for anything that strikes you as odd or ungrammatical, that takes time and saps your focus and energy. However,  the GMAT primarily tests a handful of concepts over and over, so if you recognize what is being tested, you can read proactively and look  for the words/phrases that directly control that decision youre being asked to make. Do different answers have different verb tenses? Look for words that signal time (before, since, etc.). Do they involve different pronouns? Read to identify the noun in question and determine which pronoun it needs. Youre not really being tasked with editing the sentence as much as your job is to make the proper decision with the choices theyve already given you. Theyve already narrowed the scope of items you can edit, so identify that scope before you take out the red marking pen across the whole sentence. 6) STOP and avoid rereading. As the Veritas Prep Reading Comprehension lesson teaches, stop at the end of each paragraph of a reading passage to ask yourself whether you understand Scope, Tone, Organization, and Purpose. The top two time-killers on Reading Comprehension passages/problems are re-reading (you get to the end and realize you dont really know what you just read) and over-reading (you took several minutes absorbing a lot of details, but now the clock is ticking louder and you havent looked at the questions yet). STOP will help you avoid re-reading (if you werent locked in on the first paragraph, you can reread that in 30 seconds and not wait to the end to realize you need to reread the whole thing) and will give you a quick checklist of, Do I understand just enough to move on? Details are only important if youre asked about them, so focus on the major themes (Do you know what the paragraph was about a quick 5-7 word synopsis is perfect and why it was written? Good.) and save the details for later. It may seem ironic that the GMAT is set up to punish hard-workers, but in business, efficiency is everything the test needs to reward those who work smarter and not just harder, so an effective test day simply cannot be a Labor Day. Use this Labor Day weekend to study effectively so that test day is one on which you prioritize efficiency, not labor. Getting ready to take the GMAT? We have free online GMAT seminars running all the time. And as always, be sure to follow us on  Facebook, YouTube,  Google+  and Twitter! By Brian Galvin.

Organizational Behavior 4415 Managing in Virtual...

Organizational Behavior As the entire human race has crossed the threshold of twenty-first century, it has revolutionized numerous facets in the world of commerce. The progressions and developments have not only been witnessed in the economic, political, environmental and social sectors but the industrial segment has also come under its radical and deep impacts. This industrial boom as well as intensified globalization has resulted in universal trade that has emerged a need for the businesses to broaden and expand their functions to an international platform (Brunsson 2008). The means and approaches of communication have alleviated the cultural, social and political differences amongst the populations not only on national level but also on a universal platform. In this regard, one cannot ignore the reality that the technological advancements in business community has given rise to the fierce and intense competition to the businesses and organizations that produced the enterprises to focus on amplified productivity in order to live to the expectations and demands of the consumers. Indeed, the trends of the working conditions of the marketplace in the recent years have also depicted that challenges are being encountered by the companies in order to stay competitive in the market as well as generate profits for which the need of efficient and effectual working had become a fundamental necessity (Brunsson 2008). A corporation is made up of numerous departments that

The Value Of Cash Flow - 951 Words

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This mistake is often realised by discounting positive the positive cash flow in one year and then incorporating interest on the same cash flow in income in the following year. b) Strengths †¢ DCF valuation can provide an estimate of intrinsic value of the business by capturing its underlying fundamentals including WACC, cost of equity and growth rate. The intrinsic value of the business provides an estimate of present value of cash flows that the company will pay its shareholders and therefore it should help investors to identify companies that are inexpensive compared to its peers. †¢ DCF relies on free cash flows which provide a reliable measure that mitigates the subjective accounting practices and often inaccurate estimates of reported earnings. 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This means ACC will finance money though equity and debt to buy AirThread and pay the debt by the cash flows or assets of AirThread. * In another word, it’s a highly levered transactionRead MoreDescribe How Value-Added Is Calculated. to What Extent Are Value Added, Cash Flow, and Profit Connected to a Company’s Sales Performance?1822 Words   |  8 PagesDescribe how value-added is calculated. To what extent are value added, cash flow, and profit connected to a company’s sales performance? Throughout this essay I will be exploring how value added is calculated and to what extent value added, cash flow and profit are connected to a company’s sales performance. 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Managers can get real option value by doing decisions on time and flexible about firm’s opportunities and capabilities. There are four main parts in the manager’s work box for investment valuation opportunities.  ¬ Net Present Values  ¬ Accounting rated of return  ¬ Real Options  ¬ Payback rules NPV implement require estimates of appropriate discount rate and expected cash flows. And there’s

