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Many of our non-native English speakers will find these tips useful. A mastery of euphemistical expressions can serve you well professionally. These subtle and politically correct phrases are often vague and subject to individual interpretation. They are most useful when you want to avoid being:

Direct

Negative

Obvious

Over-bearing

Here are some quick examples:

Inclusive
Meaning: With an objective view; without prejudice or bias.
Example: We should use inclusive language in our report so that it addresses to the needs of all parties.

Anomaly
Meaning: Something wrong; An unsatisfactory and unexpected inconsistency.
Example: He is usually very accurate. His last research article must be an anomaly!

Finesse
Meaning: To achieve an objective through less than honest means.
Example: Even though he is not very capable, he somehow finessed his way to top management.

Stretch The Truth

Meaning: To be dishonest
Example: When he bragged to his friends about his salary, he was stretching the truth. His actual income was much less than he said it was.

Take Something Under Advisement
Meaning: To consider something. (Often connotes that it will be ignored; used for more formal occasions.)
Example: I came up with some great ideas for the new ad campaign. My boss said she’d take my ideas under advisement. I guess she didn’t like them as much as I did.

Adjustment
Meaning: A reduction.
Example: The unexpected adjustment in my salary was announced by my boss this afternoon. I have to cut down on my expenses to make my ends meet each month.

Selective
Meaning: Dishonest
Example: He was quite selective in telling his boss the reasons the tasks didn’t get completed.

Bend the Rules
Meaning: Compromising set standards; To be flexible.
Example: The company’s vacation policy may seem strict, but our department has been known to bend the rules every now and then.

I Hear You
Meaning: I heard what you said but have a different opinion.
Example: I hear you, but I think that if we were to buy that stock we’d be taking a huge risk for little gain.

Strong Language
Meaning: Curses; swear words.
Example: We know our boss is serious when he starts to use strong language.

Careful With One’s Money
Meaning: Financial caution. Withholding financially.
Example: Our boss is very careful with his money. Sarah realized that she needed to be much more careful with her money.

Close With One’s Money
Meaning: Stingy; not generous with money.
Example: Don’t ask Chuck for a contribution to the bonus pool for all the assistants! He is so close with his money that it is not possible for him to chip in just a paltry $20.

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Today we would like to take a look at the benefits and limitations of a computer adaptive test. Not that we can persuade the GMAC to bring back the paper test; Rather, we would like you to be acutely aware of the upside and downside of taking such a test in order to best acclimate yourself to the test environment.

In general, a CAT greatly increases the flexibility of test management. The key benefits include:

• Tests can be taken year around at any registered centers.
• Unofficial Scores are available immediately, expediting the B-school application process.
• Tests are individually paced so that a test-taker can choose a more suitable time of the day to take the test and special requirements for the disabled can be better accommodated.
• More accurate scores can be provided by a CAT over a wide range of abilities than by a traditional test.

For test-centers

• Minimal training of test administrators is required.
• Test security is increased because hard copy test booklets are not distributed.

For test-makers

• Test question pools and scoring method can be updated centrally and distributed at once later. Cost can be decreased while quality and speed can be improved substantially.

Despite the above advantages, computer adaptive tests have numerous limitations, and they raise several technical and procedural issues. Here we just focus on the limitations for the GMAT.

• Test-takers need to perform equally well when reading a passage, question or graph on the computer screen as on the paper. The same applies to writing an essay.
• Test-takers need to maintain a relatively high level of comfortableness with taking a test on the computer, which means that they should not make simple mistakes such as not selecting the correct answer before continuing. Other examples include that test-takers are not usually permitted to go back and change answers, requiring them to do away with their long-time paper test-taking habits. And we all know “Old habits die hard”!
• With each examinee receiving a different set of questions, there can be perceived inequities.
• There is a limited pool of test questions with the most desirable characteristics of a CAT item. This means that test security in the long run will be affected as people may try to remember the harder questions and compare notes with others. This issue can be addressed by expanding the question pool. Otherwise, it will degrade the test quality, or a longer test would be needed.

