Kaplan's GMAT preparation book - a great resource

First, a bit about the exam.  Then, how to get 700 on it!

It’s an interesting exam, because it principally tests aptitude in two things – maths and English. It’s also a “computer adaptive test”, which means that the questions you are asked are made more difficult each time you get an answer right, and easier when you get a question wrong.  That means that you eventually reach a stage, theoretically, when you’re getting alternate questions right and wrong, which means you’ve reached your “level”.  I don’t know that that actually happens, but over the 41 maths questions, for example, the system gets a fairly good idea of where you stand.

This adaptive nature means that the test is delivered on a computer and, importantly, you can’t go backwards – only forwards.  So timing is key.  There’s no going back at the end to review your answers.

The exam is made up of three sections.

Analytical Writing

The Analytical Writing Assessment is designed to assess how well you can make or destruct an argument.  You’re given two essays to write, in half an hour each.  You start off each with either a statement/argument (normally only a single sentence) to analyse.  The instructions then are (not verbatim):

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statment above.  Support your view with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations or reading.

The next essay revolves around an argument being presented.  For example, it might be a memo from a fictional company manager, a reasoning behind a bank allowing or refusing a loan, etc.  The instructions are (not verbatim):

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument.  In your discussion be sure to analyse the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument.  Discuss what would strengthen the argument and what, if anything, would help to better evaluate its conclusion.

Sounds simple, but 30 minutes is barely enough to do that in.

Quantitative Section

The next section tests your mathematical skills.  It goes into basic arithmetic, geometry and algebra.  There are two types of questions – problem solving and data sufficiency. Problem solving is just like the junior/leaving cert.  Here’s a problem, and five possible solutions (all of which can be reached by making minor errors in your calculations/method).  Solve the problem, and pick the right answer.  Simple enough.  Here’s an example, if I can manage to format it right (ignore the  line on the right – it’s a cursor from a screengrab):

What is the value of a?

The data sufficiency gives you a question, followed by two additional pieces of information.  Rather than solving the problem, you’ve to decide whether the problem can be solved, given the information available.  The options are:

1. Can be solved with statement 1 alone
2. Can be solved with statement 2 alone
3. Can be solved with statement 1 or statement 2 alone
4. Can be solved with statement 1 and statement 2 together, but not either alone
5. Cannot be solved with the data provided

To give an example, you might be asked:

How long does it take John to type a particular document?

1) John types at 45wpm

2) Typing at a rate of 30wpm, Lisa can complete the document in 5.3 minutes

The answer to that one is that it can be solved with both statements together, but not either alone, by the way.  From my practice exams and learning, I knew that, for some reason, I’m bad at data sufficiency.  Put the same question in front of me as a problem, and I’m fine.  Bizarre.

Verbal Section

The third, and final, part of the exam tests your English language skills.  There are multiple choice questions on sentence correction (not a problem for me, as victims of my grammatical pedantry will attest!), critical reasoning (e.g. a statement is given and you are asked what has been assumed by the writer) and comprehension.   Comprehension gives a passage of text, normally three to four paragraphs long from a scientific or business magazine, and asks you various questions about the content.

Scoring

It’s difficult to explain, so here’s what Wikipedia says:

The “Total Score”, comprising the quantitative and verbal sections, is exclusive of the analytical writing assessment (AWA), and ranges from 200 to 800. About two-thirds of test takers score between 400 and 600. The score distribution resembles a bell curve with a standard deviation of approximately 100 points, meaning that the test is designed for 68% of examinees to score between 400 and 600, while the median score was originally designed to be near 500. The 2005/2006 mean score was 533.

I got a 700, which is in the 90th percentile (i.e. better than 90% of those who take the test, worse than 10% of those who take the test).

How to Get 700 on the GMAT

Hmm.  Difficult one to answer!  I used the excellent Kaplan training book.  It comprises a (large) textbook, with an accompanying CD of practice tests (both full tests and section-specific tests).  I highly recommend it.  I studied for about twenty minutes a day, about three times a week, for two months.  Not a huge commitment by any standards.

