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Hi bryand,

Here is some advice you can follow to improve your quant and RC skills. I’ll start with quant.

To improve your quant skills, you need to ensure that you are following a linear and structured study plan. For example, you are learning about Number Properties. First, you should develop as much conceptual knowledge about Number Properties as possible. In other words, your goal will be to completely understand properties of factorials, perfect squares, quadratic patterns, LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, and remainders, to name a few concepts. After carefully reviewing the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions, practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties. When you do dozens of questions of the same type one after the other, you learn just what it takes to get questions of that type correct consistently. If you aren't getting close to 90 percent of questions of a certain type correct, go back and seek to better understand how that type of question works, and then do more questions of that type until you get to around at least 90 percent accuracy in your training. If you get 100 percent of some sets correct, even better. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you do such practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant skills.

To improve in Reading Comprehension, you need to focus on understanding what you are reading. When you are incorrectly answering Reading Comprehension questions, it’s partly because you do not truly understand what you have just read, right? Thus, you likely have to slow down in order to (eventually) speed up. At this point, your best bet is to focus on getting the correct answers to questions, taking as much time as you need to see key details and understand the logic of what you are reading. You have to learn to comprehend what you read, keep it all straight, and use what you are reading to arrive at correct answers. If you don't understand something, go back and read it one sentence at a time, even one word at a time, not moving on until you understand what you have just read. There is no way around this work. Your goal should be to take all the time you need to understand exactly what is being said and arrive at the correct answer. If you can learn to get answers taking your time, you can learn to speed up. Answering questions is like any task: The more times you do it carefully and successfully, the faster you become at doing it carefully and successfully.

Another component of understanding what you are reading is being “present” when reading. Don’t worry about how things are going at work, or what you will eat for dinner, or even how long you are taking to read through the passage. Just focus on what is in front of you, word by word, line by line. Furthermore, try to make reading fun. For example, even if you are reading about a topic that bores you, pretend that you are the person making the argument. By doing so, you will make the passage more relatable to YOU, and ultimately you should be able to read with greater focus.

One final component of Reading Comprehension that may be tripping you up is that RC questions contain one or more trap answers that seem to answer the question but don't really. So, a key part of training to correctly answer RC questions is learning to notice the differences between trap answers and correct answers. You have to learn to see how trap answers seem to follow from what the passages say, but don't really, while correct answers fit what the passages say exactly.

Regarding resources, take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the best quant and verbal courses.

Also, you may find it helpful to read this article about [url=(https://blog.targettestprep.com/how-to- ... 0-on-gmat/]how to score a 700+ on the GMAT[/url].

If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out.

Good luck!

Hey thanks for this quick tip. The only question I have about RC is that all RCs are different at times i get all 6q correct but sometimes none in a short passage. Even if I build a pattern based on old RCs I still get confused in some. If I slow down I don't understand passage. If I read too fast I miss imp points. I am yet to find a balance.

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Hi gmatway,

Your original post (here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/need-help-no ... l#p2182370) was last December. Since that was over 7 months ago, it would help to know howe you have been studying since then. If you update that post-thread, then I'll be happy to offer you advice on RC (and any other areas that you might still need to work on).

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

I have finished OG 19 and doing previous years questions. I have done approx 50 RC or more. I am 90% comfortable with RC which means my reading time is good I finish para with 90% understanding under 3 mnts and able to answer 4 questions easily. I have observed there is a particular pattern of questions which I fail to get right. Which is tone of passage, specific word related questions. I want to make sure I get all questions right everytime.

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