Only a minority of students reach proficiency. One in four first-year students in the best programs eventually reach the third-year level, says center director R. Kirk Belnap. In weaker programs, he says, the dropout rate is even higher.

To meet the demand, schools that already offer Arabic are expanding old programs, creating new ones and scrambling, sometimes in vain, to find qualified teachers. Purdue relies on six grad students to teach its courses. Vermont’s Middlebury College recruits from Syria and Egypt to staff its summer language program. Yet even with extra efforts, various constraints are making it a challenge for schools to keep up.

“More students have begun to realize they have to study it for a number of years to be really proficient,” says William Mayers, coordinator of the Arabic Language School at Middlebury College’s Sunderland Language Center.

“We get enough good applicants from the really high-caliber schools — and these are straight-A students — and a lot of them we’re turning down because of limited space.”

The numbers help show how interest in Arabic keeps growing. Enrollment in Arabic courses nationwide jumped from 5,500 to 10,600, a 92% increase, from 1998 to 2002, according to the most recent data from the Modern Language Association. Only American Sign Language boosted enrollments by a larger percentage in that time period. Since 2002, enrollments have climbed again by an estimated 15% to 25%, the Middle East language center says.

To keep pace, some institutions are beefing up what they offer on an advanced level. The Center for Advanced Proficiency in Arabic, the nation’s first intensive program offered for a full academic year, opens this fall at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Middlebury College is expanding its summer program by about 10% this year and is planning to start offering third-year Arabic during the academic year as soon as this fall.

Yet with fewer than 10% of U.S. colleges offering any Arabic courses, some fear that higher-learning institutions on the whole aren’t doing enough to adjust.

“Demand is there, but they’re not offering (courses) because of budgetary constraints or whatever,” Belnap says. “These are very curious things in a time when your country is clamoring for more foreign-language expertise.”

Jefferson Prep’s expert Arabic instructors are perfectly suited to provide personally-tailored Arabic services at every academic level. 

The computer-adaptive test (CAT) version of the GMAT is designed to get a more accurate assessment of your skills while asking you fewer questions than its paper-based predecessor did. Here is how it works: the first question you see in any given section will be of average difficulty. If you get the answer right, your next question will be slightly more difficult. If you get the answer wrong, your next question will be slightly easier. The software will also ask you different types of questions in a rather unpredictable order, as determined by its algorithm, rather than clustering question types as the written GMAT did.

You can not skip a question or go back to an earlier question. Unlike the paper version, once you click the ‘answer confirm’ box, your answer can not be changed.

The types of exam questions asked and their common fallacies

Examples and explanations of these can be found in the pages describing the individual component sections of the GMAT posted on this website. We strongly encourage our clients to spend time learning these question types before brushing up on their verbal and math skills.

How to manage your time wisely

Practice

The main way to develop GMAT time management skills is to practice taking the test. You will repeatedly see us return to the theme of practice throughout this website.  It is very hard to overstate its importance. Therefore you are strongly encouraged to take at least a few mock GMAT exams, in the computer-adaptive format and to try to simulate the actual testing environment. (That means refraining from taking food breaks, engaging in telephone conversations, etc. until you have completed a section.)

Spend adequate time on the first 5 questions

Earlier, we discussed how the GMAT CAT’s underlying algorithm determines the difficulty of questions you are asked, based on your performance in answering previous questions. Difficult questions are weighted more heavily in scoring than easier questions. The first couple questions in any GMAT CAT section are used to determine the range of questions that the program ‘thinks’ you are able to handle. After you have answered these first few questions, the testing software will give you questions to fine tune your score within that rather narrowly predetermined range. Thus, your answers to the first 5 questions will make a HUGE difference in your final section score.

It is imperative that you answer these pivotal questions with extra care. Always double check your answers to these questions. Verify that the answer choices that you judged to be incorrect are indeed incorrect. If you are unsure of the answer to one of these first questions, at the very least, take a very good educated guess using process of elimination.

Prepare yourself to finish the test – at all costs!

There is a huge scoring penalty for failing to finish any section of the GMAT. For example, say you’re in line to get a score that will put you in the 70 percentile of test takers, based on your test performance so far – but then run out of time and fail to answer the last five questions in the section. That failure will lower your score to about the 55 percentile. The lesson to take away from this is to prepare yourself to finish the test at all costs. Answering a question incorrectly will hurt you, but not as much as leaving the question unanswered will. Train yourself to work your best within the time limits of the exam. But train yourself, too, to be able to recognize when only a minute or so remains on the clock, and at that point to just answer “C” (or whatever your lucky letter is) for any remaining questions. As the GMAT’s Chief Psychometrician put it to us, random guessing is like shooting yourself in the foot – but leaving answers blank is like shooting yourself in both feet.

