GMAT Focus Quant Not Improving - Engineering Undergrad

Question

Hello,

I cannot seem to improve on my quant score on the GMAT FE despite hours of studying, recently graduating with an engineering degree (lots of math), and improving vastly on Verbal and DI.

Practice exams - While my Verbal and DI percentiles hover right around 90th, my quant percentile is stuck around 52nd. The combination of these results in an OK score of ~625, my target score is 645+. The way I see it is the only way I get there is by improving quant.

** Edit: I got the last 4 quant questions incorrect on my most recent mock exam, could that be a major detriment to my overall score? A couple of these were careless**

My official exam is in 3 days.

Anyone have any tips?

Thanks

MartyMurray · Answer

The best way to improve in Quant is to master it one topic at a time in the following way:

- First, review the concepts and strategies a topic involves.
 
- Then, do practice questions involving that topic UNTIMED until you're achieving high accuracy.
 
- Finally, work on reducing the time per question until you're correctly answering questions involving that topic at test pace.

Then, move on to the next topic and do the same thing.

Of course, that process takes longer than a few days, but maybe you've already been doing that.

So, to help us to answer your question, would you please tell us how you've been preparing for Quant and provide some more details about the results you gotten in terms of practice accuracies, reasons for missed questions, and levels of confidence in various topics?

imcmaster13 · Answer

Thanks for the response.

I originally started (September) by reviewing concepts/strategies using the Manhattan Review All The Quant Guide. I did a number of practice questions out of the OG to get used to these concepts. Following the last 2 practice exams, I have narrowed down the concepts in which I got wrong and studied the corresponding chapter on TTP.

My accuracy for timed practice has been at about 85%, there's still some sub-concepts that stump me and I also tend to miss a couple questions due to careless errors on each exam.

This is extremely confusing to me given the number (and level) of math classes I took during undergrad.

Thanks

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

For Quant, one thing that may help a bit would be to look over your error log to recall any careless errors you repeatedly make. Perhaps you forget a non-positive integer can include "0" sometimes. For RC, becoming familiar with how inference questions work could be helpful.

-contact: gmatknight site | gmatclub dm

-contact: gmatknight site | gmatclub dm

imcmaster13 · Answer

I think this may be my best bet, I have 7 total careless errors on quant in my last 2 practice exams - I'd imagine this is destroying my score. No sure how to completely eliminate careless errors come test day though

bb · Answer

Hi. Based on my research, I don’t think the last four questions were much more impactful than if you had made mistakes in the middle. Having said that, we are all still figuring out how the GMAT focus scoring works..

I would recommend zooming in and isolating specific areas you need to improve. It sounds like one of them is careless mistakes and that’s a whole area of its own. You need to identify other problem factors. Otherwise, the recommendation will be go relearn all the quant and obviously that’s not helpful so you want to be a lot more precise and diagnosing your own struggles. The first step is to recognize them and then you can start working towards eliminating them.

Posted from my mobile device

bb · Answer

I’m not sure that you need to worry about the result being unachievable, instead I would suggest flipping the problem and finding how you can eliminate at least 10% or 20% of your careless errors and start there one by one. You’ll be surprised how much you can progress even just by thinking that you can progress. 😇

Posted from my mobile device

KarishmaB · Answer

GMAT Math is Math applied to new contexts. Engineering Math is technical and hence the two are not comparable. With a Math background, you will certainly start strong but you need to learn with a more application oriented approach. For example, look at this question I came across yesterday: https://gmatclub.com/forum/a-certain-co ... l#p3310883 It looks like a Combinations question but tests pattern recognition. The only "Math" you need to know for this is that LCM of 4 and 3 is 12 (discussed in Number Properties). But the point is how do you reach the point where you realise that you just need the LCM of 4 and 3? You must learn that given a sequence, we should write down the first few terms to figure out what it looks like (which is discussed in 'Sequences' in Algebra. See here: https://anaprep.com/algebra-introducing-sequences/ ) Then we realise that we need to recognise the pattern here which is discussed here: https://anaprep.com/arithmetic-pattern- ... roperties/ So you see how to solve one question of a new context you pick tiny details from various different topics. It develops when you learn how various concepts are linked together and then practice. 3 days is not sufficient time so I would suggest you to relax and take the test to the best of your ability. If you get your target score, great! If you choose to retest, then you can focus on a more holistic approach to learning.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi imcmaster13,

How did things go with your GMAT?

GMAT Focus Quant Not Improving - Engineering Undergrad

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards