How to Improve Your Quant From Q30 to Q40+

How to Improve GMAT Quant from 30-35 to 40-44

Background:

Assumptions for the Thread:

Most Common reasons that result in getting stuck in the Q30 range:

1. Not having the right books/tools. Using obscure or incomplete materials; using OG as the study guide (OG is both obscure and incomplete )
2. Not understanding the concepts fully. There is a difference between understanding the words and meaning behind them.
3. Freezing/panicking under pressure
4. Not paying attention to the question text
5. Not timing yourself during exercises
6. Stretching out your prep into 6+ months
7. Taking tests without having first completed a review
8. Cutting corners in your prep (not finishing chapters of study books)
9. Not reviewing your mistakes
10. Never having been comfortable with math/quant since high school. You hated math then and you still do.
11. Neglecting Arithmetic. Did you know that 50% of quant questions on the GMAT are those on Arithmetic?
12. For more ideas on improving and how to score higher on Quant visit this thread: Improving Quant from 45 to 50 and improving Q35 to Q45 by Rajeevrks

Suggestions for Getting to Q40+

1. Make sure your books covered all the topics (see list for the recommended books). MGMAT’s math series of 5 books are good but you probably have used them already. In that case you can use the Kaplan Math Workbook (and use the select questions I highlighted)
2. Do not leave a chapter/section until you hit a 90% of success rate (80% can be acceptable depending on your goal). After you cover a chapter, do the exercise and make sure it is timed. If it is below 90% hit rate, review mistakes, find out your weak areas, study, and do another exercise. For a list of highly targeted questions, please see this listing/directory:
3. Math Revolution provides the online courses covering and improving the skills of math beginners.
4. Do a check once a week of the old topics. E.g. a week after you covered Arithmetic, check to make sure you are still at 90%. If not, go back (that’s why stretching your prep for a long time is not recommended)
5. Most likely you lack some important elements – you have missed them in one of the books for whatever reason. You need to now find them if you are determined to improve. This means searching out the principles behind your mistakes. Think of it this way – if someone told you could make $100,000K by learning some simple principles and applying them to a stock market, would you do it? Most likely. Well, it is the same here, except if you can get into a great MBA program, you stand to collect a much higher paycheck.
6. If you have a limited amount of time (all of us do), assess your chances and put a realistic plan together. Your first priority should be Arithmetic. Second – Algebra. Third – Word Problems. Fourth – Geometry. Do not get into Probability, combinations, statistics, or coordinate geometry. Those are fancy subjects but you stand a very little chance of encountering them right now. You can get a glimpse of what GMAT is testing by looking at the analysis of topics in the OG 13 (thanks to Magoosh).
7. Learn to recognize GMAT’s patterns and try to understand types of math questions frequently appearing in the GMAT exam, such as those featured by Math Revolution. Almost all quant questions are based on patterns (some are more common than others). There are many of them but at the end of the day, it is just patterns. Most of the time, we can recognize the pattern, and solve the question much faster since we know how the logic works and what info we’ll need. It saves a lot of time. If your mind has trouble catching these (mine happens to be good at it but it varies for people), start writing out questions in a notebook and creating a list of patterns for the questions that you can’t solve until you see a solution and then you slap yourself on the head. Memorize them if writing them in a notebook did not help, and create a checklist of 5, 15, 25 items to run through on the test. (I did something similar for SC in case I don’t catch the error right away).
8. Everyone freezes sooner or later and the clock gets to everyone. You want to see what I mean, take one test without timing yourself (some tests allow you to take as much time as you want). You may be surprised to find out that you will finish it in less than 75 mins with better results. Yes, timing, and clock is a part of the test experience and why GMAT is hard. Learn how to unfreeze yourself. Whether that’s spending a few seconds at the beginning of each question (before you read it) to look at your hands, the ceiling, or whatever it is, figure it out. If nothing works for you, learn how to cut your losses to the minimum. If after freezing you can only solve 30% of questions, and those that you solve you get 80% within the first 30 seconds, then your strategy may be to guess if you can’t solve within 30 seconds.
9. If you are making many silly mistakes due to lack of attention, stop rushing and stop panicking. If you focus only on the clock and not quality, you should reverse your strategy. Focus on completing as many questions right (not more than 3 mins per question please) and then see what you can do to improve your timing. That’s more effective.
10. Look for the tips in the Q40 to Q45 thread as well as in this one: Improving Q35 to Q45 by Rajeevrks
11. Finally, if you hate math. There is not much I can help you with. You can try tricks, guessing, screwing around – it only goes so much and so far. The key to acing the Quant section is solid foundations. This is math and there is no way around it.