"Problem" with Quant

Question

Hi,

I took the two GMATPrep exams and scored 750 (Q48,V46) for the first one and 740 (Q48,V44) for the second one. My verbal score surprised me, considering that I am not a native speaker. But I'm at a loss about my Quant score. 48 is not bad but two things concern me :

1) I didn't have time for the five last questions for both blank exams (I had to guess without reading the questions), but I felt like I could'nt go faster and I guessed on a few questions on the way.
2) When I redid the questions I answered incorrectly, I got most of them (two-thirds) right.

Could you give me some advice on how to do better on Quant ?

Thanks a lot ! :D :D

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear jbyx78 , I'm happy to respond. :-)

My friend, you have produced two very strong performance on GMAT Prep. I will both commend you and caution you. As you may know, it is quite common for folks to see a drop from GMAT Prep to test day--in some cases, a precipitous drop. See: Lower on the Real GMAT than on Practice Tests If you can incorporate the recommendations in that article and the linked articles, you can avoid this fate. As for math, a great deal of higher level GMAT math involves creative problem-solving. Much of the easier math you can solve by "follow the rules" math, but the harder stuff really requires you to think outside of the box. See this blog: How to do GMAT Math Faster If you can take these recommendations to heart, it may help you. Also, I would recommend studying, here on GMAT Club, the solutions of difficult problems. Pay attention to how the experts think about a problem, what their first steps are in attacking a problem. Often, the key to a difficult GMAT math problem is how to approach it. Once someone points out how to approach, it's easy, but the whole challenge is figuring out that right approach in the first place. You have to scour problem solutions for this. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

ccooley · Answer

1. The trick isn't to 'go faster', most of the time. On the GMAT, if you try to just do the same thing, but do it faster, you'll trip over your own feet. You'll end up making foolish mistakes! A good saying to remember is 'slow is smooth and smooth is fast'. Instead, focus on:
- doing the problem differently (understanding it more clearly without rereading it multiple times; getting the right strategy on your first attempt; using a totally different strategy; doing the problem more efficiently, with fewer steps)
- identifying problems that are above your goal level (so in your case, 750+ level problems) and strategically guessing to save time for other problems. Missing a very hard problem has very little impact on your score, so if you can correctly identify super tough problems and avoid wasting time on them, you'll have time to spend on the stuff you could get right. Start with the 1/3 of your missed questions that you didn't get right when redoing... many of those, you should've guessed on quickly.

2. What this means depends on what you're doing when you redo the problems, and why you missed them. Are you missing them because you're making silly math mistakes? Are you missing them because you're misreading them? Because you can't remember what math or what strategy to use in the heat of the moment? It also depends on whether you're using a timer when you redo the problems, whether you're doing them as part of a set or one by one (doing just one problem alone is a lot less stressful), etc.

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