Who vs. Whom

Both of them should be "whom".

This is the man to whom I wanted to speak...

Marvin wondered to whom he should give the message...

We use "whom" when we're referring to the object of the sentence.

We use "who" when we're referring to the subject.

There's a very simple test you can use to figure out which version to use:

Turn the statement into a question and answer it with a pronoun.

For example:

Quote:

This is the man to whom I wanted to speak.

To whom did I want to speak? I wanted to speak to HIM.

Quote:

I really hate the guy who stole my girlfriend.

Who stole my girlfriend? HE did.

If you answer the question with him/her/them, then "whom" is the right choice.

If you answer the question with he/she/they, then "who" is the right choice.


--
As explained by Kaplan instructor Stuart on BTG.

A Side Note to my Last Post

Some other reasons why you might want to buy BTG questions:
1. The cost: $99
The cost till 15th November: $49!
2. BTG is giving away 3 iPads! All Free and Premium users of Practice Questions who sign up by 15th November will be eligible to win.
So even if you are not sure of buying the product, atleast sign up for the free questions and you might just win an iPad!
3. 30-Day Money Back Guarantee. Seriously, it doesn't get any better than this. :)

Happy Gmatting!

Yes You Can! With the *new* BTG questions.

Want to practice only SC questions today? Have time to do only 10? Yes you can!
Have you mastered the fundamentals of Probability and want to target today's practice session only on 700+ level questions on the topic? Yes you can!
After a review of your error log, do you realize that you really need to work on those Weaken type Verbal questions? Across CR and RC? Yes you can!
Do you always get Integer Properties questions wrong only on the DS section? Have all day to work on it and want an (almost) unlimited supply of questions to be thrown at you till you crack it? Yes you can!
Tired of going through consecutive questions in the Official Guide which are at the same difficulty level? Want a practice session where the questions thrown at you are in an adaptive format? Yes you can!
Have you run out of CAT tests and want to create one of your own? Yes you can!

BTG has managed to create an (almost) perfect product. If you've run out of OG questions, and even CAT tests, this product's for you. [This is an improved product from BTG which is to be released today, November 2nd. It can be found here].

Totally customizable
Every practice quiz you take is totally customizable to your preferences. You can choose which section you want to target (Math or Verbal), which type of question to target (CR, RC, SC, PS, DS) and even the topic of the questions (Idioms, Weaken, Arithmetic...)!
You know what else I love? You can choose the number of questions you want to answer!
Have time only for 10 questions today? Your boss suddenly interrupts you during the 5th question with urgent work? No problem! You can choose to end the practice session there and see your results.
And this part, my fellow readers, is what I call an absolutely brilliant feature - the difficulty level. You have a choice of below 400 questions only, all the way upto 700+ level questions. And, that's not even the most brilliant part. Have you heard of..wait for it...adaptive questions on every quiz?! This one made me super happy!
A timer on the right hand side tells you how much time you've spent on the question during the quiz.

Create a New Test

You can choose to answer 37 Math questions, in an adaptive format. Once you've ended your session, head back to the "Practice" tab and create a session for 41 Verbal questions (adaptive mode). A brand new test has been created! :) You can also randomly pick any topics for the 2 essays from the OG, and you're all set to give a full 4 hour exam at home!

A breakdown of questions on each section

Math -
I found the difficulty level of questions pretty reasonable, not extremely easy and not so difficult that you'd never be able to crack it in 2 minutes (under 3 minutes for the really difficult ones).
Verbal -
Pretty much the same as for Math...

The Video Explanations
A friend of mine wanted to practice some SC questions and wanted me to help him out with understanding where he was going wrong. So I called him over to practice from my Reviewer's account of BTG questions. Once he was done with the questions, I realized I didn't have to say a word to explain his mistakes to him! The video explanations did all the talking! They even taught us a few things we didn't know, such as idioms that I wouldn't have caught if I was trying to explain it to him myself.
The Math explanations are clear, and I didn't find myself requiring any further explanation once the video was over.

