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Advice on maths section

by saxena.tushar » Mon Nov 18, 2013 11:18 am
Hi all,

I'm following the 60-day guide and I have completed the maths section using the 13th guide. I gave the maths diagnostic test after finishing my maths curriculum, and scored a 16 which falls in the average category. I'm still not confident in quants. What do you suggest i should do? should i keep practicing more or should i repeat the maths curriculum once again. I also have Manhattan advanced quants and Kaplan 800, should I practice from those or should I do another official guide like the 11th or 10th? My exam is in January.
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by Mike@Magoosh » Mon Nov 18, 2013 11:58 am
saxena.tushar wrote:Hi all,

I'm following the 60-day guide and I have completed the maths section using the 13th guide. I gave the maths diagnostic test after finishing my maths curriculum, and scored a 16 which falls in the average category. I'm still not confident in quants. What do you suggest i should do? should i keep practicing more or should i repeat the maths curriculum once again. I also have Manhattan advanced quants and Kaplan 800, should I practice from those or should I do another official guide like the 11th or 10th? My exam is in January.
Dear saxena.tushar,
I'm happy to help my friend. :-)

Math is a hard thing to discuss in the abstract. All of math happens in the precision of the details. Without knowing the kinds of mistakes you are making, without seeing your individual thought process on individual problems, it's almost impossible to say what will help you the most.

First of all, here's are some general thought that might help you:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/mathematic ... -the-gmat/
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/how-to-do- ... th-faster/
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-math-equations/

I strongly suggest posting individual math questions you got wrong here on BTG. Post each as a new thread, and be very clear about saying "When I read the problem I thought I should do X. The solution said I should do Y --- how would I know to do that?" In other words, make very clear what you thought when you saw the problem, how you thought it through, and what in the solution wasn't clear or obvious to you. Post your questions and get feedback from the experts here. You are more than welcome to send me a private message with a link if you would like my input.

Finally, here's a practice PS question:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/2613
Here's a practice DS question:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/1026
For each of those, when you submit your answer, the next screen will have a complete video explanation. Students find that getting a full explanation right after doing the problem accelerates the learning process.

Let me know if you have any questions.
Mike :-)
Magoosh GMAT Instructor
https://gmat.magoosh.com/
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by saxena.tushar » Mon Nov 18, 2013 12:03 pm
Thanks a lot mike for your valuable feedback. I'll definitely follow it. My main concern is should I redo the questions I got wrong using your strategy or should I pick up another book to follow the strategy you've discussed?
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by Mike@Magoosh » Mon Nov 18, 2013 1:10 pm
saxena.tushar wrote:Thanks a lot mike for your valuable feedback. I'll definitely follow it. My main concern is should I redo the questions I got wrong using your strategy or should I pick up another book to follow the strategy you've discussed?
Dear saxena.tushar,
I would say, first of all, save all your work, perhaps in a notebook or something, so it's easy to find. If you have your work from the problems you got wrong, you don't need to do them again. If you don't have any work saved, do them again and save the work.
Your job for each problem is to understand, in depth, what you're mistake ways. It is not adequate to read the solution and think, "Yeah, that makes sense." You have to work to guarantee that you will not make that same mistake twice. You have to take notes on what you had to remember in order to solve the problem, and what about the content of the question indicated that you needed to remember it. Often, reading the solutions, especially in the OG, is NOT enough. To really understand the problem, you need to post the problem some place like BTG, asking pointed questions of the experts, "How was I supposed to know to use idea X in this problem?" The goal of an excellent student is: never making the same mistake twice. This is a lofty goal, but that's what is needed for excellence. See this blog for more on this idea:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-strat ... -problems/

Don't use up any new questions until you get absolutely everything you can from the questions you have done already. Does this make sense?

Mike :-)
Magoosh GMAT Instructor
https://gmat.magoosh.com/
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by saxena.tushar » Mon Nov 18, 2013 1:22 pm
Yeah Mike that does make sense. I kept the answer choices in my tracker so that I know all questions that I got wrong and I have everything in my notebook. But I guess the key take away is that I should take out the maximum from each question and try to understand it in depth. I'm going to do that from now on. I think best would be to re examine the wrong questions and understand what I read to remember to get them right the next time. Right?
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by Mike@Magoosh » Mon Nov 18, 2013 2:26 pm
saxena.tushar wrote:Yeah Mike that does make sense. I kept the answer choices in my tracker so that I know all questions that I got wrong and I have everything in my notebook. But I guess the key take away is that I should take out the maximum from each question and try to understand it in depth. I'm going to do that from now on. I think best would be to re examine the wrong questions and understand what I read to remember to get them right the next time. Right?
Yes, that's right.
Mike :-)
Magoosh GMAT Instructor
https://gmat.magoosh.com/
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