Regression Analysis For A Dependence Method - 753 Words

Regarding the testing of the hypotheses of this research, regression analysis or structural equation modelling techniques is best suited for a dependence method (Hair et al., 2014). We employed regression analysis to specify the extent to which the independent variables predicted the dependent variable. The analysis conducted in this study was therefore intended to test the hypotheses of the study. The regression output provided some measures which allow assessment of the hypotheses. Following from the hypotheses, Brand Engagement was used as the dependent variable while the independent variables consisted of Monetary Savings, Exploration, Entertainment, Recognition, and Social Benefit. Results from the model assessment are presented in the Table VI. Insert table VI Results from the model assessment indicate strong and significant reliabilities among the constructs used in the study (F = 87.362, Prob.F-stats 0.001). This was followed by Exploration (ÃŽ ² = 0.102, t = 2.271, P = 0.024 0.05), as well as Entertainment (ÃŽ ² = 0.081, t = 1.712, P = 0.068 0.10). Although Recognition was positively related to Brand Engagement, it was not statistically significant (ÃŽ ² = 0.051, t = 1.084, P = 0.279 0.05). It was however discovered that Monetary savings was inversely related to Brand Engagement (ÃŽ ² = -.009, t = -0.194) as well as statistically not significant in the current study (P = 0.846 0.05). In consequence, hypotheses one and four (H1 and H4) were rejected in our studyShow MoreRelatedSmoothing Dat The Estition Of Variance In Data890 Words   |  4 PagesESTIMATION OF VARIANCE IN HETEROSCEDASTIC DATA Abstract Data which exhibit none constant variance is considered. Smoothing procedures are applied to estimate these none constant variances. In these smoothing methods the problem is to establish how much to smooth. The choice of the smoother and the choice of the bandwidth are explored. 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The American Recovery And Revitalization Act Of 2009

The American Recovery and Revitalization Act of 2009 brought meaningful use of patient records to help increase the improvement of patient care. With certified electronic health record technology, one goal is to improve quality, safety, efficiency, and to decrease health discrepancies. Some more goals are to get patient and family engaged in their care, continue to improve care coordination, and maintain privacy and security of patient health information. In order to achieve these goals, healthcare facilities must continue to stress the importance of patient engagement and to use the patient portal for healthcare information (â€Å"Meaningful Use Definition,† n.d.). Patient engagement is defined as a person’s continued participation in dealing†¦show more content†¦Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, also known as HIPAA, became an act in 1996 by the United States. The act specifies guidelines for the protection and circulation of individually he althcare information. It establishes regulated procedures for electronic data interchange, security, and confidentiality of all healthcare-related data. It is designed to protect individuals from an improper distribution of medical information. The act states what can and cannot be shared without permission and what individual medical records can be accessed by the individual. The act specifies possibilities for reparation and penalties for those who violate the act. HIPAA lessens uncertainty as to what is and what is not a privilege when obtaining individual information. The HIPAA privacy rule applies to all written, oral, or electronic patient information. The security rule covers electronic security and requirements for those receiving protected information. This also helps prevent breaches of information. When individual patients want to access their own medical records and insert corrections if needed, they rely on HIPAA for the right to do so. They are reassured that any of t heir information will only be shared with those who have a justifiable need to see it or have been given consent by the patient (Magee, n.d.). I believe HIPAA will continue