Don’t waste time

This advice probably sounds self evident. However, we mention it because we’ve had clients tell us how they inadvertently wasted test time by revisiting the help screen or requesting extra scrap paper after they began their test. These activities, if undertaken once the section has begun, will take time away from working on the questions.

Read the Questions Carefully

As silly as this advice may seem, it’s worth remembering. An undisciplined test taker will feel the stress of the clock during the timed sections and will try to cut corners to save time, wherever and whenever possible. As a result, he or she often misinterprets questions. GMAT test writers are well aware of this dynamic, and happy to capitalize on it. We guarantee that you will encounter questions on the GMAT that include incorrect answer choices that were deliberately designed to exploit likely misinterpretations of what the question is really asking.

Avoid Random Guessing

The GMAT CAT does not allow you to skip questions and come back to them later, as you can on a written test. You must answer each question on the GMAT CAT before it will allow you to move on to the next question. Consequently, even if you don’t know the answer to a particular question, you have to answer it. It is always in your best interest to take an educated guess rather than resorting to random guessing – even if you are running out of time on the section. Usually you will be able to identify at least one answer choice that is clearly wrong. Eliminating even one incorrect choice will improve your odds of answering the question correctly.

Eliminate the Deliberately Deceptive Wrong Choices

With practice, you will begin to learn how to recognize answer choices that are deliberately deceptive – and wrong. There are a few common patterns here that will become apparent as you proceed with your test preparation.

One recognizable pattern is commonly found in the Problem Solving section. It involves an erroneous answer choice giving a value that would result from following a common computational error. You can avoid these deceptive choices by using scrap paper, checking your answers and using estimation to at least judge the general range of the correct choice.

Practice, Practice, Practice

As we stated at the top of this page, there are a number of tips and techniques to taking the GMAT that will significantly raise your overall score. This is a test that you can prepare for, despite anything the test-makers state. We strongly encourage you to use actual questions from previous exams as you practice, as we have noticed a material difference in the nature and quality of test questions prepared by ETS versus those written by GMAT prep companies. We also strongly encourage you to practice taking the exam in its computer-adaptive format.

Finally, we encourage you to spend most of your preparation time studying and practicing questions in your weakest subject area. While we believe every test taker benefits by reviewing each GMAT exam section, focusing on your weakest areas will make the most efficient use of your test-prep time.

For more information, please email info@jeffersonprep.com, or call 1.888.533.3773

You can miss quite a few questions and still get a very high score on the LSAT. Resist the temptation to stick with a “tough” question until you’re sure your response is correct. Stubborn, perfectionist tendencies will only defeat you on the LSAT! All questions — difficult ones and easy ones alike — are worth one point each. Let someone else spend an inordinate amount of time on a tough question, while you move on and make sure to answer all the easier ones.

LSAT questions are not designed to trick you in any way. The testing service takes every precaution to ensure that all questions are clear and unambiguous and that there is one best response to every question. As long as you believe your thinking is fairly clear as you read and consider a question, do not second guess your own judgment as to which response is the correct one. You’ll only waste valuable time by over-analyzing a question.

LSAT questions are not designed to trick you in any way. The testing service takes every precaution to ensure that all questions are clear and unambiguous and that there is one best response to every question. As long as you believe your thinking is fairly clear as you read and consider a question, do not second guess your own judgment as to which response is the correct one. You’ll only waste valuable time by over-analyzing a question.

An increasing number of students are taking the ACT, and the majority of schools in the United States now accept both exams.

This increased acceptance of the ACT gives today’s savvy students a strategic advantage. The SAT and ACT are significantly different tests, and in many ways, they measure different skills. So depending on your particular strengths and weaknesses, you may perform much better on one test than the other. As a result, many students embarking on the admissions process are now considering both the SAT and ACT–to figure out which test provides a better showcase for their abilities.

Admissions officers and educators often describe the difference between SAT and ACT in these terms:

the ACT is a content-based test, whereas the SAT tests critical thinking and problem solving.

This perception is one reason many educators (off the record) express a preference for the ACT–because they believe that the ACT is closer to testing the “core curriculum” taught in most school classrooms. In fact, this contrast isn’t exactly watertight. Many questions on the ACT test critical thinking, and there is a predictable range of material that’s tested on the SAT. But the SAT and ACT reward different attributes, so performing well on each test can boil down to what kind of test taker you are.

Here are some of the factors that make the SAT and ACT very different:

• The ACT includes a science reasoning test; the SAT does not.
• The ACT math section includes trigonometry.
• The SAT tests vocabulary much more than the ACT.
• The SAT is not entirely multiple choice.
• The SAT has a guessing penalty; the ACT does not.
• The ACT tests English grammar; the SAT does not.

Remember, both the SAT and ACT are important parts of your application, but they’re only one of several factors–from your courses and grades to recommendations and your personal statement–that colleges consider.

