Quant: GMAT Club DS 700 Level Qs

Question

I gave a diagnostic test without any prep and received a 46 in Quant.

I assumed that I should target 700 level questions to sharpen my skills so that I start hitting 48+

However, the GMAT Club 700 level questions, especially the DS questions, were a bit too hard for me.

I could approach most of the problems but could rarely reach the right solution.

Are the 700 Level Questions on GMAT Club reflective of what I need for a 48?

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi smlprkh.

Overall, GMAT Club quant questions are known for being a bit more difficult to answer than official GMAT quant questions. So, probably, scoring 48 in quant would not require your having the skills necessary for answering all of the harder GMAT Club quant questions.

Having said the above, I'm wondering why you would be ready to "approach" but not correctly answer the DS questions that you are seeing. If the reason is that, even in practice, you are giving yourself only around two minutes per question to answer the questions, my suggestion to you is to slow down when practicing to give yourself time to develop skill in arriving at correct answers.

In other words, if you could correctly answer the GMAT Club quant questions if you were to take five, or even ten, minutes per question, then you would benefit from taking that time, learning to answer them correctly, and developing your skills. As you would develop stronger skills, you would speed up naturally, and eventually answer such questions within two minutes.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi smlprkh,

A Q46 means that you correctly answered most of the "math" questions that you faced, but you may have made some little mistakes and you missed out on a block of 'strategy-based' questions. Focusing solely on "700 level" DS questions is NOT what your primary focus should be on at this point; there are a number of other skills that you need to learn first - and you need to properly hone those skills on lower-level questions before you can properly use those skills on higher-level ones.

Before I can offer you any additional advice on how to proceed with your studies, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on your timeline and your goals:

1) What was your overall Score (including your Verbal Scaled Score) for this first CAT? Did you take the FULL CAT (including the Essay and IR sections)?
2) What is your goal score?
3) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
4) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
5) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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

smlprkh · Answer

Hi  EMPOWERgmatRichC

1. Total Score of 640 - 70th Percentile (Quant 46, Verbal 33, IR 4)
2. 720+
3. I would like to be done in the next 2 months (on a sabbatical so I can put in 4-5 hours every day)
4. I will be applying after a couple of years, I'm 23
5. Darden, Ross, Haas, Tuck, Johnson, and Fuqua

I realized that I got 8/13 questions wrong in SC. I have started by learning the rules from the Manhattan Prep SC Guide.

Also, I didn't pay too much attention to the IR section.

I am an Engineer from Georgia Tech so I would like to have a Quant score of at least 48.

What do you think is the best course of action?

Appreciate it!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi smlprkh,

Focusing on the GMAT now - years before you will actually "need" that Score - is a smart choice. In addition, you could potentially improve a great deal in the next 2 months, but you will have to be really efficient about how you study (meaning that you'll want to work through more of a guided Study Plan, instead of working through blocks of random questions and hoping to self-teach how to solve them all).

Before we discuss how best to proceed with your studies, I'd like to know a bit more about your performance on this CAT. "Review" is an exceptionally important part of the GMAT training process; your ability to define WHY you're getting questions wrong is essential to defining the areas that you need to work on (and the specific things that you need to 'fix'). While a full Mistake Tracker would provide a lot more information, there are some basic questions that you should be able to answer (and the more EXACT you can be with your answers, the better):

After reviewing each section of this recent CAT, how many questions did you get wrong....
1) Because of a silly/little mistake?
2) Because there was some math/verbal that you just could not remember how to do?
3) Because the question was too hard?
4) Because you were low on time and had to guess?
5) How many Verbal questions did you 'narrow down to 2 choices' but still get wrong?

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

smlprkh · Answer

Hi  EMPOWERgmatRichC ,

Prepped for 2 weeks and my score has gone from 640 to 700.

The break-up was as follows:
Q49, V36

Quant: 
9 Total Questions incorrect. These questions were actually pretty difficult so I want to know how I can go from 49 to a 50/51

Verbal (main issue):
It's pretty obvious that if I want to improve my score verbal is the easier route.
SC Total Questions 14, Right 8, Wrong 6
CR Total Questions 9, Right 5, Wrong 4
RC Total Questions 13, Right 11, Wrong 2

Even though it seems like I did really poorly on CR I am usually pretty good at it. It is SC that takes up too much of my time and induces errors in other sections (poor time management).

I have already gone over Manhattan's Sentence Correction book but that hasn't helped much. Can you please guide me as to what I could do to improve SC. This will bump up my other sections too

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi smlprkh,

Many Test Takers face pacing problems while dealing with either the Quant or Verbal section (or both). However, it's worth noting that pacing problems do not exist on their own - they're the results of OTHER problems. Most GMAT questions are actually designed so that they can be approached in more than one way. By extension, just because you answered a question correctly does NOT necessarily mean that you did so in an efficient fashion - and it's possible that "your way" of approaching the overall Verbal section is inefficient (and those inefficiencies are costing you time).

All things considered, you appear to be improving, so you might naturally continue to improve as you continue to study and practice. That having been said, if you're interested in a more formal Study Plan (that could help you to pick up points in both the Quant and Verbal sections), then I can offer some suggestions.

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

MathRevolution · Answer

Hi, smlprkh

First of all, I’m glad to hear that you got Q49. Given that your first quant score was 46, it seems that you generally have a solid foundation of each section. And your score Q49 shows that you are close to reaching the highest score by complementing the weak part and concepts.

However, hitting the score over Q50 is not easy. Much more sophisticated skills and dedication to mastering those are needed to improve your quant. To get Q51, you should get the hardest DS questions correct. That is, those DS questions determine a score of Q51. These questions are very time consuming and complicating, if you solve them in conventional ways. Since you need to spend time(still time-efficiently) solving these, overall time management is really important. That’s why I said the conventional way which are not highly focusing on saving time is not that helpful. It is important to save time solving basic and easy questions. You can check the differences: refer to this https://www.mathrevolution.com/gmat/vs. In our course, these hard DS questions are called “CMT 3,4“ (common mistake type). Math Revolution teaches these questions and their solutions in our own unique, easy ways to find answers in 2 min, not 5-7 min in conventional ways.
Also, refer to this article featured in GMAT Club "How to Achieve Q51" : https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-ultimate ... 09801.html

Please let us know if you have further questions.
You can reach us at [email protected]

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