GMAT Preparation

About This Course

Applying to graduate business and management schools usually means taking the GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test). Our GMAT Preparation Course is a must. Taking this course will provide you with test-taking techniques and methods for improving your score and saving time on all GMAT question types. You'll review the more familiar questions and learn how to approach question types that may be new to you, like critical reasoning and data sufficiency. In the verbal lessons, we will discuss how to do your best on reading comprehension questions, sentence correction questions, critical reasoning questions, and the analytical writing assessment. In the quantitative lessons, we provide a comprehensive math review and techniques for tackling both problem solving and data sufficiency questions. You will practice on actual GMAT tests from previous years, which is the best way to prepare for any standardized test.

Note: The content of this course was revised to include the Integrated Reasoning section added to the GMAT on 6/5/12.

About The Instructor

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Benjamin Gialloreto.

Benjamin N. Gialloreto graduated from Drexel University (BS, Computer Science) and Loyola (New Orleans) School of Law. He has been practicing law since 1990 and is a former Deputy City Solicitor for the City of Philadelphia Major Trials and Civil Rights Units. He is currently Independent Counsel to the School Reform Commission in the Philadelphia School District and is a partner in the Philadelphia-based law firm Gallagher & Rowan, P.C.

Professor Gialloreto has been proctoring this GMAT preparation course since July 1999 and has helped more than 6,000 GMAT test takers over the years. He also teaches online Paralegal Certificate courses for the Center for Legal Studies in Golden, Colorado. He conducted Civil Rights Seminars at the Philadelphia Police Academy and Philadelphia Prison Academy as part of recruit training and annual education for Police and Prison Supervisors. Finally, Professor Gialloreto proctors our test prep course for the LSAT, SAT, and ACT, and has assisted with the GRE test prep courses.

Syllabus

A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week 1

Wednesday - Lesson 01

You may have heard that you can't study for the GMAT. But that's just not true! There are a bunch of things you can do to prepare yourself, and the more time you spend, the better your scores will be. In our first lesson, you'll learn everything you need to know about the general makeup of GMAT so you'll know exactly what you're getting into come test day. You'll learn how to relax when you start feeling panicky, how to eliminate the wrong answers the tests try to entice you to choose, how to guess when you're not sure of the right answer, and how much time to spend on each question.

Friday - Lesson 02

If you're not familiar with the kinds of GMAT questions in the different sections, you'll know exactly what to expect once we're finished with this lesson. You'll get a taste of the format of reading comprehension, sentence correction, and critical reasoning questions, as well as the analytical writing section. We'll also cover problem solving and data sufficiency questions in the quantitative section and introduce the question types found in the integrated reasoning section. Then we'll go over the information in much more detail in upcoming lessons.

Week 2

Wednesday - Lesson 03

You've been reading since first grade, but that's not enough experience to get you ready for the GMAT passage-based reading questions. There's more to these babies than just reading a passage and working through its questions, and after you finish this lesson, you'll have the tools you need to develop your own personal reading strategy.

You'll learn how to glide through even the most sleep-producing reading topics by focusing on what's important and ignoring what's not. Then you'll find out how to eliminate answers that hook other unprepared test-takers and spot the distracters the test-makers use to make wrong answers seem right. After that, we'll steer through GMAT reading comprehension passages that have appeared on past tests to give you a step-by-step approach for getting the most information from the passages in the least amount of time. We'll finish the lesson by practicing these skills on actual GMAT reading questions, and you'll have the opportunity to discuss your efforts with your instructor and classmates.

Friday - Lesson 04

The GMAT has some multiple-choice question types (called sentence correction questions) that test your grammar and English usage skills. In this lesson, we'll go over a detailed strategy for tackling each of them. You'll learn what errors crop up most commonly in the given sentences so you can focus your attention on what's important, and you'll find out what questions are best to skip if you notice that you're running short of time. Knowing the rules of grammar is essential to maximizing your score on sentence corrections, and this lesson gives you the goods. But it won't bore you with every grammar rule known (or unknown) to the English-speaking public. We'll only review the rules that are most commonly tested on the GMAT.

Week 3

Wednesday - Lesson 05

You may not have seen the GMAT critical reasoning questions before. Even though they may be unfamiliar, by the time you've completed this lesson, you'll know just how to tackle them, and they may just end up being your favorite GMAT test questions! In this lesson, we'll review the elements of a logical argument and the major types of inductive arguments you'll see on the GMAT. Then we'll go through step-by-step instructions on how to examine each type of argument and pick the best answer to each question.

Friday - Lesson 06

For years, MBA programs have complained that students don't know how to write. So you're going to give them a sample of the way you write before you even get to graduate school. If the thought of writing a complete analysis of an argument in about a half an hour has you running for the hills, don't despair. Today, we'll go over a specific plan for making the most of your time so you can prove to the admissions committee of your favorite graduate program that you can put your thoughts together in a cohesive and interesting essay.

And before you impress the GMAT essay readers, you'll get a chance to wow your peers. During this lesson, you'll compose sample essays and share them with your instructor and classmates for review. You'll also get the chance to read what other test-takers write and provide them with your enlightened commentary!

Week 4

Wednesday - Lesson 07

You learned arithmetic in grade school, but you may have forgotten some of the basics that you'll see on the GMAT math. Don't worry, we'll review all the essentials in this lesson. We'll go over a lot of the things you probably remember, like how to perform multiplication and division, as well as some of the things that might be a little fuzzy, like exponents and fractions. The GMAT also tests your knowledge of standard algebra. We'll go over variables, factoring, and a whole bunch of other fun stuff so that you know exactly what you need to answer the many algebra-related questions the GMAT has to offer.

Friday - Lesson 08

This lesson covers linear geometry, geometric shapes and measurements, coordinate geometry, statistics, and more. If you can't remember (or never learned) the difference between mean, median, and mode, this lesson will help you!

Week 5

Wednesday - Lesson 09

In today's lesson, we'll focus on the most common type of GMAT math question—the multiple-choice question. Through a thorough examination of GMAT math questions from previous tests, you'll learn how to work through all kinds of multiple-choice math. You'll be whipping through the answer choices in no time!

Friday - Lesson 10

The quantitative portion of the GMAT contains a question type that doesn't appear on any other major standardized test. It's called the data sufficiency question because instead of figuring out the answer to a math problem, you have to determine whether the information provided is sufficient to figure out the answer to the math problem. If this sounds a bit complex, don't worry! We'll go through a step-by-step chart to help you flow through these problems, and you'll get plenty of practice on prior GMAT data sufficiency test questions.

Week 6

Wednesday - Lesson 11

We'll go over a lot of information in this six-week course, and you probably won't remember all of it, even with all of the additional work you put into each lesson. So in this lesson, we'll go back over all of the tips and strategies you'll need to know to do your best on the math questions on the GMAT. You'll also take a practice test.

Friday - Lesson 12

Today we'll cover the newest section of the GMAT: integrated reasoning. We'll also talk about test-taking techniques so you can do as well as possible on the test.

Requirements

Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader). Highly recommended, but not required: The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 13th Edition, or The Official Guide for GMAT Verbal Review and The Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review.