Differences:

There are two major college entrance examinations administered in the United States today: the SAT and the ACT. Standardized tests like the SAT and ACT are designed to allow college admissions officers to judge all students by a common measurement. Scores on these tests can compensate for differences in high school curriculum, grade inflation, and quality of teaching. In addition, they serve as a reliable predictor of how you will perform academically in your freshman year of college.

SNAPSHOT: SAT

The SAT is the most widely taken college entrance examination. It is designed to test your skill level in math, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. The test is divided into seven sections: 3 math, 3 verbal, and 1 experimental section. The math and verbal sections each have their own distinct question types, including quantitative comparisons, sentence completions, grid-ins, and more. The experimental section, used by the test developer to try out new questions, is not scored and can be either math or verbal. You will not know which section is experimental.

The SAT is scored on scale of 200-800 for both the math and verbal sections. The College Board sets the average for all test takers at 500 for each. A perfect score on the SAT is 1600. However, in recent years, fewer than 20% of all test takers achieve a math score of 600 or better. Fewer than 10% score higher than 600 on the verbal section.

SNAPSHOT: ACT

The American College Testing Assessment (ACT) is designed to test your skill levels in English, math, reading, and science reasoning. On the test, you will have 2 hours and 55 minutes to complete a variety of multiple choice questions divided into four sections � one for each tested subject area. The English, reading, and science sections each include several reading passages with anywhere from 5 to 15 questions per passage. The math section includes 60 questions � each with 5 possible answer choices.

You will actually receive 12 separate scores on the ACT: 1 composite, 4 subject scores, and 7 subscores. However the composite � or scaled � score is the most important. It ranges from 1-36. Nearly half of all test takers fall in the 17-23 range.

SAT vs ACT

Until recently, the ACT was required by colleges in the Midwest, while the SAT was the test of choice for schools in the Northeast and on both coasts. Now, however, most schools accept both. This increased acceptance of both exams gives students a strategic advantage. The ACT is a content-based test, whereas the SAT tests critical thinking and problem solving skills. Depending on your particular strengths and weaknesses, you may perform significantly better on one test than the other. Regardless, you should check with each of your target schools before taking either exam.

Here are the 2010 LSAT dates:

• Monday, June 7, 2010
• Saturday, October 9, 2010
• Saturday, December 11, 2010

Jefferson Prep offers quality LSAT Prep for prospective law-school students. We have expert instructors with years of experience who can help you improve your score.

Contact us today to learn more about LSAT tutoring and how we can help you.

Here are today’s tips:

1. Make educated guesses. The math Grid-in questions have no wrong-answer penalties and on the other sections if you can eliminate one answer choice it pays to guess.
2. The most important thing is to relax, stay calm. Take a deep breath. You must be confident and positive.

Read our blog for all of the SAT tips we’ve compiled over the last week. And don’t forget to check out our SAT page to learn about the personally-tailored SAT prep we can offer you.

1. Try circling the answers on the booklet, and the transferring every 5 answers to the answer sheet. Also circle the number of the questions you want to go back and look at. This will save you some time. As time starts to run out, transfer every answer immediately.
2. Know where you are on the SAT test. As we all know the questions go from easiest to hardest, so the obvious answers early in a set are more likely right then near the end of a section.

Check back every day so you don’t miss any of the Jefferson Prep SAT Tips. Check out our SAT Page to learn more about how Jefferson Prep can offer personally-tailored instruction for your SAT Prep. We have expert instructors across the country including New York, Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C.

1. Get to the SAT test early. Make sure you know where it is before the day of the test.
2. Remember all the questions are worth the same. If you don’t understand a question or it seems like it will take a long time to do, just skip it and go to the next one. If at the end you have more time you can go back and work on the ones you skipped.

Jefferson Prep offers personally-tailored SAT instruction. We have expert-instructors across the country, including New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Washington D.C.

Learn more about the quality SAT prep Jefferson Prep can offer you. Contact Us for your free consultation. Check back tomorrow for more SAT Tips.

Today’s tips:

1. Commit to the SAT test. Tell your self its fun. Have a positive outlook.
2. Have some caffeine in the morning. Not to much you don’t want to get jittery.

Jefferson Prep can help you prepare for the SAT with personally-tailored SAT prep. Our expert-instructors are devoted to teaching and helping students do their best.

Learn more about how Jefferson Prep can help you with your SAT prep.

Here are today’s tips:

1. You do not know if it is going to be hot or cold so make sure you have a sweater or light coat if it gets cold and can roll up your sleeves if it is hot.
2. Try to go to bathroom before you leave.

Jefferson Prep offers personally-tailored SAT instruction. We have expert-instructors across the country, including New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Washington D.C.

Learn more about the quality SAT prep Jefferson Prep can offer you. Contact Us for your free consultation. Check back tomorrow for more SAT Tips.