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20 Jan 2012, 11:46
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Bookmarks
I loved the Manhattan Strategy books, but this book is something else. It has all these generalized strategies that I really do not see the significance for. The first chapter is really overwhelming when it comes to Top Down and Bottom Up thinking. I get a headache working and even looking at this book. I am not stupid either. My first time on the Quant I got Q42 and my most recent GMAT retake I got a 44. On Practice Tests I usually get between a Q44 and Q46. Over all I need some advice on how to make use of matieral is this book. Its just so hard to understand what they teach. Any advice would be appreciated! I look forward to your responses.
20 Jan 2012, 15:53
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I agree - the Advanced Quant book is *very* different from our regular strategy guides. This book doesn't just give you a bunch of hard problem sets and you'll go through them in a couple of weeks and then continue on with something else.
The Advanced Quant book is not meant to go over a bunch of Advanced Quant rules - that's what the Advanced chapters in the regular strategy guides do. Rather, the Advanced Quant book is teaching an entirely different way of learning how to think your way through very difficult quant problems. It's about problem solving processes and thought processes, and not so much about "here's a really hard math rule that you need to know" or "here's a really hard math problem that you should memorize."
If you're looking to push your score well into the 90+ percentile range, then you need to be able to do this kind of thinking because you'll never study a practice problem that you'll then see on the test. Rather, you'll see problems that share similarities with other problems you studied, but they'll have twists, use different language, be putting two different things together that you saw in two different problems before, etc. How do you learn how to handle (almost) anything? You learn *how to think* in the way that the test writers think, or the way that the
So, yes, it is very hard to work through the Advanced Quant book because it's trying to train you in a way of thinking. But if you do take the time (at least a month, probably longer), then you can potentially learn how to think your way through GMAT questions in more efficient and effective ways.
I'll also mention that you will struggle much more with the Advanced Quant book if you have not already mastered the material in the strategy guides. It's okay to have weaknesses in some of the advanced material from the strategy guides, but if you don't feel 100% comfortable with all of the material in the general chapters, then you're going to struggle with the Advanced Quant book.
Finally, you should expect to have the strategy guides available as references, so that when you do hit a section in the Advanced Quant book that's giving you trouble, you can refer to the relevant strategy guide to deal with any content or comprehension issues before you then return to the Advanced Quant book to focus on the overall thought process.
Good luck!
The Advanced Quant book is not meant to go over a bunch of Advanced Quant rules - that's what the Advanced chapters in the regular strategy guides do. Rather, the Advanced Quant book is teaching an entirely different way of learning how to think your way through very difficult quant problems. It's about problem solving processes and thought processes, and not so much about "here's a really hard math rule that you need to know" or "here's a really hard math problem that you should memorize."
If you're looking to push your score well into the 90+ percentile range, then you need to be able to do this kind of thinking because you'll never study a practice problem that you'll then see on the test. Rather, you'll see problems that share similarities with other problems you studied, but they'll have twists, use different language, be putting two different things together that you saw in two different problems before, etc. How do you learn how to handle (almost) anything? You learn *how to think* in the way that the test writers think, or the way that the
So, yes, it is very hard to work through the Advanced Quant book because it's trying to train you in a way of thinking. But if you do take the time (at least a month, probably longer), then you can potentially learn how to think your way through GMAT questions in more efficient and effective ways.
I'll also mention that you will struggle much more with the Advanced Quant book if you have not already mastered the material in the strategy guides. It's okay to have weaknesses in some of the advanced material from the strategy guides, but if you don't feel 100% comfortable with all of the material in the general chapters, then you're going to struggle with the Advanced Quant book.
Finally, you should expect to have the strategy guides available as references, so that when you do hit a section in the Advanced Quant book that's giving you trouble, you can refer to the relevant strategy guide to deal with any content or comprehension issues before you then return to the Advanced Quant book to focus on the overall thought process.
Good luck!
20 Jan 2012, 16:16
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Bookmarks
Thats a good way to look at it. The problem I was really having with this book was how did it really fit in with the rest of the Strategy Guides. The explanation you provided makes complete sense. The usual approach I take to the Manhattan books is sit down learn the matieral and practice on some OG problems. I was kind of expecting this approach would work. I will take the time and work with this book. Thank you for taking the time to write this post you have provided the Answers I was looking for!!
+1 for Manhattan
+1 for Manhattan
