“Cannot be determined by the information given”

Michael drives x miles due north at arrives at Point A. He then heads due east for y miles. Finally, he drives z miles a straight line towards is starting point. If x, y, and z are integers, then how many miles did Michael drive if the shortest leg was 5 miles?

(A)  5 miles

(B)  12 miles

(C)  25 miles

(D) 30 miles

(E)  Cannot be determined by the information given.

Historically, answer choice (E), with that exact wording, “cannot be determined…”, is usually a trap. If your initial response to the question is to throw your hands in the air exclaiming, “I don’t know!” answer choice (E) is most likely a trap.

(One important thing of note: the answer choice “(E) cannot be…” should not be mixed up with Quantitative Comparison answer choice (D).)

I’m guessing with this problem that may very well have been your response. If so, take another look at the problem and see if you can crack it. And don’t listen to that voice – oftentimes the seemingly insolvable is solvable. By giving up and choosing (E), you are falling for the GRE’s nefarious schemes. (In this case I’m the nefarious one, as I wrote the problem J.

Hopefully, you took a minute—so let’s take the problem apart. If you drew the problem out – as you should with any “driving problem” (it usually entails somebody driving due north, etc.), then you will notice that Michael’s path describes a triangle.

If you are still thinking the problem is unsolvable, remember that the GRE will hide important information in the middle of the sentence. In this case, the fact that x,y, and z are both integers is crucial. Remember the triangle – when north meets east a right angle is formed. If the shortest side is 5 miles, and all the sides are integers, there is only one triangle that fits the bill: the 5:12:13 triangle.

The question is asking for the number of miles Mike drove. Therefore, we have to add up the perimeter of a 5:12:13 triangle, which gives us 30. (D).

A Little Twist

Now that you’ve got the hang of it, let’s try the exact same problem. However, this time around I am going to change something. See if you can figure out what it is, and then see if you can answer the question correctly.

Michael drives x miles due north at arrives at Point A. He then heads due east for y miles. Finally, he drives z miles a straight line towards is starting point. If x, y, and z are integers, then how many miles did Michael drive if one of the legs was 5 miles?

(A)  5 miles

(B)  12 miles

(C)  25 miles

(D) 30 miles

(E)  Cannot be determined by the information given.

This time around we only know that one of the legs is 5 miles long. We do not know which of the legs. Do you know another right triangle in which one each side is an integer and one of the sides equals 5? Yep, it’s our good friend the 3:4:5 triangle.

With this twist to the problem we no longer can say whether Michael drove in a 5:12:13 triangle or a 3:4:5 triangle, so the answer is (E).

In all likelihood, GRE would probably choose the first iteration of this problem, hoping to trap you with (E). The GMAT – an even more difficult test quant-wise – would be more likely to consider using the second iteration. But if you are reading this you are most likely taking the GRE – so remember, be wary of (E) cannot be determined.

Here’s another set of video explanations (one math, one verbal) of practice problems found in ETS’s Paper-based Practice Test for the Revised GRE, a PDF released by the test-makers themselves.

You can find the whole set of explanations for every practice problem here. Enjoy!

Math: Section 5, Question #18 on page 78 that begins: “How many of the six corporate sectors listed each contributed more than $60 million…”

Verbal: Section 3, Question #18 on page 56: a Sentence Equivalence question that begins, “Even in this business, where ___________ is part of everyday life, a talent for lying…”

English is truly the global mutt of languages. Indeed, centuries of colonization and commerce has had the curious effect of both making English the global language and swelling the pages of English dictionaries with such loanwords as sauna and safari.

(Sauna comes by way of Finland; safari comes via African-rooted Arabic and, somewhat inexplicably, means ‘coast’).

While many words are derived from traded goods, a few have percolated up to the upper echelons of English – meaning you may well encounter them on the GRE.

Pariah

In India, a person who was not allowed to be part of a religious procession was deemed a pariah.  Today, pariah has a more general meaning and describes anybody who is an outcast.

The once eminent scientist, upon being inculpated for fudging his data, has become a pariah in the research community.

Kowtow

Nope, kowtow is not a giant truck for pulling bovines, but a word that comes from the imperial courts of China. When a person kowtowed to the emperor, or any eminent mandarin for that matter, he or she knelt and touched the ground with his or her forehead. Such a gesture was intended to show respect and submission.

Today, kowtow has a negative tinge and implies that a person is acting in a subservient or sycophantic manner.

He kowtowed to his boss on even the most trivial matters that the boss herself soon became nauseated by his sycophancy. 

Powwow

No, it’s not kowtow’s cousin – in fact, this word sprung from American soil, namely the Algonquin tribe of North America. A powwow was quite a hootenanny of a time and involved a big party of dancing and dining between tribes.