Conclusion: Practice makes perfect! Prepare with more CATs. Read long articles on your computer screen. Take mock tests in a setting similar to your test center during the same time period of a day. Reduce your response time in the areas you are best at, for example, getting your Sentence Correction time down to less than 1 minute per question. That way you can save time for the question types that you are less confidence about and achieve an overall higher total score!

Related posts:

• The Ins and Outs of Your GMAT Score III – Computer-Adaptive Test Strategies
• Palm Vein Scanning (Part II)
• Your GMAT Score IV – Scores, Percentiles & Significance
• The Ins and Outs of Your GMAT Score II: Computer-Adaptive Testing
• The Ins and Outs of Your GMAT Score I

Whether you are writing an admissions essay or drafting a report for work, these helpful tips are sure to create polished works:

Simple, Direct, Precise, Alive, Concise, Coherent, Convincing! Those are your targets.

1. Reduce Sentence Length to establish strong, clear meaning.
2. Order Words for Emphasis.
   • Put strong words at the beginning and at the end of a sentence.
   • Space out key words. Do NOT repeat a distinctive word unless you intend a specific effect.
   • Put odd and interesting things next to each other. Help the reader learn from contrast.
   • Do not be afraid of using small words. Big words are not always the best or most useful for getting your points across to the reader.
3. Avoid Needless Words or Stuffy Language.
   • No excess prepositional phrases
   • Use words in replace of phrases
   • No redundancy; minimize repetition
   • Watch for unnecessary adverbs such as very, really, quickly
   • No vague qualifiers, e.g. some, kind; avoid “it is”, “whether or not”…
4. Use Strong Verbs. Use passive verbs to highlight the receiver of an action.
5. Emphasize Results, Concrete Figures. Use concrete and specific details that appeal to the senses.
6. Establish Impressive Overall Style.
   • Form a pattern in your writing, but then give it a wrist to add variety.
   • Vary sentence length to set a compelling pace for the reader.

Summary:

• Convey clear, complete thoughts.
  • Do not couch too many ideas in one sentence.
• Choose every word carefully.
  • Make sure they are precise and most appropriate for the context.
• Minimize redundancy. Strive for effectiveness.

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Scores, Percentiles and Their Significance

On the traditional test, all questions were worth equal points. On the GMAT CAT each question is assigned points based on the level of difficulty. There are three factors that determine your final score. The first two factors have the most bearing on your score.

1. The number of questions you answered correctly.
2. The difficulty level of each question you answered correctly.
3. The range of cognitive abilities tested by the questions answered correctly.

We discussed the third factor in our previous edition. In effect, this is measuring how well rounded you are in all areas. An individual who scores well in only a few areas will have a lower score than another individual who scored well in all areas. The way that your performance in the various tested topics is quantified is by standard deviation. The deviation between different areas is calculated and the more you deviate [i.e. higher standard deviation] between each section, the lower your GMAT score. This third factor doesn’t have as much weight on the final score as the number and difficulty of questions.

The initial (raw) score from the GMAT CAT is the ability level that corresponds to the response pattern on the administered questions. The two raw scores are combined (not the scaled scores) to form a total scaled score from 200-800. The raw score is also transformed to the Quantitative or Verbal scaled scores. For Verbal and Quantitative sections the scaled score ranges from 0 to 60.

In your score report you are also given a percentile score. This percentile means that you scored better than that percent of the testers. Percentile rankings are based on the entire GMAT test-taking population during the three most recent years. So if you got a score in the 85th percentile that means that you did better than 85% of all the people who took the test in the past three years. While GMAT scores are only a part of your overall application, a high percentile rank demonstrates that you are better than most people in the Verbal and/or Quantitative areas.

For Verbal, you will be in the 99th percentile if your scaled score is at or above 46. In comparison, it is much more competitive in Quantitative. The 99th percentile requires a scaled score of 51. This means fewer people score on Verbal than Quantitative. So make sure you don’t drag your total score down because of a mediocre performance on Verbal.

There is a degree of error with the GMAT as with all standardized tests. The standard error of difference for the total GMAT score is about 41, according to Graduate Management Admissions Council. This means that the difference between the total GMAT scores actually received by two test takers could be within 41 points above or below the difference between the test takers’ scores of true ability. The standard error of difference for the Verbal scaled score is 3.9, and for the Quantitative scaled score 4.3. Research also indicates that a test-taker will most likely earn a Total score within about 30 points of a score of true ability. Your Verbal and Quantitative scaled scores are probably within about 2.9 points of your true scores.

