How to improve quant from Q78 to Q85?

Question

How to improve your quant from Q78 to Q85?

There are over 100,000 discussions on GMAT Club and a number of them touch on this subject. This is the collection of the best tips GMAT Club users have shared over the last 10 years addressing the question of improving your Quant score. Some of these are mine and others are from users who have contributed to numerous topics and discussions. There is no one-size fits all approach here. Some tips will work for you and others may not as everyone has various strengths and weaknesses. As always - I welcome your thoughts and suggestions.

Assumptions:   
If you are constantly performing at the 78-80 quant range (previous tests , trusted prep material) that means:
 
 You  Mastered  most of the required skills 
 You  Know  the structure and requirements of gmat math questions 
 You  Understand  what is tested on the GMAT

Your Most Likely Weaknesses:   
 
 "Silly mistakes" i.e. things that in the pressure of the gmat you do wrong although you know and understand them 
 Get yourself into unnecessary complications in solving questions that can be solved much faster (not being able to see shortcuts) 
 Timing issues... there are some things that just take you too much time to get right 
 Mistakes that are a result of a subtlety of concepts that you were not sure about (which made you both spend time, eventually guessing or answering without confidence, sometime getting it wrong)

The Most Common Prep Mistakes:  
 
 Concentrating on advanced concepts and hard questions. the ROI of this kind of prep is small (it would be higher if you were to advance from 49 to 51 for example). Otherwise, you are learning how to play the game at the highest level but actually never get there.  
 Jumping into the tests. I see a lot of GMAT Club members jump into the CAT's and not only use up many of them (to only end up with few resources by the end) but also discourage and distract themselves. Think of it as trying to reduce the fever with a thermometer. No matter how many times you check your temperature, it will be about the same and it won't help to keep checking.  
 Not timing your practice (e.g. books, mobile apps, anything you solve, you should be timing yourself) 
 Study mostly from the OG. OG is not a guidebook! It is a question collection. It is not designed to ace the test but rather give you an idea what to expect. The value comes in honing your ear and practice AFTER you have covered the basics and material, not before. 
 Not keeping track of their mistakes - if you encounter a mistake don't hide it and try to forget about it. 
 Stretching their prep time to 6+ months. The brain is a tricky thing and the older you are, the faster it forgets things. You need to refresh and go back frequently if you have been studying over 4 months. Otherwise, it is 2 steps forward and 3 steps back.

Recommendations for Improvement: 
 
 Perfect your basic techniques. for example: solving regular linear, one variable equations should be performed with no mistakes at all, and should take you no more than 20-30 seconds; doing simple arithmetic - again... no mistakes are allowed, do it fast and with confidence... etc...
 
 Try to understand types of math questions frequently appearing in the GMAT exam -  here is GMAT Focus Syllabus 
 
 Boost your confidence. My suggestion - do questions again and again, until you can do, in time, without guessing and providing full answers, until you can do a full test (21 questions of various difficulty) with no more then 2-4 mistakes. 
 
 Try to look for the simplest way of solving questions. Don't "buy" complex explanations. for 95% of gmat questions there are simple explanations. Also, don't sufficient yourself with just one way to solve questions. For many questions there are more than one good way to solve. familiarizing yourself with all of them will help you find the simplest way to do it.  Follow Bunuel's posts  - he often provides very eye opening solutions that are quick and effective. 
 Look for specialized material that concentrates (correctly) on subtleties of concepts, especially the concepts you feel are difficult for you. Usually it is really hard to come by specialized sets, but on GMAT Club forum, you can search questions by  Tags  and by  Difficulty . You can use this forum very wisely.  
 Try   GMAT Club tests   - these are hard math problems designed to make you work hard for every question 
 TTP does Quant prep really well and their course has been highly recommended by many  impressive reviewers  
 Save the questions you miss. Print them out and go back to in a few days or weeks to make sure you can solve them. If you can't answer the same question again, then try again for the third time (remember - time yourself!). If you made a mistake the third time - memorize the question, the solution, and the answer. Yes, memorize and be able to write it out when needed from memory. 
 Get better at solving simple things and memorize some of the shortcuts. Here are  arithmetic shortcuts to remember . 
 If nothing else helps, take a look at some of the   timing strategies   on GMAT Club  
 Use  GMAT Club Math book  - it is a free PDF download with the most common and hardest to grasp concepts 
 I would recommend focussing on accuracy in the beginning. Do the last 50 OG questions, 10 at a time after thoroughly understanding the concepts. Spend as much time as possible to ensure you get all right. for me, it took almost 2 and a half hours to complete. Once you find, you are getting 9 out of 10 right every time, you can move to practicing on a timed test, and try finishing 37 questions in 60 minutes. ( Keep accuracy at the top of your head, if you have to guess, try to eliminate at least 3 wrong answers.), but move on. This balance between speed and accuracy is the key to a higher quant score.  - by Ashaker

If you Are not Quite to Q78 Yet: 
 
 Spend more time reviewing concepts that are not clear to you (there are certainly some if you score less than 75).  
 For under 70 you should probably continue review basic skills before moving forward.... take a look at Manhattan Math foundation books - they are super cheap (though no for Focus edition, so just skip Geometry) 
 Try studying on the go when you have time.  
 You may want to pick up a copy of the MGMAT's Roadmap with some tips for general studying (not quant specific but helpful) 
 See the thread:  How to Improve your Quant from Q65 to Q75

Related Improvement Guides: 
 
  How to improve your Verbal from V78 to V85  
  How to improve your Data Insights score from D75 to D82

mcelroytutoring · Answer

As a professional GMAT tutor, and someone who has improved his own scores from Q78 to Q85 (see my verified scores on lower left), I agree with almost all of this very helpful advice, except for the "always time yourself when practicing" part. In many cases, you need to practice untimed first: time pressure can build bad habits and/or create unnecessary anxiety.

Over 16 years of tutoring, I have learned that it's better to first learn how to solve the question properly  at your own speed , and then learn how to do so within the required time limit, in the same way that a musician might learn a song at half-speed, practicing each note slowly and carefully before ultimately performing it at the required tempo.

HanoiGMATtutor · Answer

I agree with your approach. In my (fewer than 16) years of tutoring, I have helped numerous students get 83-85 on the Quant portion, and I always got them to learn how to solve problems first. Once they are comfortable solving problems in a logical and efficient way, they naturally get faster. They would need to check the clock when they faced a tough question and had to decide whether to tackle it. I like your musician analogy too

bb · Answer

This topic has been updated and improved for the GMAT Focus Edition 💪

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

One thing worth adding for quant topics you’re struggling with is the importance of focused topical practice. A helpful approach is to complete around 30+ questions from a single topic to identify specific weaknesses at a micro level. Then, repeat this process for other weak areas to strengthen your overall understanding.

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

A few quick tips that may also help improve your performance:

- Noting down careless errors you may repeatedly make. Perhaps create a bit of a list that you could go back to now and again.
- Seeing whether there may have been a shorter way to get to the answer choice. This could include EASY or MEDIUM level questions you already got correct.
- Remembering the goal is to figure out the correct answer choice - not the exact answer. You don't, for example, necessarily have to fully complete that arithmetic at the end if there is only one answer choice it could be by that point.

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