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EFTW
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Official GMAT Review Book Quant Problems and Difficulty Mix 11 Oct 2015, 19:14
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I am currently doing Official GMAT 2016 Quant Review book problems. For difficult problems (problems #160 and up), I am spending mostly 2 min to 5 min per problem.

In actual test, if i am aiming Q50 or 51, how often will I see these difficulty problems?

I won't be able to knock 37 of these problems in time... When I took Gmat official practice test(and got Q49), I do not remember getting problems difficult as these one after another....

How are the problems mixed in at Q50 or Q51 scores?



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Official GMAT Review Book Quant Problems and Difficulty Mix 11 Oct 2015, 21:18
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Hi EFTW,

Even at the highest 'levels', you won't see that many truly hard/crazy questions on Test Day (and you certainly won't see 37 of them in a row). Some questions will take longer to read (because they're 'wordy'), while others might involve more 'work' (not necessarily difficult work, just more 'steps' to go through to get to the correct answer), but neither of those 'attributes' makes a question hard. It's also worth noting that 'your way' of dealing with a question might be making it more difficult to solve than it should be.

1) When did you take your last CAT?
2) How did you score on it (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)?
3) What is your score goal?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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Official GMAT Review Book Quant Problems and Difficulty Mix 12 Oct 2015, 09:13
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Hi EFTW,

Even at the highest 'levels', you won't see that many truly hard/crazy questions on Test Day (and you certainly won't see 37 of them in a row). Some questions will take longer to read (because they're 'wordy'), while others might involve more 'work' (not necessarily difficult work, just more 'steps' to go through to get to the correct answer), but neither of those 'attributes' makes a question hard. It's also worth noting that 'your way' of dealing with a question might be making it more difficult to solve than it should be.

1) When did you take your last CAT?
2) How did you score on it (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)?
3) What is your score goal?

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

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the info. I've read the MGMAT and try to solve via "easier" way without guessing. The official explanations, i find, are definitely lengthy methods.
Perhaps, I need to practice the "easier" methods more. I may already be running out of difficult problems, however.

1) 3 weeks ago.
2) Q49 and V37
3) 750+ Either by Q50 V42 or Q51 V41

I have been focusing on verbal, but I have been doing 10 hardest quant problems a day. I was just realizing how much I am spending per problem and was worried that if I keep getting questions correct, if CAT will keep sending difficult questions like these row after row.
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Official GMAT Review Book Quant Problems and Difficulty Mix 12 Oct 2015, 10:14
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I was able to get a 750 with 50Q, 41V. Making sure you have the basics down and can do the first few easy problems in <30 seconds is helpful. It all comes down to how quickly you can dissect the problem. For the ones that are taking you 5 minutes, are you struggling with setting the problem up? Actually solving the problem? Checking your answer? Once you identify what is taking most of your time, you can work on that aspect.

If you were able to get 49Q in a practice test, there's no reason you can't get 50 / 51Q on the actual exam (assuming you took the practice test under exam-like conditions).
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Official GMAT Review Book Quant Problems and Difficulty Mix 12 Oct 2015, 10:39
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Hi EFTW,

If you took the FULL CAT (including the Essay and IR sections), in a realistic and test-like fashion, then you're remarkably close to your score goal right now. The 'tough' part is that, at this scoring level, the GMAT becomes really 'sensitive' to little mistakes - so if you make too many of them, you just won't be able to hit a 750+. With your Scaled Scores, you also don't have an obvious 'weak spot', so your missing points are likely due to procedural mistakes that you're making (not taking enough notes, doing work 'in your head', etc.). As such, you don't need to practice 'hard' questions, you need to fix the little mistakes that you're making. I suggest that you start with your last CAT and take a good look at every question that you got wrong - ask yourself WHY you got it wrong and what you could have done differently to get it correct. It might be that there are some 'easy' fixes to your situation; it's also possible that you'll need to invest in some new resources and learn some new tactics.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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Official GMAT Review Book Quant Problems and Difficulty Mix 13 Oct 2015, 09:56
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I was able to get a 750 with 50Q, 41V. Making sure you have the basics down and can do the first few easy problems in <30 seconds is helpful. It all comes down to how quickly you can dissect the problem. For the ones that are taking you 5 minutes, are you struggling with setting the problem up? Actually solving the problem? Checking your answer? Once you identify what is taking most of your time, you can work on that aspect.

If you were able to get 49Q in a practice test, there's no reason you can't get 50 / 51Q on the actual exam (assuming you took the practice test under exam-like conditions).
Show more

Thanks for the advice.

Mostly both. Dissecting problem takes too long and solving it takes to long. The question that are #160 above are difficult... sometimes I cant even figure a easy way of solving it and take the long route.

thecheftony
I was able to get a 750 with 50Q, 41V. Making sure you have the basics down and can do the first few easy problems in <30 seconds is helpful. It all comes down to how quickly you can dissect the problem. For the ones that are taking you 5 minutes, are you struggling with setting the problem up? Actually solving the problem? Checking your answer? Once you identify what is taking most of your time, you can work on that aspect.

If you were able to get 49Q in a practice test, there's no reason you can't get 50 / 51Q on the actual exam (assuming you took the practice test under exam-like conditions).
Show more

Thanks for the advice.

Mostly both. Dissecting problem takes too long and solving it takes to long. The question that are #160 above are difficult... sometimes I cant even figure a easy way of solving it and take the long route.

EMPOWERgmatRichC
Hi EFTW,

If you took the FULL CAT (including the Essay and IR sections), in a realistic and test-like fashion, then you're remarkably close to your score goal right now. The 'tough' part is that, at this scoring level, the GMAT becomes really 'sensitive' to little mistakes - so if you make too many of them, you just won't be able to hit a 750+. With your Scaled Scores, you also don't have an obvious 'weak spot', so your missing points are likely due to procedural mistakes that you're making (not taking enough notes, doing work 'in your head', etc.). As such, you don't need to practice 'hard' questions, you need to fix the little mistakes that you're making. I suggest that you start with your last CAT and take a good look at every question that you got wrong - ask yourself WHY you got it wrong and what you could have done differently to get it correct. It might be that there are some 'easy' fixes to your situation; it's also possible that you'll need to invest in some new resources and learn some new tactics.

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

it was full CAT. I did skip 1/3 of IR, however.

You are definitely correct. I took 20 easy practice problems and still got 2 wrong... and both for misreading questions.

Appreciate the advice, I will probably spend more time on my verbal score up while fool proofing quants.
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Official GMAT Review Book Quant Problems and Difficulty Mix 13 Oct 2015, 23:50
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EFTW

If you end up with a score of Q50/Q51, I would say you should expect 8 to 9 difficult problems similar to the ones you referred to from the Official Guide Quant Review.

Dabral



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Hi there,
This topic has been closed and archived due to inactivity or violation of community quality standards. No more replies are possible here.
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Thank you for understanding, and happy exploring!