My Nemesis... Quant! Help me beat 690! 42Q!

Question

Ok... Recently took two practice tests...

Arco 690 42/43
800score 690 41/47

Then a devastating 560 800 score 34/38 (but I was very tired after working all day and I hear they are not that accurate. 

Regardless... taking Veritas course right now. Gone thru data sufficency and feeling rather comfortable with that. Working on tackling ps now. Haven't gotten to the perm/comb veritas class though I am sure that will be helpful. I am a bit concerned as the Veritas class doesn't address categories like rate/speed problems in any depth so I have order the Manhatten books too. I am going to take the veritas cat this weekend again as I feel like I am getting better at problem solving and I hear they are fairly accurate. Any thoughts on which tests have the most representative quant? 800score questions blow away the problem solving in the OG guide and I feel as though they don't seem to come in any logical order. You'll get a super hard problem to start out and then after getting many problems right you'll get a very easy problem. They don't seem to be correctly computer adaptive. At any rate, basically looking to beat 42Q.... I'd be happy with a 46Q. I can easily blow away the verbal, so I just need to get quant up to a respectible level....

Any feedback would be appreciated!

nothanks · Answer

I am not a quant wiz either, but I am getting better. I would suggest getting the Kaplan Math Workbook. That helped me a TON. 

Vertias only teaches the basics. They tell you: "remember miles per hour." They don't tell you how to use rates in any constructive way. 

If you find any other good resources please let me/us know!

Mark4124 · Answer

How are you scoring nothanks and how did you improve? 

Any others have thoughts?

u2lover · Answer

I have Veritas marerial and in many cases it repeats OG questions or presents either very simple/very difficult questions. I agree that they don't cover the word problems properly and their tricks are nothing special. As far as MGMAT books... I have them... I went through each and did well on problem sets at the end of each chapter... Then, I went and did the question banks on their website that come with the book and my scores were horrendous... I could only solve 15 question out of 25 and was sure about my asnwers... the rest were guesses on questions that were so time consuming... and the questions are not very close to OG. Can someone comment on the difficulty of those... the material in their books is fairly straight but their quant test banks blow my mind :cry:

and damage my confidence level. Extremely scared to take their CATs. As far as 800Score... I really think it is a good practice when you start timing yourself... the pacer was of much needed help to learn value of time spent per question. However, I think their math has some very difficult and very easy questions and the verbal SC is not representative. The good verbal practice from their tests is CR and RC for sure! u2lovergirl PS my Powerprep quant score recently was 43 and quant range at the moment is 37-43... any ideas how to increase it??? thanks

Mark4124 · Answer

Interesting... People on here swear by those tough online MGMAT questions. Haven't tried 'em yet myself. I agree that the pacer on 800score is good, but there questions don't seem to come in a logical order of ascending difficulty. I greatly question their test methodology.

slippy · Answer

Mark,

I'm in the same boat...I'm crushing the verbal (only getting a couple wrong on sentence correction) but only getting about half of the quant questions right, with no apparent pattern. I took the GMAT back in 1987, and that's the last time I used a lot of these concepts. I'm also finding that time management on the quant is a big problem for me...I get stuck on a couple of questions, burn up the minutes, start panicking and then make stupid computational errors that put me deeper in the hole.

I've found the math review section at the back of the Kaplan Premier book to be much more helpful than the Official Guide or the OG Quant Review book. It has a lot of helpful tips that simplify some of those weird set or number properties questions. I just picked up the Kaplan Math Review...it looks good, but I really haven't started using it yet.

I need about a 650, and I think my verbal scores would get me in the ballpark, but I'd really like to get the quant to at least the 70th percentile.

Hope this helps.

Mark4124 · Answer

What are you scoring right now in quant? If you are crushing the verbal I'd expect you'd be well over 650 as I am... just looking to get a more balanced score. I got the Manahatten books yesterday (3/5 of them anyhow). They look good, very good at teaching you "how to solve" the problems, better than Veritas materials for quant. I will get the other 2. I see my score coming up. Even now just having done Veritas problem solving I am seeing my score likely increasing to 44. I think with perms/comb from Veritas and the Manahatten stuff I can get to 46 at least. 44 should put me at 700. 46 maybe 730. If I could get a 48-49 I'd be looking at 750ish. Gotta work hard to solidify the quant and get it in that range where the verbal is.

slippy · Answer

I got a 26Q (ouch!) on my first Kaplan test, at the beginning of my study. I took the diagnostic test in the OG after a couple of weeks and got 29 out of 48 (60%) right, with 5 careless mistakes. I haven't taken any more practice tests yet, but based on my success with the timed practice questions, I'd say right now I'm probably around a 38Q.

I worked through the whole OG Quant Review book, which helped, and which lifted my success rate on the Problem Solving questions. Still, on the hardest Data Sufficiency questions, I'm only getting about 50% right and sometimes timing out. I took a breather and went through the OG Verbal Review, and found out that I just need a little work on Sentence Correction. Now I'm going to hit the Kaplan Math Review.

I'm not as concerned about cracking 650 as I am about having a really weak quant score that sticks out. A 42-43Q score would do me just fine. I've got five weeks till I take the test, so I'm hopeful I can get the job done.

I'm going to check out the Manhattan books, thanks for the tip.

Mark4124 · Answer

I'd definately take another practice test... How about GMAT prep. People on here say Kaplan is very difficult. Take that which is most like the real thing... Again, GMATprep. I was intially hell bent on spending as much time as possible on first 15 questions thinking that they are the most important in a CAT test. I actually am doing better if I occasionally give up one here or there and try to actually get thru the rest of the test without say guessing on the last 10. My speed is improving though after doing more tests. The 800score ones are hard but the timing practice is great. Timing is very important in quant... Just another reason to do more practice tests, as long as they don't disallusion you.

	Target Test Prep - Save up to $599 $400 Discount + $99 Bonus GMAT Club Tests
	e-GMAT: 60% Off on GMAT Focus Get to 735+ from any starting point
	Magoosh increases your score, guaranteed - 15% off ALL Magoosh GMAT plans with code GMATCLUB15 + Free GMAT Club Tests.
	Manhattan Prep: $99 Bonus Score Higher on Your GMAT Exam. Guaranteed.
	Experts' Global - ~~$1720~~ $960 End-to-End GMAT Prep + App Support: 150+ Videos, 2000+ Questions, 15 FLTs +
	GMATWhiz - $299 ~~$499~~ Experience the course through a free trial.
	GMAT Club Tests - Free Included with every course purchase of $149+ View all deals

My Nemesis... Quant! Help me beat 690! 42Q!

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