Land Your Score: Quantitative Reasoning Problems, Part 1

Try this Quantitative Reasoning question.

How can you improve your problem solving skills?

Welcome to “Land Your Score,” a blog series in which Kaplan instructor Jennifer Land shares key insights and strategies for improving your GMAT performance on Test Day. This week, Jennifer discusses how to solve Critical Reasoning problems using the Kaplan Method.

Quantitative Reasoning problems

Today I’m going to help you land your target GMAT score by explaining how to tackle a Quantitative Reasoning question. First, let’s get familiar with the Kaplan Method for problem solving:

Step 1) Analyze the question. The question and the answer choices give you information. Collect this information to answer the question, “What do I know?”

Step 2) State the task. In addition to providing information, the question gives you a task. The task answers the question, “What do I need to know?”

Step 3) Approach strategically. Here’s where the rubber meets the road. At this point, YOU answer the question, “How will I find what I need?” Answer that question, and then find it!

Step 4) Confirm your answer. Lastly, before you submit your answer, always confirm. Be sure you answered the right question and that your answer makes sense.

Now, I’ll take you through the first three steps of the Kaplan Method to solve the following Quantitative Reasoning question:

If x and y are both odd prime numbers and x < y, how many distinct positive integer factors does 2xy have?

Let’s take the steps one at a time.

What do I know?

With any problem solving question, Step 1 is always to identify what the problem tells you. This Quantitative Reasoning question gives us a lot of information:

x and y are odd numbers
x and y prime numbers
x is less than y
The answer choices are integers, arranged in ascending order

What do I need to know?

The question always presents us with a task, and Step 2 of the Kaplan Method is to identify that task. Here our task is to determine the number of positive integer factors of 2xy using the information gathered in Step 1.

How will I find what I need?

In Step 3, we get to decide how to use what we know to find what we need. We have three possible problem solving approaches at our fingertips: choose a strategy, do the math, or guess strategically. (A Kaplan-trained test-taker never guesses randomly. All guesses must be made strategically if you want to optimize your GMAT score.)

GMAT Quantitative Reasoning questions usually involve multiple steps to solve, and we can use the three strategic approaches in any combination. The most efficient way to solve a problem may be to use a bit of math paired with a strategy; other questions require you to use what you’ve learned in Step 1 to eliminate wrong answers and guess strategically. This question is definitely a strong candidate for using a strategy.

When the answer choices are integers, back-solving is a possible strategy; if Step 1 had yielded an equation, we could plug the answer choices back into that equation to solve. For this question, an even simpler strategic solution will work: picking numbers.

In my next post I will show you how to solve this problem efficiently by picking numbers. We will also go over common pitfalls and GMAT score hazards that you can avoid by consistently using Step 4 of the Kaplan Method. Check back next week for the exciting conclusion!

Want to master the Kaplan Method to earning a higher Quantitative Reasoning GMAT score? Visit Kaptest.com/gmat to explore our course options.

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