GMAT Math

I will take the GMAT next Saturday and overall I feel ready, but I'm still a little worried about the Quant. section. I've definitely improved from when I started studying, but this has always been my weakness, so I think I'll only get so far unless I take 6 months+ to study, which I can't do.

So my question is, should I spend this last week focusing on DS or PS, assuming my skill level is about even in both?

It seems like there are usually less DS so my gut tells me to focus on the PS more. Also it seems like DS questions are easier to answer when one is skilled in PS because the principles come from PS, just in a different format. I'm very comfortable with DS question format, the tricks to solve/how to approach, but I still find myself getting a lot wrong in practice. The easy/medium ones aren't really a problem, but the medium-difficult ones almost always give me problems.

I'm shooting for anything over 600, so if I can just raise my score in Quant. a little bit from where I'm at in the next week, it would be a tremendous help.

Any advice?

Also, does anyone know the difficulty breakdown for the Official Quant. Guide (skinny green book)? It says its ordered by difficulty, and I see the questions getting harder, but I'm trying to find out approximately where the hardest questions start. I find myself working towards the end because the earlier questions are too easy, but I want to know if I'm tackling the hardest ones or average difficulty?

Thanks in advance.

dubc1982:

First of all, good luck on the exam. Please do remember its just an exam. The looser you can be, the clearer you'll think.

Secondly, your intuition is correct about there being my PS than DS. That's because there is always the same breakdown, 22 PS and 15 DS.

Thirdly, you make a great point that they test the same things, just in a different format. Therefore, if you're familiar with the format and the type of problem DS represents doesn't freak you out, your best bet is to just continue working on the concepts of the GMAT and work some more practice problems of both.

Again, good luck!

Good luck on the exam!

I agree, I would focus on the PS without a doubt. The PS questions are the ones where simple, silly mistakes can cause a wrong answer, so I would rather feel extra confident during those. DS can quickly be narrowed down to an accurate estimate.

Again, good luck, and make sure to come back and let us know how you did!

ps- I am also interested in the difficulty breakdown of the green OG Quant book.