Strangely, today’s meaning is a lot more subdued, and far less fun. Any informal discussion or colloquy is regarded as a powwow. You and your co-worked can have a mid-afternoon powwow over coffee. A political leader can have a powwow with his cronies (I’m presuming they’d favor cigars over coffee).

Junta

Junta means to join and comes via Portugal and Spain. But this joining was in no way peaceful. Whenever a military group joined forces to usurp the existing regime, they would form a military junta. Today, junta can refer to the aggressive takeover by a group.

Imbroglio

It may sound like an exotic vegetable or a pungent pasta dish, but it’s neither. Imbroglio comes to us via mid-18^th century Italian and has nothing to do with the kitchen. Instead it is related to the verb ‘embroil’ and describes a confusing, and potentially embarrassing, situation.

That’s not saying you can’t have an imbroglio in the kitchen:

The chef cook-off featured one gourmand who had the unfortunate distinction of mixing the wrong broths, creating off-putting dishes on an imbroglio that viewers will not soon forget.

Here’s the answer to yesterday’s practice question, thanks for sending in your answers! Special kudos to madhan_2005 for writing up a great explanation in the comments as well

Directions: select exactly two words that best complete the sentence and produce sentences that are alike in meaning.

Exposure to sustained noise almost certainly impairs blood pressure regulation in human beings, but to the frustration of many patients, some researchers have obtained results that __________ the relationships.

1. conflate
2. diminish
3. muddy
4. neutralize
5. obscure
6. buttress

(C) muddy and (E) obscure are the credited responses.

The key words in this sentence are almost certainly, but, frustration, and results.

The two words that are alike in meaning here are (C) muddy (confuse or disturb) and (E) obscure (make indistinct or unclear).

These two selections match the frustration sounded by the patients mentioned in context. (B) diminish is a reasonable selection, but obscure and muddy refer to a confusion of the results, not a reduction.

Video Explanation

Here’s a student story submitted by one of our readers, Georgi. The Magoosh team is constantly harping on about “vocabulary in context“, and Georgi validates us– he warns against memorizing thousands of obscure words, since they won’t help you on exam day! If you’re also a non-native speaker of English, you may sympathize with his struggles with Text Completion.

For more write-ups like this one, check out our GRE Experiences page!

“Hello to all prospective GRE test takers and those interested in GRE experiences.

I had my GRE general test exactly a week ago and I am willing to sharing my experience in that matter.

First of all, I need to say that I am not a native English speaker as my language is quite different from that of either the Roman or Germanic family groups, to which the English is both a member, with some Greek traces too. I am from Estonia, but I am an ethnic Russian. One year ago I completed my Bachelor’s degree in the UK so the time spent there should have offset the fact that the language of instruction in my Primary and Secondary schools was in Russian only. These are the overall facts about me that I can provide.

As for the prep, I prepared for the New GRE around 3 months, with some gaps in between, so I cannot claim that I have been thoroughly systematic in my approach. Anyway, I used a diverse range of materials – the Barrons New Gre, Kaplan’ s New GRE, Grubber’s and ETS official guide. My advice to all prospective student is: take the Official Guide for sure if you are serious about your scores. Currently it is the best one there and no one comes close to it, though I have not checked Manhattan’s.

I studied and revised around 4000 GRE / SAT words, which was a mistake in my opinion because the New GRE is context centered and not that much vocabulary orientated. If you have a decent English background and have studied well in college or uni, then the worlds are in your ken (another GRE word). It is good that now my English vocabulary is quite impressive without boasting or being vainglorious, but it did take up a lare part of my time which I should have devoted more reasonably to practice instead. My advice – study not more than 1000 high frequency words if you are not stable in your vocab.

The reading part and text completion, however, are a different story. Even though I have studied for three years in an academic British setting, I was not prepared for the lingusitic charge that I was confronted with. Even my most bookish and pedantic professors did not expound in such labyrinthine, or should I say byzantine types of expression, as you can find in the test. You are expected to be a somewhat staunch Encyclopedia Britannica devotee, though even there the twist and turns in these texts are less serpentine than those on the GRE.

Text completion – you have to be a native speaker in order to score all of these questions correct, especially the diffucult level ones. Or perhaps you need to have studied English for the past 10 years of your life because otherwise your mind is not accustomed to the structural and linguistic subtleties found in the test. I suppose that if these questions were given to me in my language I would have found them medium in difficulty, but the English format is a challenge which I cannot claim to have conquered. The only way to do well in text completion is to practice and practice. Do at least a couple of hundred in the month prior to your exam and you should be fine . Know the tactics and think well, discern, look for patterns, this is the only key.

The sentence equivalence type is also very nice (the GRE secondary meaning of that word ) However, they are not as long as the text completions and are more doable since you are looking for equivalent senetences in meaning. You need to be careful with key words, direction words etc. For me, they were not that complex, though some of them are mind-boggling indeed.

