For Business School Applicants the GMAT is a critical test designed to test your accumulated knowledge learned during your undergraduate years as well as your aptitude to comprehend verbal and quantitative data quickly and thoroughly. GMAT scores figure highly into the Admission Board’s decision-making process. Studying and taking the GMAT can seem like a daunting task, fortunately there are a variety of gmat prep programs and tips available for those students who want to improve their chances of a good GMAT score and acceptance into a great Business School. One of the most head-scratching sections on the test is the Data Sufficiency portion.

Studying for the Data Sufficiency portion of the GMAT can seem like an impossible task. These questions ask you to determine if you can answer the question with the information given rather than answer the question itself. There are a few tips to learn in order to master the logic behind the question in order to apply them generally across all data sufficiency problems. There are five answer choices to memorize in order to answer a data sufficiency problem.

A question will present two statements with either complimentary or contradictory statements, it is your job to figure out if you have enough information to answer the question given. A great tip to eliminate half of the answers is to follow this pattern.

A) Find out if statement 1 or statement 2 are sufficient without any other information. 
B) Find out if both statements together are sufficient, but neither can stand on its own.
C) Each statement is sufficient on its own.
D) Neither statement is sufficient on its own.

Once you have this pattern down you can easily eliminate half of the questions. Of course you will want to practice this pattern over and over. You can buy gmat prep course books or take classes offered year round.