READ BEFORE YOU POST: General Verbal folder guidelines

[StaceyKoprince]

In addition to regular forum rules and information, this sticky contains rules specific to the General Verbal Questions folder; read this information even if you have already read stickies in other folders.

This folder is for GENERAL VERBAL questions that do not fit into one of the other specific verbal categories. ManhattanGMAT Verbal Strategy Guides, ManhattanGMAT CAT Verbal, and GMATPrep Verbal all have their own folders; please post any questions from those sources in the appropriate folder.

Before you post, please search! Your problem may already have been posted by someone else, in which case you can read the instructor's response right now instead of waiting. :)

It is ILLEGAL to reproduce / post questions that you (or someone) saw on the test when you took an official GMAT. Any offending posts will be deleted immediately from our forums. We also strongly recommend that you don't post official questions on any other forum; if you are caught, the people who make the test can ban you from taking it forever AND cancel any scores you already have (and there go your b-school hopes).

The following sources are also BANNED; do not post questions from these sources:
- Scoretop (shut down by GMAC for posting "live" test questions)
- "GMAT Sets" (uses copyrighted material from GMAC without permission)
- "Gmatter Software" (uses copyrighted material from GMAC without permission)
- OG and paper-based official GMAT tests (copyrighted material currently sold by GMAC)
- GMAT Focus (copyrighted material currently sold by GMAC)
- 1000SC (uses copyrighted material without permission; also many questions are of poor quality or contain typos that materially alter the problem)
- Platinum GMAT (poor quality)
- "Brutal SCs" (poor quality)
- GMAT Pill (poor quality)
- Aristotle Prep (poor quality)
- PowerScore (copyright request from PowerScore legal department)
- Jamboree (poor quality and/or infringement of GMAC copyright)
- Knewton (poor quality and/or infringement of GMAC copyright)


Please note that other major companies (Kaplan, The Princeton Review, Veritas) host their own forums - you should ask them about their own material. :)

Multiple-Choice Question Posting protocol
Please follow the below rules; if you don't, your question will not be answered.

1) Use the first five to eight words of the problem as your Subject heading. Also, post the entire text of the question and answer choices, as well as the letter of the correct answer. Do not use abbreviations.

2) Cite the source (author or company name) and question number (if applicable) for any problem you post.

3) Be very explicit about your question / problem. Don't just post the text of a question without telling us why you're struggling!

4) Post one problem per thread; if you have more than one problem to review, start a new thread for each problem.

5) Only use image files for complicated diagrams or other things that cannot easily be typed in (eg, geometric shapes or seriously complex fractions). If a question is posted as an image, it will not appear in any search results for that particular problem. Also, it takes significantly longer for us to download and view image files - the more we have to do that, the fewer problems we can get through.

6) Please be polite and respectful. Inflammatory, profane, or otherwise unacceptable posts will be deleted and the poster banned.

Other Notes

We instructors will strive to respond to posts within 5 business days, but we can't always guarantee this during high-volume times. We will do our best though! If you are currently a student in one of our classes, use your office hours and/or your instructor for any pressing questions.

If one user posts 5 or more questions in a short period, it may take longer for that user to get a response to all questions because we will try to allocate our time evenly over all posters (to ensure that one person doesn't get a monopoly on instructor time).

We may respond to some very open-ended questions with a request to narrow the topic. For example, "How do I get better at Reading Comp?" is too broad to be answered in a forum (we spend hours on this in class!).

Happy studying!

[StaceyKoprince]

Please note that Platinum GMAT has been added to the list of banned sources. Multiple teachers have indicated that problems from this source are of poor quality.

[ssy241]

Stacey,

Thank you for the outline of the rules.
Can you please provide feedback as to why Veritas Verbal questions are 'poor quality.'

I have been using some of the Veritas CR and SC correction materials for extra practice--as I feel that they include more challenging problems than the OG 12 guidebook.

Specifically, in reference to SC, I dont want to refer to 'poor quality' materials. Please advice.

Thanks,
Shyam

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi, Shyam

I'm inclined to remove that label now. When something gets added to the list as poor quality, it's because people post a bunch of questions from that source, we go through them, and we find ourselves saying way too often, "This question isn't GMAT-like; don't study it."

That entry for Veritas, though, is now 6 years old and the company has really grown up in that time - it's a much bigger and better funded company now. I'll change the reference.

Thanks for pointing this out to me!

[StaceyKoprince]

Please note that PowerScore has been added to the list of banned sources. PowerScore's legal department asked us not to allow their questions to be posted on our forums.

[MohitS94]

Hi Stacey

I have encountered a problem in one of the GMATPrep paid exam packs that I would like to discuss, but obviously cannot in this forum since that source is banned. So, I have created a new question which has a similar structure to the problem question but otherwise looks nothing like the question from GMATPrep. I have also kept just two options so that it deals only with the concept that I would like clarified.

Am I allowed to post this new question in the forum?

Thanks
Mohit

[RonPurewal]

if you're going to do that, you need to create something that (a) is SUBSTANTIALLY different from the given example, but (b) manages to maintain every aspect of the original meaning that's relevant to the outcome of the original problem.

this is a difficult balance to manage, but you can always try.

also, this is the "sticky" thread. please don't post these sorts of questions here; just go ahead and post normal threads on the forum.

thanks.

[fionaw752]

Hi Stacey,

thank you for your warm reminding. I have a question that is it possible that I just cite the number of the question in OG but do not post it out right here? Because I have a question about the explaination in OG and my sources are not available to explain my question. So could you please is it available in General Verbal part?
Thank you very much!

[tim]

You can post all the problem numbers you want, but we're not allowed to discuss solutions to copyrighted problems.