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Gmat Quantitative Section: Test Takers` Tips

Advice on how to get the top score in the Quantitative section of the GMAT

Date : 15/01/2018

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Terry

Uploaded by : Terry
Uploaded on : 15/01/2018
Subject : Management

The Quantitative section of the GMAT. For better or worse, this is usually the section that is given the most attention to by tutors, and the part where a lot of candidates spend the majority of their time revising for (even if it s not the most important aspect of the exam in getting a perfect score as you can see here).

The Quantitative section is composed of 37 Mathematics problems to be solved in 75 minutes, that require GCSE / 10th-grade Mathematics knowledge - high-school stuff - to complete. Yet, the material here appears time and time again post-graduation in online psychometric tests for companies including the investment banks, management consultancies and large corporations that most post-MBA students apply to, like with the Verbal section of the exam.

It s important to be confident in solving these types of questions.

The Quantitative area of the test evaluates your problem-solving abilities - that is, your ability to break down a potentially complex problem into manageable steps which you ve seen before and solve it systematically. As such, the essential part of this test is a solid foundation in high-school Mathematics. Should you be coming into the exam with anything less than a comfortable mathematical background from A-level study or a quantitative degree, you may benefit from lessons in core Mathematics, which is taught for at a reduced rate compared to standard GMAT tuition fees.

However, moving on and assuming you are comfortable with this area, the test becomes about how you apply this knowledge to the three different areas that test your Quantitative competency: Straight Math questions, Word Problems, and Data Sufficiency. We ll look at them in order of easiest to most difficult, in case you re in the situation where time is short and you re looking to get some easy points in the exam.

Assuming a good background in this material, solving these questions with the 2 minutes time limit per question involves a good strategy. As such, the first thing to discuss is two contingency plans that you should be aware of, in case you come across a question that s too difficult to solve in a direct manner. These strategies can be used for any of the three sections:

Substituting in Numbers

For questions that require you to substitute in an answer to test if it s the correct one, substituting in answers is usually quicker and requires less calculation than obtaining the answer outright.

Picking Numbers

For questions that talk about sets of numbers (talking about odd numbers, even numbers, only negative numbers, etc.), picking example numbers that follow the rules defined in the question and that are easy to perform calculations with can help you to visualize the question better and help you to solve it more quickly.

Word Problems

These are the problems that strike fear into the hearts of teenagers and GMAT test takers alike (and doubly so for the small collection of teenagers doing the GMAT). TV shows and books always portray challenging riddles as Word Problems, so they can be daunting at first glance.

However, there s a reason why I put this category first: you have one thing that the TV-show protagonist doesn t have.

Scrap paper.

That one mighty weapon that you can use to write down your working and turn these mind-bending riddles into the easiest points in the Quant section. Once you get over the initial learning curve by adopting these tricks and the adaptive phase from practicing dozens of questions and internalizing the process, you ll learn to love this section.

The sections you ll encounter here are:

Fractions, ratios and proportions

Rates

Geometry

Curveball

Before we go into each in turn, I ll drop one small little cheat: the answer is more likely not be A than it is to be, according to Kaplan. Therefore, if you re substituting in answers, start with (E) then work backwards to (A). Easy.

But, going back to the sections:

Fractions, ratios, and proportions

The secret to these is the tree diagram. You know, that condescendingly simple diagram that looks like something a 6-year-old draws to help them solve life s greatest trivialities. Except, arbitrary fractions, ratios and proportions questions are trivial. So you re going to need to channel your inner 6-year-old.

Seriously though, I discounted tree diagrams for a long time, preferring to work things out in my head or through equations. It wasn t until working on postgraduate courses in my Maths degree that it clicked - it s so simple because it helps you to avoid wasting time on calculating the simple stuff so you can focus on the more demanding stuff (in my case, stochastic processes, which chewed me up and spat me out). In the GMAT exam, this saves you stress and saves you time. If a diagram can help you to visualize and simplify the problem, then it s your lifeline when questions start to get harder and the clock`s ticking.

Rates

The first thing to remember is that rates are related to ratios, and are always in the form of:

Rate = (Units of A) / (Units of B)

A common example is the speed/distance/time rate, that is:

Speed = Distance / Time

To help to simplify and visualize the problem you could consider writing out the Rate equation, even if it seems obvious, then plugging in values. This is usually the best way to solve these questions.

