Abdulla wrote:Hi Guys,
Does anyone managed to solve every single problem in the Quant. in two minutes regardless of the level of difficulty?
I spent tons of hours studying for the GMAT, but I can't get in the place where I solve each problem in two minutes. This is a major problem for me that don't let my score go over 42. My last option was to guess 4 to 5 questions in the middle of the test rather than rushing out at the last five minutes. This strategy increased my score to 44-45. I think if I solved each question without any guess it would boost my score easily over 48.
Do you guys have a solution for my problem?
Please help !!!
EVERY problem under two minutes? I don't think the real test works like that - I think you could still get an 800 and spend over 2 minutes on some problems, as long as there's some problems you spent fewer than 2 minutes on!
Do I have a magic pill? No. First off, you haven't specified if PS or DS problems are giving you trouble: those are fairly different in approach.
Here's what I would do: buy the OG 12. That has 200+ PS problems and 100+ DS problems. Do every PS problem (or every other, whatever you have time for). STOP after each one, and jot how long it took you (minutes and seconds).
Once you complete 50 problems, enter all the times into a spreadsheet, and average them: what did they come out to? It should be signficantly under 2 minutes, because the first 50 problems are the easiest. As you advance, you may find more and more problems taking longer than 2 minutes. The question is if your AVERAGE is under 2 minutes.
Have a sense of urgency: quickly look for an efficient way to solve the problem. if nothing comes to you, then brute force it just to get going. Often times my approach has been correct, but I could've made some shortcuts to make the calculations easier. As you practice problems, you'll see more and more of these "time saving" shortcuts in the solutions, and be able to recognize them!
Finally, just because you spent lots of time studying for GMAT doesn't necessarily mean you have concepts down cold. Let me share a rule I believe is true:
NO MATH PROBLEM WILL TAKE LONGER THAN 2 MINUTES IN PURE CALCULATION.
If you know the concepts cold, then you should see what you need to solve and how to get there very quickly. From there it's just calculations. Where losing time comes from is when the path forward is not clear - that means you need more practice with concepts tested in that problem.
That's the gist of what I'm saying though - you may encounter a few problems that just stump you. However, if you have most concepts down cold, you'll make up the time later.
I'd get studying and practicing, good luck!
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