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Help With DS

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Help With DS

by blackarrow » Sun Mar 29, 2009 8:00 pm
Hi,

I have been studying Quant section for sometime now. I average about 45-46 consistently on all prep tests. Although this score isn'nt too shabby, isn'nt great either.
One issue that I consistently face is in DS. Most of my errors are in DS in areas ranging from number properties to inequalities. Since this area also happens to be GMAT's favourite, my scores arent increasing!
When doing a DS problem esp on above mentioned topic, i take too much time. I often get stuck up and confused when putting in numbers too.
I have tried various approaches, none has been effective!

The issue is that even in OG the hard bin problems are only the last 30. the explainations aren't great either.

The materials that I have used till date are Kaplan ( didnt find it good atall- no startegies mentioned), OG (No great explainations either) . MGMAT tests(these are good, but few in number)

I have not been able to chart out a game plan for this section. Looking for pointers, suggestions and some tested ideas!
Its better to burn out than to fade away
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Re: Help With DS

by TedCornell » Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:49 am
blackarrow wrote:The issue is that even in OG the hard bin problems are only the last 30. the explainations aren't great either.

The materials that I have used till date are Kaplan ( didnt find it good atall- no startegies mentioned), OG (No great explainations either) . MGMAT tests(these are good, but few in number)
You're right; OG explanations are pretty much terrible. GMATFix OG Companion is the only gmat prep book I've seen that shows how strategies and solving techniques apply to official GMAT questions. It shows thorough explanations to each OG quant question. In most cases, 2-3 different approaches are given so you have a better chance of finding a technique that works for you. The book also has 10 advanced speed drills quant sections for 700+ scorers with explanations. You can use the reference section in the book to identify and work only on DS Number properties. I recommend you take a look at the book. There is a 20pg sample avalable on the company site.

GMATClub.com offers many online tests with lots of hard quant questions. One exam is free. It is not adaptive and it won't give you explanations to official GMAT Qs, but there are lots of good questions.

MGMAT has a challenge questions archive that has lots of hard quant questions (I don't recommend it though, but you shouls be aware of it).
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by blackarrow » Mon Mar 30, 2009 10:40 am
thanks Ted

However if Gmat fix is gonna take care of clumsy OG explainations..it boild down to only 30 probs! anyway I will check!

Anymore pointers/methodology of studies to crack this section??
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Re: Help With DS

by pJackson79 » Mon Mar 30, 2009 11:56 pm
blackarrow wrote:
The issue is that even in OG the hard bin problems are only the last 30. the explainations aren't great either.
If I may kindly ask, what is the evidence that GMAT is divided up into "hard" and other "bins" and that only the last 30 problems are in this bin? (I am not doubting per se, but I am curious). Also, when you say "last 30", are you referring to the 11OG and if so, what sections (e.g., DS, PS, SC, RC, CR)
Last edited by pJackson79 on Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by TedCornell » Tue Mar 31, 2009 2:57 am
It's all relative. From blackarrow's earlier post, it seems that the 30 questions are those that he found hard. Others may find 200 or 250 hard questions.

If you're asking for a standard measurement such as how many questions are hard for, say 70% of people, I don't know. If I really wanted an answer, I would use the Gmatfix Official Guide Companion I mentioned earlier, because it assigns topic and difficulty to each quant question (ie. Geometry -> Triangles -> 500-600). It also has a reference section where all questions are categorized into their difficulty bins but I've never actually counted how many are hard (by hard I mean 600+)
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