Native son essay Free Essays

Native son essay Native Son is a book written by Richard Wright which takes place in the asses. The main character in the book is named Bigger Thomas. Bigger Thomas is a young black man living with his family in a small rat infested apartment in a world controlled by white people. We will write a custom essay sample on Native son essay or any similar topic only for you Order Now Bigger becomes employed as a driver by a rich white family, and after being made extremely uncomfortable and upset, he kills the daughter of the family. He is then forced to run from the police and has to kill his partner, Bessie. Bigger is caught and prosecuted by the police and experiences extreme racial prejudice urine his trial and is sentenced to death. During both his everyday life, and his trial, bigger is the victim of extreme racism. At the very beginning of the book, a large black rat is running around the Thomas family’s apartment. Bagger’s sister, Vera, is running around screaming while Bigger and his brother corner it and kill it. This foreshadows the Bagger’s later flight from the police. Bigger is running and running, but he is helpless to defend himself against the greater force that is the white people. He ends up cornered, captured, and eventually killed, Just like the rat. This seems to be a representation of Bagger’s entire life. After killing the rat, Bigger holds it up and scares his sister with it. Bagger’s dangling of the rat to scare his sister is similar to the media and court making an example of bigger. Richard Wright makes it seem like Bagger’s life is like a prison even before he is arrested. Atone point bigger says â€Å"Goddamned, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we anti. They do things and we can’t. It’s Just like living’ in Wright) His entire life is dictated by white people, so he has basically no freedom. The crowded, rat-infested apartment he lives in is worse than a prison cell. While presenting his case to the court, Max even says that life in prison would be an upgrade for bigger because his living conditions were so poor. The results of Bagger’s trial were greatly affected by the fact that the Judge, jurors, and all of the rest of the court was made up of white people. Their racist views made his trial extremely unfair. During the trial, Max says â€Å"He is a black criminal, and as such he comes into this court under a handicap, notwithstanding our pretentious that are all equal before the law. â€Å"(Richard Wright 382) The trial seemed to take place only to satisfy the law rather than to really give Bigger a chance. In addition to this, the media made Bigger out to be a terrible monster and branded him guilty even before the trial. This media portrayal made the public hate Bigger even more until there was always an angry mob waiting to kill Bigger if he wasn’t sentenced to death by the court. Throughout the book, Bigger Thomas is ostracizes by the press. Even before he killed Mary Dalton, his life was like a prison. Bigger is always afraid of the white force that controls his life. During both his everyday life, and his trial, bigger is the victim of extreme racism and that ends up being the reason he dies. How to cite Native son essay, Essays