One thing to note, and I only found this out when I turned up at the test centre and talked to the other people taking the test, is that Kaplan scores you very, very hard.

I had been expecting a 650-700 score, based on my good maths and English skills.  The first time I did one of the Kaplan full practice tests, I got a 600.  The second time, I got a 580.  To say I was shocked would be an understatement.  The third time, I got a 610. Better, but not what I was expecting.  The courses I want to get accepted into would require at least a 650 to compensate for the 2:2 in my primary degree (most require a 2:1).

I was a bit concerned until I heard about Kaplan’s trends in scoring.  So, I thought I was back in line for a 650 again on the morning of the test.

The Test Itself

The two analytical writing essays went fine (I’m not giving the questions here because it’s part of the agreement when doing the test, and they haven’t given me my official score yet!), although I went right to the time limit on each of them.

Maths was up next, and I felt at the time that I’d made a bit of a balls of that.  I took too long on some of the early questions – my head just wasn’t in it, and I couldn’t get a grasp of them.  I then found myself with half the questions left, and only a third of the time.  I even guessed a few answers towards the end in order to get through it all (you’re punished more for not reaching a question than for getting it wrong).

The verbal test is my strongest card (ironically, in the Junior and Leaving Certs maths was my strongest subject, while English was one of my weakest).  I flew through that in about half the time allocated, and got most of the questions right.

Once you’ve done that, it tells you your test is over and gives you a score – 700 in my case (90th percentile).  Simple as that.  The score is provisional, and only covers the verbal and quantitative sections (not the two essays), but it’s the key number for your overall result.  700 is a good score.  The best I could have hoped for.

Next Step

Next step, the applications.  Most of that’s easy, but they all require essays.  Some of you who I know in real lifewill be getting essays to analyse and/or correct for me!  I hope you’ll oblige.

The Obama campaign was, overall, a masterclass in grassroots activism.  The sheer numbers of people contributing to the campaign – be it money or time – was amazing.  This meant that the money and staff required to operate the campaign were there all the time.

The Bad

Despite the hype, however, this was not a wonder of grassroots decision making.  Decisions were made way above the field office level, and pushed down.  There was no pushing back up.  All literature and messaging was being delivered at state level, and was customised no more locally than congressional districts.

This occasionally led to a lack of autonomy/flexibility on the ground.  Alexandria could have done some things better given the human resources we had, but directions were being sent down to deal with all Virginia field offices, and had to take into account the fact that some didn’t have the same local resources.  There was no flexibility, particularly in the last few days, for individual offices to do more than the required.

The Good

The list of things they did well is far longer, though:

• Voter Registration: In Alexandria, VA for example, McCain got almost exactly the same vote as George W Bush did in 2004.  However, Obama got 10,000 more votes than John Kerry.  Those were the newly registered voters and first time voters – people who previously weren’t engaged with politics.
• ‘Ownership’: Everyone was given ownership of the campaign, and this was echoed through messaging, management style and fundraising.  Getting people to donate a small amount of time or money meant they felt more involved in Obama’s candidacy.  That meant they were likely to give more time or money, but also that they were more likely to spend time convincing family, friends and colleagues to vote for Obama too.  The development of this personal ownership of the campaign was, in my opinion, probably its greatest strategy.
• Data: Working on the Data Team in the Alexandria Field Office, I got to see just what they had on file for volunteers and voters.  And it was a hell of a lot.  Looking back through old callsheets and canvass packs when we were tidying up the office this week, it was clear that a lot of time and effort was expended earlier in the campaign getting that data in place.  What that meant was that efforts in the final weeks could be focussed very tightly on getting out the voters likely to support Obama, or likely to be winnable.  Rather than trying to call to every house, only confirmed Obama supporters or those who had given an indication (through demographics, registration or otherwise) that they were possible supporters were contacted.  Data is probably the least transferable of their powers to Europe/Ireland.  Data Protection laws limit the amount of information you can collect, and, almost as importantly, how it can be shared between organisational units.
• Staff & Training: While there weren’t as many paid staff in the field as you might be lead to believe, each Field Office did have one full time staffer.  This person had generally been doing that job since February.  They were allocated to territory about the size of a Dáil constituency.  They were additional to, rather than instead of, the local Democratic Committee staff & offices and local politicians’ staff & offices.  Their sole task was running the Obama campaign – not running Senate or Congressional campaigns at the same time.  If the Senate/Congress candidate happened to get carried on the wave, great.  But it wasn’t the aim.  These staffers were given lots of training.   There was also extensive training for the team of full time volunteers who worked on the campaign without pay for months.
  

