Chigga Chigga...Slim Shady...

So tonight is going to be a fun night to type about... lots going on tonight.  First the title of this post is Chigga Chigga...Slim shady because that's what popped into my head when I was studying.  All throughout my previous GMAT prep, I would continuously hear about IDIOMS and how much trouble they were giving people.  For anyone that has forgotten...Idiom - an expression that does not make literal sense.  To native American speakers, these phrases make sense... but the GMAT is an exam taken globally and is in English... so imagine you learn the literal meanings of everything and then you see:

Hold your horses; I'll be ready in a minute!
That comment was below the belt and you should apologize.
The toddler screamed at the top of her lungs.
The news of their engagement came out of left field.

These generate a lot of confusion to non-native English speakers... so the reason for the Title came from the illustration that followed the above examples.  Our language has all kinds of quirks.  Slim and Fat are opposites, but slim chance and fat chance mean the same thing.

So that's the lesson for tonight...MORE IMPORTANTLY.. I went to a GMAT preview event and after that I picked up my MGMAT (Manhattan GMAT...for anyone coming in late) books.  It wasn't very informative because that was the 3rd one that I've attended.  Yeah, I know I did my due diligence...it was more out of boredom though.  In anycase... tonight I heard the stupidest questions asked about the GMAT.

Now I'm not saying that I knew anything about the GMAT prior to deciding to go to B-School.  BUT, I did research as much as possible online, before showing my face in public asking a bunch of dumb questions... So here are some of the questions that were asked, and why they were dumb (in my eyes).

- The GMAT is computer adaptive.  So if you answer a question correctly... the next question becomes harder.  If you answer a question incorrectly, the next question becomes easier.  With that being said.. the question a girl asked was... "So can you skip a question and come back to it?"  ... now let's think about this people... if the computer needs to know if you got the current question correct, before it gives you the next one.. how in the world can you SKIP it?  I shoulda told her if you wanna Skip It you better go back to the 80's and buy yourself one, and SKIP IT outside on the sidewalk!

hhmm what was another dumb question that I heard?

- Oh... this wasn't so much a question but these two guys kept asking about trying to cheat.  Ok so for you guys who don't know... when you walk into the testing center, you're not allowed anything but your ID. You get your picture taken....finger printed... and get your hand scanned.  These fools were asking all of these "what ifs.."  I'm sitting there thinking to myself "What if I hit you over the head with this pencil?"

- Also... not many people know this but 25% of the questions on the test are experimental... so think back to that adaptive nature of the test... you could be getting a bunch of hard questions and then all of a sudden a really really easy one...  so now you have to think... either those hard questions were really easy ones that i was getting wrong, which made me end up with this easy one... or this may be experimental... granted you cant think of the test like that...

the reason they do this is to test out new questions for the test, on real test takers - makes sense right?  So this girl asked "Can you skip the experimental ones?" - what is up with people asking if you can skip questions... NO NO NO... ok then another person asked .... "do you at least know which ones are experimental?" - again... NO... the test doesn't tell you anything... nothing... nada... zilch...

- I saved the best for last!  ... so at the end of the 2 hour session... he's taking questions...  this guy behind me asked if you know how you answered the previous question, as you're going through the test.  You can imagine my face when i heard this.  So I'm thinking, does he really think that if you answer the first question right it tells you "CONGRATULATIONS YOU GOT IT RIGHT".... and it turns out he meant something to that effect...

Disclaimer - now I know that I didn't know anything about the GMAT at one point in time... but maybe I just don't understand how some people can aspire to go to a top b-school without having done their homework on the exam needed to get them there.  All of those questions could have been answered simply by Wiki-ing (yes I made it a verb by adding *ing*, if it was used as a noun then it wouldn't be called a verb but a Gerund)

So that's my rant for tonight... until next time folks

Notecard Count = 71 (yesterday's was 66... so I added 5 from tonight which is a 7.5% notecard increase)