GMAT scores are a relatively reliable predictor of academic performance in the first year of a business school program. Studies have shown that the median correlation between GMAT scores and first-year grades was 0.41 (perfect correlation is 1.0). Comparing 0.41 to the median correlation of 0.28 between undergraduate grade point average and first-year grades, you can conclude that business schools do have a strong incentive to see good GMAT scores from applicants. Because there is a degree of error, we all should exercise caution in comparing two scores. That is why other parts of your business school application are also as crucial to your admission.

Related posts:

• The Ins and Outs of Your GMAT Score III – Computer-Adaptive Test Strategies
• The Ins and Outs of Your GMAT Score II: Computer-Adaptive Testing
• The Ins and Outs of Your GMAT Score I
• Pros and Cons of Computer Adaptative Test
• Younger MBA Applicants (II)

Computer-Adaptive Test Taking Strategies

Unlike the old paper-and-pencil administered GMAT of the past, the GMAT CAT is better adapted to measure your ability with fewer questions. On the old paper-and-pencil GMAT you would answer 61 questions of varying difficulty in each section. So an average test taker would breeze through the easy questions, get most of the difficult questions wrong, and get some of the medium difficulty questions right and some wrong. With the CAT, you answer only 41 questions for the Verbal section and 37 for the Quantitative section that are tailored to match your level of ability. So the average test taker is no longer wasting time answering the easy questions that he will most likely get right, nor the really difficult questions that he will most likely get wrong.

You are given a question of moderate difficulty at the beginning of the test and first question in each question type. If you answer this question correctly, then the difficulty level increases. If you answer incorrectly, the difficulty level decreases and this up-down system continues through the duration of the exam. The jump to a higher difficulty or the drop to a lower difficulty level decreases as you move through the test.

The first few questions you answer will either move you to a significantly more difficult or easy level; however, the last few questions you answer will only slightly increase or decrease in difficulty. Please also bear in mind that there is a penalty for not finishing a section. The details have not been released by the GMAC or Pearson. But for each unfinished section, the penalty is about 4x the point for an incorrectly answered question. If you run out of time, then just randomly answer the last questions, at least you have 20% of the chance of getting it right for each question. If these questions are part of the trial un-scored questions, most likely the impact on your score is not that great. (Roughly 37 out of 41 verbal questions are scored, 33 out of 37 math questions are scored. So about 4 in each section are unscored.) We need to caution you against guessing in the early stage of the test. Since your chances of guessing correctly are only 20% for each question, an incorrect choice moves you down to a less difficulty level very quickly in the beginning of the test. After a few randomly guessed wrong choices, the test assumes an appropriate level for you and it will be very hard for you to regain your momentum later as the CAT algorithm will not give you very difficult questions for you later to pile up some last minute points.

In sum, at the beginning, in as few as four questions you can move up to the highest possible level by responding correctly to all four questions, or down to the lowest possible level by responding incorrectly to all of them. This system was developed to better “zero in” on your real skill level. Think of it as adjusting a lens. You first adjust the macro-focus to ensure you are in the right range of focus, and then you adjust the micro-focus to fine tune to reach the optimal focal point. The GMAT CAT uses a complex algorithm, which we explain before, to focus in on your real skill level.

Therefore, please take particular care with the first few questions of each question type in both Verbal and Quantitative sections. Sometimes, it might be well into around the 10th question before you see a new verbal type question. Whenever you see that first question of a new type, slow down and do your best without unnecessarily spending too much time on it. Otherwise, you will have to rush through later questions. It is essentially a balancing act in which you need to pace yourself from the beginning to the end in order to maximize your score.

Related posts:

• Pros and Cons of Computer Adaptative Test
• Your GMAT Score IV – Scores, Percentiles & Significance
• The Ins and Outs of Your GMAT Score II: Computer-Adaptive Testing
• The Ins and Outs of Your GMAT Score I
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