And now the final and most challenging of the Verbal – Reading passages. In order to score well you have to be quick, perceptive, careful, methodical and cool – all definitions pertaining to a machine or automation rather than a human. I wonder if some of these texts were give to the test makers, whether their score would come to perfect. Native students are undoubtedly advantaged in that regard. Sorry internationals, but if you have not studied abroad, or if you have not had your education in English most of the time, then you have a low chance to score a top in the Verbal. Otherwise you have to be either really good or your preparation should have started long before.

In order to prepare for the verbal – allocate at least two months for good preparation. The ETS guide is a MUST, GRE Big book is also a good choice; Kaplan and GMAT books also serve well for that purpose.

The Math that ETS tests is elementary. This latin word has two basic meaning – primary or fundamental on the one hand and rudimentary, with some connotations of being or denoting an ‘easy’ approach, on the other. With respect to the GRE the former meaning is the more accurate, though the latter is also valid. If you have not studied math in the past 4 years of your life, then go and see your High school teacher if possible and take private lessons for a month or two depending on your math abilities and former knowledge. The questions are diverse ranging from algebra and arithmetic mostly to geometry occasionally and, of course Data interpretation and stats. Study all of them, you never know what will turn up on your test.

Finally, my exam: it was like all other exams. Nothing speacial or new that I was not aware of. The AW was easy for me since my academic background is a combination of Arts and Social Sciences, so rhetoric, logic and cogent essay writing are not Greek to me. The math part was decent, not that hard as expected, though I did not have time to finish all of the questions in time. The experimental section was in math and was not difficult too, at least I though so before seeing my preliminary scores.  The Verbal was harder than the math sections and partially I messed up the first vebal section. For the second one I did fairly better. The text completion were the hardest part, some of them were as obscure and imponderable as the Nazi secret code in WWII, though the British broke it in the end. The Reading was as expected – some of it was quite challenging and some quite easy. All in all – I should and could have done more than Q: 156 and V:157. I am not sure whether this score will be sufficient, and it is still preliminary so it may change. I guess that if I retake it, I would score in the mid 160s for the two of them, but so far these are only guesses.

This is all that I can say and share. Be brave, do not flinch, it is only an exam, though important for most of us. If I have to paraphrase a wise short saying, if not aphorism, of some boxers say — more sweat in training results in less blood in fight. In other words prepare well in order to be coming with flying colours (my British backgound does not allow me to ”Americanize’ this word to ‘color’ )

Good luck all, and be sanguine, you do not lose anyithing. Well, except one three digit number and a dollar sign attached to it ($190) from your bank account [for the testing fee and prep books].

Regards,

Georgi”

Each of the math questions below is directly inspired by a question in the on-line Revised GRE test. I’ve provided an easier version of the question (#1) and a more difficult version of the question (#2).

My recommendation is to try the easier version first. Then, if you answer it correctly, click on the link, and take a stab at the actual Revised GRE question.

If you are able to answer that question correctly, then as prize – you get a fiendishly difficult question (#3). Okay, maybe that’s not a prize – but it is great practice for those aiming for the 90% on quant.

The good news is I have explanations. For the Revised GRE question, I have recorded an explanation video you can watch. Finally, it is a good idea to try the easy question before the medium one, and the medium question before the difficult one.

Good luck!

1. Difficulty: Easy

If , where n is a non-negative integer, what is the greatest value of ?

1. ½
2. 1
3. 5
4. 32
5. 64

Explanation: Don’t think big – think small. That is the smaller n becomes the greater ½^n becomes. So what is the smallest value? You may be tempted to say 1, which would give us ½. But remember n = 0, because . Therefore [/pmath]½^0 = 1[/pmath] Answer: B.

The “hidden zero,” as I like to call it, is a classic GRE math trick. So always keep your eyes open, especially when you see “non-negative integer,” which includes zero.

2. Difficulty: Medium

Section 5, Question 12
http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/practice_book_GRE_pb_revised_general_test.pdf (you’ll have to scroll down a little to page 76).

Explanation:

3. Difficulty: Hard

The equation is true for how many unique integer values of n, where n is a prime number?

1. 7
2. 4
3. 2
4. 1
5. None of the above

This problem can be difficult, indeed downright inscrutable, unless you take your time and process one piece of information at a time. Once you understand what the problem is saying, you should be able to solve the question relatively quickly.

Explanation: 

The most important piece of info is n is a prime number. So do not start by plugging in zero or one. Neither is a prime. The lowest prime is 2. When we plug in ‘2’ we get:

This is clearly true. Thus we have one instance.

As soon as we plug in other prime numbers a pattern emerges.

is always a negative number if n is odd. Because all of the primes greater than 2 are odd, the number in the middle will always be negative:

Because in each case n is a positive number we can never have the middle of the dual inequality be positive, if n is an odd prime.