  Obama for America Phonebank in Alexandria VA

• Inspiration: On the topic of full time volunteers, by the time I arrived in Alexandria, there were already at least eight full time volunteers in the office.  That’s not including those who were spending “only” six to eight hours a day working on the campaign.  Many weren’t even American – in the last week there were three Irish people full time, two Brits, an Australian and a Frenchman (and those are just the ones I met personally).  Having a candidate who inspired people enough to give up their time, and their paid employment in some cases (or their job search in others) is a brilliant asset, although not one that can be replicated on demand.
• Volunteer Range: Despite what you might have heard, the campaign wasn’t all young people.  There was a huge range of ages volunteering – from 16 year olds to 80+ year olds in my office alone.  This has a double advantage: incoming volunteers have someone they can identify with; and voters can see someone “like me” working on the campaign.  “Someone like me” is one of the most important influencers out there (read Cialdini).  Volunteers didn’t need to have political experience, or even experience in the area they were working (e.g. phone banking).  The structures were all based on totally inexperienced volunteers, and so, as said above, training was built in from the start.  It appeared to me that a decision had been made early in the campaign that it was better to have 100 rookie volunteers and have 1 do something wrong, than to have only 10 seasoned volunteers.

Get Out The Vote

The campaign in my area (Alexandria, VA) in the last fortnight was purely a Get Out The Vote operation.  We knew that the city would go strongly for Obama, so it was simply a matter of trying to get turnout as high as possible.

This had been part of the strategy across the country for some time, and so the earlier work of the campaign had been largely focussed on gathering intelligence about which voters were likely to vote Obama.  Then, it was just a matter of getting them to the polls on election day.

Efforts were focussed on getting people to polling stations (or to early voting) and keeping them in line if there was a queue.  This was particularly evident on election day.  At 18:30, just half an hour before polls closed, there were fourteen Obama volunteers at the polling station I was at.  Fortunately, there were no queues – the huge turnout meaning almost everyone had already voted at that stage.

What Obama Must Do Now

Set expectations right.  It’s as simple as that.  As I’ve already said to those of you who I’ve been speaking to in the last few days, he has about four weeks to set expectations for the next four years.  It’s particularly important that expectations for the first two years are not only achievable, but exceedable.  Obama has been put on such a pedestal by his supporters (and his campaign) that only meeting expectations could be seen as failure.

Not only must he set expectations, but he should do it sooner rather than later.  A vacuum of expectation-setting will simply allow the TV networks to set the bar, and you certainly don’t want that.

Polls have been open in Virginia for just over four hours now, and voting has been brisk, although there haven’t been the extraordinary queues seen last time.  This has a lot to do with the very strong early voting showing – more than 500,000 Virginians voted before Saturday’s close of absentee ballots.

I’ll be updating the blog as and when I can during the day, although don’t expect any miracles.  It’ll be when there’s a gap in the data stream coming in from polling stations across the city.

There’s a good Get Out the Vote (GOTV) operation being run not only by the political parties, but also by quite a few businesses.  Each polling station issues a sticker to those who’ve voted as they leave.  Among the freebies on offer to those who’ve voted are:

• free ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s
• a free star shaped Krispy Kreme donut
• free coffee at Starbucks
• 20% off all online Pizza Hut orders
• from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m., a free appetizer at Daily Grill

For those who’ve early voted, Ross has even done up a nice alternative sticker!

Absentee Voter (by Ross)

It’d be great to see some Irish companies do the same for our Local & European elections next year.  How about a free pint from the breweries?

Update

Ross has more.

Update 2

It’s actually Day 11.  Blame lack of sleep.