Good Mark's Study Guides Blog

Expanding to Europe

2008-08-03T15:49:00.000-07:00

So far, the Good Mark's Study Guides have been available for sale through the Good Mark's Study Guides website, through campus bookshops in Southeast Asia (primarily in Singapore), and through the INSEAD campus store in Fontainebleau, called Foot Note.

Now, it is time to introduce the study guides to Europe, starting with the United Kingdom. Since the Good Mark's Study Guides are a new product in the UK, the plan is to approach a number of campus bookstore chains and to offer them a trial of the Good Mark's Study Guides in some or all of their stores.

Once the trial has been successfully completed (and I have no doubt of that, given the success of the guides in Singapore and in the Foot Note store), the search will start for a suitable distributor and for sales representatives so that I can supply all the campus stores and academic bookshops in the UK.

Wish me luck...

Updated website launched

2008-07-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

Today we launched the updated website for the Good Mark's Study Guides. The key changes are:

Addition of the 4 new titles
Launch of the first practice quizzes
Launch of the online study guides

The online study guides are an especially exciting new development. With the online study guides, you can view the full content of a study guide online for 12 months and you can print out the study guide as many times as you like!

In this digital age, people demand instant access and that is exactly what the online study guides are about; no more waiting for a product to be shipped to your home and no more paying for shipping and packaging costs. Buy now and start using your purchase immediately!

You can find out more here about the online study guides

Enjoy your studies and we look forward to getting your feedback!

Online study guides; a new concept

2008-06-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

Together with Aleph Labs, the developers of the Good Mark's Study Guides website, I have been working on creating online versions of the Good Mark's Study Guides. This means you can buy a study guide through the website, view the content online anywhere you have access to the Internet, and you can print out a study guide from the Good Mark's Study Guides website. You have access for 12 months and can print the guide as many times as you like.

I believe this has many advantages; there is no need to ship the guide around the world, which costs time and money. If your guide gets damaged or lost, you simply print out a new study guide. When you print out the study guide, you can add your own comments on the back of the printed page and you can punch holes and add the study guide to your binder.

What is not so easy though is selling the online guides; the published study guides are available through brick-and-mortar bookstores, online bookstores, and other websites. However, it is not possible to sell the online study guides through any of those channels, which means I have to find another way to spread the word online (without spending a fortune on banners and sponsored search results) and to make students aware of this new type of study guide.

The online study guides will launch in the next couple of weeks and I would be very interested in your feedback! Watch this space...

New titles are ready

2008-06-11T09:31:00.000-07:00

The 4 new titles (Biology 1, Biology 2, Physics, and Strategy & Marketing) have been printed and will hit the shops in the next couple of weeks. This is a great day for us as we grow from 6 titles to 10 titles, with more new titles on the way!

We are working with a professor at the University of St Andrews on a Mathematics for Economics, Finance, and Business title, as well as on a Statistics & Probability title.

We are also working with a professor in the Chemistry Department at the National University of Singapore (NUS) on a Chemistry title and with a professor in the Mathematics Department on a Linear Algebra title.

And many more new titles to come!

What are the Good Mark's Study Guides?

2008-06-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

The idea for the Good Mark's Study Guides started when I was revising for my GMAT exams. I was looking for an overview of all the formulas and rules I needed for the exam. I could not find such an overview and hence decided to create one myself. The GMAT Quantitative guide was the first Good Mark's Study Guide.

The study guides are study aids; they are not textbooks and do not replace classroom lessons. What the guides give you is a clear overview of the material. The guides can help you grasp the big picture and can help you prepare for exams in the best way possible.

The study guides are also very useful as reference guides for when you take on more advanced courses and as refresher tools for many years after graduation.

I recently read an interesting book, called The Art of What Works. In this book, the author William Duggan talks about expert intuition, which is defined as "recognition-based decision making"; you recognise that a current situation has similarities to one or more past situations and you apply what worked in the past situation(s) to the current situation. He then argues that "the greater your expertise, the more situations you see as familiar". He later builds on this last point as follows:

"The more you learn, the deeper and faster your intuition will be, and the shorter your path to success."

I thought this was a great way to summarise the spirit of education. You study what has worked in the past and you use that knowledge to build the future. And success is of course not just monetary success; it can be success in any area (academics, business, the military etc.).

The Good Mark's Study Guides embody this point; the guides summarise the core knowledge in a given field and you, the student, acquire this knowledge, make it your own, and use it to develop a successful career.

Welcome!

2008-06-01T08:48:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first posting of the Good Mark's Study Guides blog!

The Good Mark Study Guides are summaries of university and college courses. Each guide summarises the key theories, formulas, and models covered in introductory courses.

The first 6 titles in the Good Mark's Study Guides series were launched in September 2007 and we are about to launch the next 4 titles.

The first 6 titles were Finance, Financial Accounting, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Business Statistics, and GMAT Quantitative. The next 4 titles will be Physics, Biology 1, Biology 2, and Strategy & Marketing.

This is our website: Good Mark's Study Guides

In this weblog, we will keep you posted on all the developments as we introduce new study guides and develop new study aids.