Data Sufficiency

Hi All

Request guidance with respect to DS section. I am planning to take GMAT by end of May.

I just finished the OG for Quant.

On PS section:

- I was very comfortable with PS section.
- The errors I had was only because of my carelessness.

I would like to know how representative are these problems of the actual GMAT PS section with respect to level of difficulty. I am planning to practice Official review and couple of other books (Kaplan, Manhattan or Princeton based on time available). Would that give sufficient practice.

On DS section:

I had a nightmare with this section.

-In the last 30-40 questions, my accuracy was pretty low. Further I found that majority of the mistakes were not because of carelessness. The problems seem to be testing simple concepts but I could not peform well. Somehow I was not able to apply the concepts to find the solutions correctly. There were atleast 15 questions (out of the last 40) which I got wrong in this fashion.

-Further I found that substituting numbers caused many errors. Is it not a good strategy to substitute numbers? The suggestion solution does not try substitution of numbers.

-I also observed that I understood question stem correctly in most of the cases.

Further is there any way to prepare for DS? Will practice be sufficient?

Would be grateful if experts could give suggestions on this.

Thanks
Prasanna

Hi Prasanna:

DS can be particularly tricky--not hard necessarily, but very tricky. The OG will never tell you to substitute numbers; they want you to do it the long, mathy way, not the simplest way which is most likely to beat the test.

In general, I would recommend the Princeton Review's Cracking the GMAT book. There's a good explanation of how to split up the answer choices most efficiently, and also an explanation of the infamous Yes/No DS, which are even trickier than regular DS. It's not just about working problems: you need a strategy to deal with these.

In general, remember that the answers can be split up AD/BCE, and that when plugging in for the Y/N you must be sure to satisfy the statement first. That's crucial.

Let me know how it goes for you.

Matt

Princeton Review wrote:Hi Prasanna:

DS can be particularly tricky--not hard necessarily, but very tricky. The OG will never tell you to substitute numbers; they want you to do it the long, mathy way, not the simplest way which is most likely to beat the test.

In general, I would recommend the Princeton Review's Cracking the GMAT book. There's a good explanation of how to split up the answer choices most efficiently, and also an explanation of the infamous Yes/No DS, which are even trickier than regular DS. It's not just about working problems: you need a strategy to deal with these.

In general, remember that the answers can be split up AD/BCE, and that when plugging in for the Y/N you must be sure to satisfy the statement first. That's crucial.

Let me know how it goes for you.

Matt

Hi Matt

Thanks for your valuable suggestions. As you say DS is tricky. I am working on the same. Will update on the progress made.

Prasanna

Keep at it--DS is tricky but does succumb to systematic effort and methodical strategy!

M