Students who want to attend business school will be facing an even more challenging GMAT starting next month. The Graduate Management Admissions Test is getting a makeover, which includes the addition of a new section that will evaluate students’ integrated reasoning.

The GMAT was first used in February 1954 at nine business schools in the USA, including Columbia, Harvard, Northwestern, and the University of Pennsylvania. It has undergone several revisions since then, including the additions of a quantitative reasoning section and a reading comprehension section. This newest addition to the exam will test how well students can predict future outcomes based on given data.

“We did a survey of more than 740 faculty from schools all over the world,” Ashok Sarathy, the vice president of Graduate Management Admission Council, told The New York Times. “As a result, we developed a set of questions aimed at testing the ability to synthesize information from multiple sources in order to solve complex problems. They also wanted candidates to be able to indicate what information was relevant, and not relevant, and toe able to evaluate which among a set of possible outcomes were the most likely.” Read the rest of this entry »

Natalie Alvarez spent roughly $2,000 preparing for the GMAT. The Graduate Management Admission Test is a standardized test used to admit students into business graduate school. Alvarez took the GMAT in 2009 and wasn’t happy with her score, so she received tutoring– rather pricy tutoring.

“I had found that I have forgotten almost all of the material I learned [as an undergraduate],” said the graduate student at Concordia University in Irvine. “It wasn’t just that I was two years removed from school, but five years removed from relevant math classes I took my freshman year. I am a firm believer that had I taken the GMAT while still in school, with material fresh in my mind, my scores would have been better.”

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One of Harary's Osama T shirt designs

A New York University business student thought he could make a killing from Osama Bin Laden‘s death; no pun intended. When Maurice Harary, 23, heard of Bin Laden’s death, he immediately designed a line of t-shirts celebrating his passing  and sold them on his website called Osamadeadtees.com.

Harary has sold over 25,000 shirts and has made over $300,oo0, but he’s giving that fast cash back. His get-rich-quick plan has not only brought him loads of money, but an enormous amount of guilt as well.

“I will now be refunding all orders on Osama dead tees,” he said. “Celebrating over the death of someone, whoever it is, is evil in my eyes.”

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