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fawreel902
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Question for the high scoreres 05 Jul 2007, 07:45
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Hi guys,

So I've been studying for the GMAT like a mad man for the past 4 months. I took two practice tests yesterday (what better way to celebrate the nation's birthday, right? ;) ) and got some good/bad news. The bad news is that my Quant score is currently hovering around 35. The good news however is that it was at around 20 when I started studying 4 months ago. I work full time so I try to study the best I can.

My question for all of you who have done well on the GMAT is as follows: Did you learn all the math tested on the GMAT in your high school days and just had to refresh your memory for this test? The thing about me is that I know I am not stupid, but I was a horrible student in high school due to laziness. I completely slept through all my math classes (especially geometry), and am only now trying to teach myself the basics. I surprisingly did well in my college math classes (and all of my college classes actually) but I think that those were classes that you were able to learn without having previous knowledge in other math. I am wondering if perhaps that is the reason for my average quant score. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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seofah
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Question for the high scoreres 05 Jul 2007, 11:13
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i got 48 on the math section of GMAT without much prep. That is because I have a good quantitative background.
I only had to refresh my math skills and train to tackle gmat-type questions.

I suggest that you go through fundamentals. I dont believe in shortcuts...
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Question for the high scoreres 05 Jul 2007, 12:02
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fawreel902
Hi guys,

My question for all of you who have done well on the GMAT is as follows: Did you learn all the math tested on the GMAT in your high school days and just had to refresh your memory for this test? The thing about me is that I know I am not stupid, but I was a horrible student in high school due to laziness. I completely slept through all my math classes (especially geometry), and am only now trying to teach myself the basics. I surprisingly did well in my college math classes (and all of my college classes actually) but I think that those were classes that you were able to learn without having previous knowledge in other math. I am wondering if perhaps that is the reason for my average quant score. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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I hated math in high school. Furthermore, I never took it seriously. however i managed to get a relatively high score on math section of gmat. How? - the answer is practicing. Detemination and hard work can do miracles.

as botirvoy says, there are no shortcuts. agree on that.
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fawreel902
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Question for the high scoreres 05 Jul 2007, 12:31
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Hi guys,

Thanks for the info. Any recommended places to start with the fundementals? I'm just so upset its taking me this long to actually get good at math, but I really am starting from almost square one.

botirvoy, do you mind I ask what kind of background you have?

Dilshod, when you say you didnt take math in HS seriously, did you at least know it or did you have to learn from scratch when you started studying for the GMAT? Thanks!
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Question for the high scoreres 05 Jul 2007, 12:33
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i was math team captain (loser) in high school, so i got used to doing tricky math questions

i still had to study the data sufficiency questions though. did that by doing all the OG and Quant supplement questions.
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Question for the high scoreres 06 Jul 2007, 10:56
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I was in the same boat, I actually scored a 520 first time I took the GMATprep with Q of 38. Last practice GMATprep I took my Q was up to 47. I too was very lazy in school, eventhough math was my best subject. However, my fundamentals were not very strong.

My recommendation is obviously you have to practice alot. It's one thing to understand the concepts but you need to apply them over and over until it becomes second nature (basically what we didn't do in high school :wink: ). What really helped me was getting a study partner. I was lucky enough to have a friend at work that had amazing math skills, he actually took the GMAT and got a 51 in Quant (99th percentile). So just working with him really helped, just to see his approach to problems I was missing. For example, one of the problems regarding decimals had something like 1/9, 12/99...I had no idea any number over 9 basically tells you the number of repeat decimals; i.e. 18/99 = .18181818 and 18/999 = .018018018. This is a trick I would have never figured out.

Get a study buddy and if you can't find one, use these forums. Put in the questions you have issues with and see how others tackle the question.
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fawreel902
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Question for the high scoreres 06 Jul 2007, 20:27
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Hi there,

Thanks for the response on the forums. So question for you, do you know of any good resources where I can learn those "tricks"? For instance, one question asked me how much greater the average of 200 to 400 inclusive is greater than 50 to 100 inclusive. It wasnt until someone told me that I could just add 200 to 400 and divide by two and get the same answer.

Also, where is a good place to practice all of these aspects on? I can pretty much get almost all of the questions on the OG right for the first 150 of them? Thanks!
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