Another set of questions that are found more frequently in harder bin problems, and can be a bit of a headache, is the mixture set of problems, for example:

We have 5 gallons of 90 percent ethanol. How much water do we add to get the mixture to 40% ethanol, or something we can drink that won t singe our taste-buds?

These problems always require you to manage percents and know the formula:

Part = Percent x Whole

These kinds of questions can sometimes be solved quickest by substituting in the middle answer, then using trial and improvement to get the correct answer by either going higher or lower.

Geometry

The biggest part of solving geometry-based word questions, similar to geometry-based straight math questions, is to draw out helpful diagrams, and if necessary, create sub-diagrams that can allow you to dissect the shape and find the answer. Writing out relevant formulae onto the page next to the diagram could also help you to pick the correct equations to use for the situation.

Curveball

These are the questions that trigger many a test-taker s fight-or-flight response, which as you can guess in the confines of a closed-off room in a 3 and a half hour exam, is less than ideal. Curveball questions examine the core part of problem-solving: breaking down an unfamiliar problem into familiar steps and solving through it. There won t be a single question in the GMAT exam that won t be based on fundamentals that you already know (assuming you re confident with the Maths material).

Similar to pretty much every other word problem, it s about drawing useful diagrams and writing down useful equations, to help you to visualise the problem and creatively think of a solution.

The problem`s talking about angles between the hour and minute hands on a clock? Draw a clock. The question involves finding out which bin a certain member X fits in according to remaining spaces? Use this bin template to help visualise the problem:

Bin 1: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Bin 2: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Bin 3: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Bin questions are quite a commonly recurring curveball question, so mastering the process for solving these types of questions will stand you in good stead.

Straight Math

Straight math problems are nice and direct: "Here s a mathematical question that requires pretty much no words, go and calculate something." These questions are split into four sections:

Number Properties

Roots & Exponents

Algebra

Geometry.

Again, when solving these questions, they should be straight-forward enough if you have a good foundation in high-school Mathematics - speed and accuracy then comes from practice and keeping an up-to-date error log. When practicing, be sure to keep in mind the following strategies to get the most out of your questions:

Rewrite answer choices in forms that are easier to work with

Rewrite the answer to match the form used in the answer choices

In Geometry questions, redraw the diagram for your working, and recognize that lengths and regions need to be measured as parts of larger lengths and areas with already known measurements

Data Sufficiency

This is the part of the Quant test that, over time, you ll either love or you ll hate. They re split into Straight Math problems and Word Problems, similar to the two problem-solving sections above.

The questions are all formatted in the same way: A question is followed by two statements that each contains data. You then have the following choices:

A. Statement (1) BY ITSELF is sufficient to answer the question, but statement (2) by itself is not.

B. Statement (2) BY ITSELF is sufficient to answer the question, but statement (1) by itself is not.

C. Statements (1) and (2) TAKEN TOGETHER are sufficient to answer the question, even though NEITHER statement BY ITSELF is sufficient.

D. EITHER statement BY ITSELF is sufficient to answer the question.

E. Statements (1) and (2) TAKEN TOGETHER are NOT sufficient to answer the question, requiring more data pertaining to the problem.

You can immediately shave a few seconds off your answer time by memorizing these answer keys. Past that, answering these questions successfully requires you to:

Fully understand the question asked and what information you immediately recognize you need to solve the question

Test each statement, in turn, to see if you can get the desired answer

Test both statements together to see if you can get the desired answer

Decide on your answer.

Obviously, if you re confident that the answer is either A or B, skip step 3 and move onto your next question.

Organising which statements function by way of a roadmap can help you to avoid incorrectly second-guessing or missing out on past calculations. A common format to use is:

Sufficient/Insufficient& Reason

Sufficient/Insufficient& Reason

From this working, you can then choose the answer that corresponds to what you ve written, with the numbers 1. and 2. corresponding to statements (1) and (2).

Other than road-mapping your working, you can also employ these strategies to help you with these questions:

Rephrase the questions and answers into a format that s easier to perform the calculation with. This could take the form of reducing an equation to its simplest terms before testing answers, or similar.

Create sketches, tables or diagrams to help you to visualize all of the data that they re asking you to work within the question. This can really break down what information is needed by the question.

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This resource was uploaded by: Terry