Revitalizing dell free essay sample

Dell Computer Corporation was founded in 1984 by Michael Dell. From the early 1990s until the mid-2000s, Dell was ranked as a PC market leader relying on their distinctive marketing pattern â€Å"Direct Model† which undertook direct communication with customers and provided customized products. Recently, the PC industry is facing inconceivable worldwide competition, and Dell is gradually losing their competitive advantages by using its direct model in critical business segments. The company is facing shrinkage of growth, increasing competition, declining quality of customer service, and limitation of expansion. These issues have an enormous impact on Dell’s position as a technological giant in the PC industry. Problem Definition Generally, in order to consolidate its top market position, Dell Computer Corporation has to keep its competitive advantage and figure out the issues which come from the internal and external environment. First, as globalization continues to develop, it is bringing both opportunities and threats to companies worldwide. We will write a custom essay sample on Revitalizing dell or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The PC market is experiencing constant renewal and replacement and this results in the reducing of differentiation and the increase in price wars among competitors. In the early 1990, Dell was positioned as â€Å"focused differentiation† in the PC market and attracted a lot of customers by using their superior customer service. However, Dell’s competitive differentiation from its competitors, which is based on its â€Å"customized product†, is not its core competence anymore in 2007 since Dell’s remarkable direct model has been imitated by other companies. Second, although the PC market is a highly competitive and rivalrous market, the profitability is still attracting the attention of companies to squeeze into this market. Therefore, Dell is facing the challenging threat of new entries into the market. Additionally, due to the diversified products, customers have more options on computer brands, styles, and functions in the current market. This also forces Dell’s position to move from supplier power towards buyer power. In brief, when an industry is growing, more rivalry is likely to enter the market. Third, internal erroneous decisions will negatively impact Dell’s long-term operations as well. In 2001, Dell decided to move its support center to India, and this directly resulted in a declining perception of the company’s customer service. Although the company is providing its â€Å"superior customized product†, the quality of customer service is another key element for keeping customer loyalty. Finally, the traditional direct model strategy is not appropriate in the current PC market. The direct model mainly focuses on operational efficiency and organizational restrictions on individual customers, but this limits the company to step into new business segments for long-term operation. This model has restricted Dell from gaining market share in the â€Å"single consumer† segment, and has resulted in an inability to offer more customized products to diverse customer segments. Furthermore, globalization is creating additional opportunities for the PC market. The United States is Dell’s primary market and yet the company is competing in the global computer market. Therefore, Dell will need to consider expanding its market globally in order to develop its differentiation advantage outside of the U. S. Diagnosis Dell’s accomplishments through the mid-2000s caused its rivals to take notice and action. IBM and Lenovo launched a direct distributive initiative and created the Authorized Assembly Program which improved their inventory turnover rate. Compaq also optimized its distribution model by building orders only after they were received which declined their inventory holding. HP began selling PCs directly to business customers online and initiated a toolkit to increase consulting and sales training. Gateway focused on individual customers rather than large corporations. Acer eventually bought Gateway and differentiated itself as â€Å"100% indirect† company that specialized in producing inexpensive notebooks. Dell positioned itself as a successful differentiator; however, its competitive differentiation is no longer an advantage for it due to the ease of their Direct Model imitation. Home and corporate users dominate the five categories of buyers on PC consumption. There are large amounts of these buyers in the market that are price sensitive and have low switching costs on their products which raises overall buyers’ power. However, in the case of Dell, many customers became frustrated with Dell. For example, Dell’s call centers received manyf discouraged clients’ comments. One reason: many service representatives were trained to solve only one category of a problem, so almost 45% of calls had to be transferred from the agent who answered the call to someone with the knowledge needed to help the customer. Richard L. Hunter, who was brought in to improve Dell’s customer service, called the situation â€Å"terrible†, explaining that it was comparable to â€Å"delivering materials to the wrong factory 45 percent of the time. † Worse, to slow the tide of calls from customers, Dell tried removing its toll-free service number from its website. Customers’ reactions showed up in Dell’s declining market share and slumping customer satisfaction ratings (Certo, 2013). Moreover, when Dell went on to expand its tech support outsourcing with other call centres in India, customers began complaining. Consequently, Dell stopped being perceived as an American role model (Munarriz, 2012). Overall, in recent years, Dell has started to experience problems with its direct sales model and has steadily been losing ground to HP, who now occupies the number one spot in the PC sales market. Analysts had felt that the innovative sales model developed by Dell had made it the industry favourite and also a high indicator of good sales growth. However, industry insiders have now observed that those upbeat days appeared to be over for Dell as the companys profits and share prices had dropped considerably. The diagnosis, then, is that Dell’s traditional direct model is failing because the market, the competitors and the consumers have changed and yet Dell still uses the same model which Michael Dell invented in the early 1990s. Cause-Effect Analysis As companies such as Compaq, HP, Lenovo and Acer imitated Dell’s direct model for sales of their PCs, this quickly began to cut away at Dell’s competitive advantage. Dell’s direct model brought in large profits for the company and gave them â€Å"the title of worlds biggest computer maker† (Sorensen, 2013). However with the other computer makers vying for the top spot in the competitive PC manufacturing space, the direct model â€Å"spawned a host of imitators—several who proved to be better equipped to take advantage of the business model Dell thought it had perfected. †(Sorensen, 2013) The adoption by other PC makers of cutting out the wholesaler and selling directly to the consumer caused Dell to â€Å"relinquish the title of world’s biggest computer maker to HP in 2006. † (Sorensen, 2013) In the below graph representing more recent years of the top 5 PC makers shows that Lenovo has also now surpassed Dell in market share. (Peitsch, 2012)