Train A travels at a constant speed of 15 mph and train B travels at a constant speed of 10 mph. The two trains leave at the same time and travel on parallel tracks in the same direction toward TeachStreet City. If train B gets a 10 minute head start on train A, how long will it take Train A to catch up with train B?

If I haven’t scared you away with this horrific flashback to high school math, great, keep reading. The train problem is an example of the kind of question you’d find on the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT). What is the GMAT? In short, it is one of the three pieces in the MBA program application puzzle. It is also very much like the SAT. Really, it is the SAT on steroids. It covers the same basic concepts, but the test makers of the GMAT (GMAC) try harder to trick you than the makers of the SAT.

The GMAT asks questions about simple concepts in tricky formats (data sufficiency, say no more), then, it tries to bait test takers with trap answers. One silver lining here is that both questions and trap answers are often presented in predictable ways. The study of these patterns is a big part of what test prep schools such as Kaplan, Princeton Review, and Manhattan teach in their programs.

Another thing to know about the GMAT is that it is computer adaptive. So the better you do, the harder the problems get. Similarly, the worse you do, the easier the problems get. The Test tries to zero in on the difficulty level you can handle. For this reason, feeling like you are struggling on the GMAT may actually be a good thing.

What’s on the test?

1) Essay

• 1st Essay: 30 min essay: Can you form an opinion about somebody else’s argument?
• 2nd Essay: 30 min essay: Can you create your own argument and defend it?

2) Math

Geometry and sets (remember venn diagrams?) are on the test, but the big ticket items on the math section that make up over 80% of the test are

• algebra
• proportions
• number properties.

3) Verbal

• Correcting sentences (39%): Idioms, grammar, not so much punctuation. Read Elements of Style by Strunk and White.
• Reading Comp (34%) : Academic passages. Think The Economist, The Scientific American, The Harvard Business Review.
• Thinking Critically (27%): Identify arguments, then, pick the answer that either strengthens or weakens them.

Why an MBA?
Simple. No matter what you do, you’ll probably make more money doing it with an MBA. In 2006 graduates from all of the top 20 schools had average first year salaries over six figures (US News).

1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. Univ. of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
4. MIT (Sloan)
5. Northwestern (Kellogg)
6. Univ. of Chicago
7. Dartmouth (Tuck)
8. UC-Berkeley (Haas)
9. Columbia
10. NYU (Stern)

Anyway, that is a quick and dirty intro to the GMAT. For those of you brave souls who actually took a stab at the Train Problem, here is the answer. It’s a fairly straightforward rate problem. Remember the formula Rate = Distance (Time)? Anyway, here’s one way to solve the problem.

1) Equalize time by adding time to train B (the one with the head start)

2) Set distances equal, so you can solve algebraically for time.
Speed Train A (Time) = Speed Train B (Time + 1/6)
15 (T) = 10 (T + 1/6)
T = 1/3 hrs or 20 min