Posted on January 21, 2013 by Anthony Ritz
A few months ago I wrote some words about qualifiers. These little words — words like “some,” “many,” “most,” “few,” “maybe,” and “probably” — somehow manage to be both often-critical and often-overlooked on standardized tests like the LSAT, the GMAT, and the GRE. I discussed spotting these words and went on to point out the existence and importance of hierarchies among the various qualifiers.
There’s one more twist, though, that we have yet to address…
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Tags: Formal Logic, GMAT, GRE, Logical Reasoning, LSAT, Qualifiers
Posted on January 7, 2013 by Anthony Ritz
In each Reference Sheet, I’ll cover, as succinctly as possible, every rule you absolutely must know to solve problems in a single area found on standardized tests.
Learning these rules isn’t a substitute for developing higher-order problem-solving and strategic thinking skills; rather, it’s a necessary precondition and foundation for all of that strategizing to take place. This Reference Sheet lists the minimum requirements to get your foot in the door. It’s the price of admission.
If you’re taking any test involving geometry, here’s what you need to know about triangles:
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Tags: ACT, Cheat Sheet, Geometry, GMAT, GRE, Math, SAT, Triangles
Posted on January 7, 2013 by Anthony Ritz
In each Reference Sheet, I’ll cover, as succinctly as possible, every rule you absolutely must know to solve problems in a single area found on standardized tests.
Learning these rules isn’t a substitute for developing higher-order problem-solving and strategic thinking skills; rather, it’s a necessary precondition and foundation for all of that strategizing to take place. This Reference Sheet lists the minimum requirements to get your foot in the door. It’s the price of admission.
If you’re taking any test involving geometry, here’s what you need to know about lines and angles:
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Tags: ACT, Cheat Sheet, Geometry, GMAT, GRE, Math, SAT
Posted on December 4, 2012 by Anthony Ritz
In each Reference Sheet, I’ll cover, as succinctly as possible, every rule you absolutely must know to solve problems in a single area found on standardized tests.
Learning these rules isn’t a substitute for developing higher-order problem-solving and strategic thinking skills; rather, it’s a necessary precondition and foundation for all of that strategizing to take place. This Reference Sheet lists the minimum requirements to get your foot in the door. It’s the price of admission.
If you’re taking any test involving combinatorics, here’s what you need to know:
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Tags: ACT, Cheat Sheet, Combinatorics, GMAT, GRE, Math, SAT
Posted on October 22, 2012 by Anthony Ritz
Here’s an easy way to pick up an extra point or two on your LSAT score (or 10 or 20 on your GMAT score): When you’re reading logical reading questions, pay close attention to the qualifiers attached to the statements they make.
Simple little words like “some,” “many,” “most,” “few,” “all,” “maybe,” “probably,” “often,” “usually,” and so forth may seem interchangeable and are easily overlooked, but in fact any qualifier can critically change the meaning of a statement in which it appears. Furthermore, because the test writers know that these little words are so often overlooked, qualifiers are a favorite trick to lead unwary test-takers astray.
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Tags: GMAT, GRE, Logical Reasoning, LSAT, Qualifiers
Posted on October 10, 2012 by Anthony Ritz
Today’s question comes from the GMAT. It’s Critical Reasoning Practice Question #7 in The Official Guide for GMAT Verbal Review, 2nd Edition (page 118).
A researcher discovered that people who have low levels of immune-system activity tend to score much lower on tests of mental health than do people with normal or high immune-system activity. The researcher concluded from this experiment that the immune system protects against mental illness as well as against physical disease.
The researcher’s conclusion depends on which of the following assumptions?
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Tags: Assumption (Necessary), Correlation versus Causation, GMAT, GRE, Logical Reasoning, LSAT, Question Analysis
Posted on September 25, 2012 by Anthony Ritz
Today I’m posting the first installment of a new occasional series for this blog. In each Reference Sheet, I’ll cover, as succinctly as possible, every rule you absolutely must know to solve problems in a single area found on standardized tests.
Learning these rules isn’t a substitute for developing higher-order problem-solving and strategic thinking skills; rather, it’s a necessary precondition and foundation for all of that strategizing to take place. This Reference Sheet lists the minimum requirements to get your foot in the door. It’s the price of admission.
If you’re taking any test involving exponents, here’s what you need to know:
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Tags: ACT, Cheat Sheet, Exponents, GMAT, GRE, Math, SAT
Posted on September 17, 2012 by Anthony Ritz
A couple of weeks ago I did an LSAT reading comprehension passage, but I threw my timing off by taking notes for my blog post as I worked. I’m going to try it again with a new passage, but this time I’m going to treat it exactly as I would on the actual LSAT — and skip the notes. We’ll see if my time improves — and whether I maintain accuracy in the process.
Alright, let’s get to it! I’m doing PrepTest 60, Section 4, Questions 1-7 (10 New LSAT, page 316-317). There are 7 questions here, so our target time is around 9 minutes. See you in 9 minutes!
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Tags: ACT, GMAT, GRE, LSAT, Question Analysis, Reading Comprehension, SAT
Posted on August 30, 2012 by Anthony Ritz
Let’s do some reading comprehension!
To make this as authentic as possible, I’ll pick a passage I haven’t seen before, time myself, and try to comment on my thought process as I go. Okay? Good. Reading comprehension is a staple on pretty much every major standardized test, but I’ll be doing one from the LSAT: PrepTest 57, Section 4, Questions 6-12 (10 New LSAT, page 210-211). Here we go!
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Tags: ACT, GMAT, GRE, LSAT, Question Analysis, Reading Comprehension, SAT
Posted on August 20, 2012 by Anthony Ritz
I’ll endeavor to keep this tractate laconic, for reasons that will become manifest forthwith.
I’ve had myriad SAT and GRE abecedarians ask me the best modi for augmenting their vocabularies in order to meliorate their sentence completion scores. Other students, signally nonnative speakers, yen to bolster their lexicons in order to wax their reading comprehension aptitudes.
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Tags: GRE, SAT, Sentence Completion, Vocabulary