Thus the only instance in which the inequality holds true is if we plug in ‘2’, the answer is (D).

If you got that right – congratulate yourself. It’s a toughie.

A new guest post from our friends at Accepted.com, enjoy!

Okay, you’ve calmed down after your initial essay-writing anxiety, and you still don’t know where to begin.  How do you capture your whole life in the meager number of characters allotted?

Whether you’re feeling stuck or feeling overwhelmed by all the ideas bouncing around in your head, a stellar technique to start with is called Clustering, also known as Mind Mapping.  Clustering is a visual form of brainstorming that allows you to free associate around a chosen topic.  Although it can seem random on the surface, it usually reveals deep connections.  It’s perfect for excavating the personal experiences you’ll want to draw on to enliven your essay.

How to Make a Cluster, or Mind Map, for Your Personal Statement

Step 1:  10 seconds. Take a blank sheet of paper, write your name in the middle of it, and draw a circle around it.  Alternatively, you could use one of the many electronic mind mapping programs available online, some with free trials.  I personally like to do this exercise using a large drawing pad.

Step 2:   5 – 10 minutes.  Free associate from your name, writing down words as they come (include feelings, ideas, memories, experiences, accomplishments, sensations; anything goes).  Create a new branch or cluster for each new theme that emerges, using lines to connect the words.  Most people experience an “aha moment” after about 7 minutes.

Step 3:  5 minutes.  Review your cluster and write for 5 minutes to synthesize your findings.  What do you notice?  Any patterns?  Surprises?  What items are you passionate about?  You might want to go back and highlight areas you believe will be useful for your personal statement.

Total Time Invested:  10 – 20 minutes.  And it’s likely that you’ve uncovered a theme for your essay along with a wealth of supporting examples!

By Accepted.com, the premier admissions consultancy and essay editing company that has helped applicants around the world gain admissions to over 450+ top schools since 1994.

This blog post originally appeared on Accepted Admission Consulting blog.

The inequality sign is far more intimidating than it need be. In many cases, just think of the inequality sign as an equal sign. Which case that is will be described below – along with the instance in which you have to switch the sign. But with a little bit of practice, inequality should be the least of your worries on the GRE.

The Basics

x – 3 < 0

Note how the sign is tapered on the left side. The smaller side of the inequality corresponds to the smaller value. In this case, x – 3 is less than zero.

The first step is to change the inequality sign into an equal sign.

x – 3 = 0

Next solve: x = 3

Now place the inequality sign in the same place it was: x < 3.

See, that wasn’t too bad. Now let’s introduce a new sign: the less than equal sign.

2x + 3 >= 4

Again, replace sign with an equal sign and solve:

2x + 3 = 4

2x = 1

x = 1/2

x >= 1/2

To interpret this mathematically speaking, we need a number line. In this little video I will show you how the number line relates to inequalities.

The scary negative

But things aren’t always that straightforward. If the variable in an inequality is multiplied by a negative number (e.g. -2x), then we have to change the sign.

Let’s have a look:

-2x + 1 > 5.

Again repeat steps, but because we are dividing by a -2, at the very end we must flip the sign, so > becomes <.

-2x + 1 = 5

-2x = 4

x = -2

x< -2.

It’s always a good idea to test your answer. So let’s plug in a value less than -2, say -4, and see if it satisfies the original equation:

(-2)(-4) + 1 > 5

9 > 5.

Because 9 > 5, we clearly pointed the sign in the right direction.

If this was a little basic for you, I will have an advanced inequality post coming soon.

Takeaway

The inequalities you see on the GRE will be pretty basic. As long as you understand the above, you should be ready for the test.

This week’s question is Sentence Equivalence, so select exactly two words that best complete the sentence and produce sentences that are alike in meaning.

Good luck, we’ll be posting the answer tomorrow!

Exposure to sustained noise almost certainly impairs blood pressure regulation in human beings, but to the frustration of many patients, some researchers have obtained results that __________ the relationships.

1. conflate
2. diminish
3. muddy
4. neutralize
5. obscure
6. buttress

Update: Answer/explanation post!

Here’s another set of video explanations (one math, one verbal) of practice problems found in ETS’s Paper-based Practice Test for the Revised GRE, a PDF released by the test-makers themselves.

You can find the whole set of explanations for every practice problem here. Enjoy!

Math: Section 5, Question #17 on page 78 that begins: “The two corporate sectors that increased their
support for the arts from 1988 to 1991 made a total contribution in 1991 of approximately how many million dollars…”

Verbal: Section 3, Question #17 on page 56: a Sentence Equivalence question that begins, “Since becoming commissioner, Mr. Vincente has snapped at the heels of the dominant firms in European industry more…”