Review
The review section is pretty much the same as you'd find in any other similar product. But there are two parts that stand out for me:
First is the colour of the amount of time you've taken to answer the question. The colour is different according to whether you've outpaced others who answered the question, or were slower than them.
The second is the flagging the questions feature. In case you want to review the question again (irrespective of whether you got it right or wrong), you can flag it. What's the point of flagging it, you ask? *sly grin*

Prepare yourself for...

Super-Customization

I was feeling pretty content and happy after having customized my practice session down to the topic of questions I wanted to answer. But before I clicked on the "Start the Session" button, I saw blue text that said "Show more options". More options?
Here they are:
- include questions that I have already answered (after going through 700 questions, are you really going to remember them all?)
- use only flagged questions (yup, include the questions you got right but should still do again)
- only use questions I got wrong (for obvious reasons)
And yes, you can select all 3 at the same time also.

Definitely worth it if you've run out of questions to practice from, or want to customize your practice sessions exactly according to your needs (especially if you want to do this!). I had hoped such a product would come out for OG12 questions (and it's Verbal & Math supplements) so that I could practice questions from those books in an adaptive customizable style. I hope this great effort from BTG gets a similar product out for Official questions soon! :) Till then, enjoy the power and remember, with BTG questions, YES YOU CAN!

PS. BTG is giving me a couple of subscriptions to this new product to give away. While I'm giving some to my friends who're also giving the GMAT soon, I might have 2 accounts left over to give away. So I'll do that on a first come first serve basis. HOWEVER, I will also snoop around and try ensuring that you don't already have an account that's been given away (I have my sources! :p). Once I'm satisfied that you do need one, I'll send you access to it! :)

Disturbed.

RC accuracy remains intact with 6/6 answers right.

PS - need to review Number Properties (esp Remainders).

DS - accuracy fell massively - 4/10 wrong.

CR - got 2/10 wrong.

Overall, getting better. Feel better. But, need to review old concepts. AND not be disturbed while doing my questions!!!

Also, got access to BTG account as a winner of BTG 100k Challenge! :)

Will also write a review on new & improved BTG premium questions by end of this week!

Stay tuned fellow gmatters!

Calculating Combinations in Your Head

Calculating Combinations in Your Head

I had totally forgotten this! My Math tutor had taught us this in school. Thank you BTG for reminding me! :-) Very useful shortcut!!! You will NOT regret going through this video.

Collective nouns

An excellent video tutorial on collective nouns by a Knewton guy on BTG.



I will definitely need to look at it a couple of times to get those damn rules literally inscribed on my brain.

A link to links & a big fat THANK YOU!

I've been updating my Important Links post periodically, and I didn't mention the changes because I assumed that if anyone wanted to know what was new, they'd just go to the post and find out (I change the font of new stuff to bold & italic so that it's easier to spot). However, I must make a special mention of my Important Links post today, mainly because I believe the two new links I've added might be truly awesome, so awesome that they should have an additional post about them.
1. GMATClub has launched a new GMAT Math Book Open Project, which I think is a fantastic idea. Currently, you can find DETAILED chapters on Triangles, Polygons, Probability & Combinatorics. Other topics in the book are links to Sequences & Series, Word Problems, etc. OMG!!! :-)
Edit: I've just begun going through the Triangles chapter in this, and it's unbelievable! Don't need to try looking for any another source of Math theory!!! Seriously.
2. GMATClub has also added the Question of the Day feature!
Wow, I think they should probably pay me for "advertising" this! Haha...Anyway, what I really like about sites like GMATClub is that they seem to truly want to help out students, the part about all these great *free* features being the key! That's why I like BeatTheGmat too. Just the number of helpful GMAT & MBA related articles they post daily!!! And then there's MGMAT. Although most of their stuff is paid (they're basically paid classroom tutors!), they don't behave like maniacs trying to put a price on every single piece of advice, question, or solution they provide. Go check out their forums and MBA Resources pages if you don't believe me.
I guess a big fat THANK YOU is in order for these sites and the people who contribute to them!!! :-)

PS. I should atleast get paid for the amount of effort it took to provide relevant links in this post! ;-)

An Important Sequence & a CR link

Here's a type of Sequences question I wasn't aware of, till now.

