Brittany5284 wrote:Hi,
So I've taken the gmats twice already and my quant score is not where I want it. Any suggestions on good back to basics math? I pretty much coasted through high school math with only caring about the grade and not if I completely understood the material so I need something that is going to help me teach myself everything you need to know for the quant portion of the gmat.
Brittany, I am sure people will recommend various resources, and that's good. There are certain basics that everyone needs to know to rock this test. I just want to add something.
I too wanted to increase my quant score and one thing that served me well is this. I made my study test focused. By this I mean that while I did use people's recommendations as to what to learn to prepare for the test, I also took practice CATs and did practice problems and made my own assessment of what I needed to learn
and what skills I needed to develop to score high.
I am mentioning this because from what I have seen, people often study for the GMAT quant section as if they were preparing for a math test. Their study is materials focused rather than test driven, they learn a lot of stuff rather than really learning how to rock this test, and then they have trouble achieving their target score.
For one thing, some of the trickiest GMAT questions, ones that many get wrong, are based on very simple math.
Basically, an ordinary math test is about seeing if you understand and can apply certain math concepts. The GMAT quant section is full of questions that are challenging in ways that go beyond math knowledge and is to a large degree a test of skill in using resources to find solutions or achieve aims.
Also, as you are working on this, you can optimize your preparation by being cognizant of how and where you are running into challenges and tailoring your preparation to making you more skilled in those areas.
So yes, more power to your learning the math basics. At the same time just wanted to give you a heads up that that is just one aspect of what it takes to drive a quant score up.