Repeating Patterns

Many times, repeating patterns will yield a remainder question.

The first term of a sequence is  -2 and the second term is 2. Each subsequent odd term is found by adding 2 to the previous term, and each subsequent even terms is found by multiplying the previous term by -1. What is the sum of the first 669 terms?

Clearly, we are not looking to enter all 669 terms and see what the last one is. But, we can do a few and check out the pattern.
n = 1, = -2
n = 2, = 2
n = 3, = 4
n = 4, = -4
n = 5, = -2
n = 6, = 2
Since we can see that the pattern will repeat every 4 terms, we can solve for the remainder after dividing 669/4. Since 4 goes into 668 evenly, we know that the value will be equivalent to that of the first term, which = -2.

-------------------------------------------------
Also discovered a whole host of useful GMAT CR articles on BTG. Read the first two (in chronological order) and found them pretty useful. Even assumptions are of two types: sufficient and necessary! And the question type (by a subtle change in wording) can change the answer! Damn. Those 2 are definite re-read material.

Day 21 - 25

Day 21
Did questions from PR Math Bin 4 that I got wrong, and then later reviewed the stuff I didn't get with a Math whiz of a friend. :-)

Day 22
Went through BTG's Math FC's and kept aside the ones that require review.


Day 23
So, to improve on my not so great CR accuracy on GMATPrep1, I went back to PR CR section and tried reading it again. Didn't work. Got bored. So I picked up Verbal Bin 1 and solved all CR questions in it. I got all right, obviously. Cos it was Verbal Bin 1. Anyway...

Day 24
This Friday i.e. 27th December, 2009. Went through a couple of questions on GMATHacks. Thus, the barrage of new CPs on the blog.

Day 25
Did a few more questions from the same source.

I know...I'm not doing enough. But I am now.

Update/ Day 12 & 13

Firstly, I've updated the Important Links post with more useful sites and comments on the ones I've gone through.

I was supposed to be done with PR Math Bin 4 and making an error log by now. Done neither.

What I have done is:
(Day 12) 1. a few questions from PR Math Bin 4
(Day 13) 2. a few questions posted on a really cool BeatTheGmat thread: Problem Solving for 780+ aspirants. I realised there may be lots of geometry theorems and properties that I don't remember from last year CAT study (there were quite a few). So then i was confused about which resource to use as a comprehensive GMAT specific geometry review. Can't find one. People say use MGMAT's Geometry book, but not sure if it'll be worth Rs.1200. I guess I might have to do with knowing some extra geometry formulas. Will be looking up last year CAT notes.
3. a few questions and some theory (mainly probability and P&C) from PlatinumGMAT - it was definitely of some help.

But man, I'm really confused about what level of questions are asked at 700+ and 750+ levels. I don't mind going through my CAT Math books...but won't that be too much?!

I guess this mindset of wanting to know all the theory first - completely and thoroughly is taking me nowhere. And why I haven't done anything substantial for the last 1 week - I've been out every single night and coming back home really late. And I have to go out for dinner tonight AGAIN! Argh...and no, I can't escape it. Family dinner.

Things I should finish before Sunday morning (in the following order):
1. MGMAT Notes (mainly - Geo) (23rd Oct - TODAY! Edit: This should not take too much time, so I shouldn't worry about completing this before I go out for dinner tonight. Also go through GMATPrep's "comprehensive math review", esp the Geometry part!!! And add all the additional info to FCs)
2. PR CR theory (24th Oct morning)
3. Make error log
4. Put up questions (with solutions) that I've done (haphazardly) from BeatTheGmat, MGMAT, etc (FIGURE OUT WHERE U DID QUESTIONS FROM!!!) on this blog - make it my resource of all the questions I didn't know how to do (or make a notebook with all such "challenge questions")
5. Revise RC notes from PR

Sunday Morning : GMAT Prep (NEED to give this)