GMAT Strategy

I took the GMAT today. Did excellent on verbal (95%), but my quantitative score was abysmal (78%). This coming from a person who takes pride in being mathematically superior to most of my peers is unacceptable. I have done so many practice problems in all sorts of books, but those questions are easy compared to the ones that I get on the CAT. The ones I get on the quantitative section of CAT are not only complicated, but lengthy. I can never finish on time. Of the two tests I took off GMAC's software, my quantitative score was wayyy higher, because when I ran out of time, I just chose C for the rest. Today, however, I lost track and left 6 questions unanswered.

I read in the official guide saying leaving a section unanswered can lower the percentile score by 20%. Obviously, there's a difference between leaving 20 questions blank or leaving 5 blanks, and I'd hope the algorithm is more sophisticated than lopping off a flat chunk of score.

My most immediate question then, is, with 3 minutes left, should I just go through everything left and choosing C, or am I better off doing everything as seriously as possible and leaving the section unfinished?

My long term question is how do I increase my speed on the quantitative section? I know all the math of every single question. It's just that without a calculator, the bottleneck is my hand + mental calculation speed. Being a careful person, I double check my arithmetic so that takes up a lot of time. The practice questions in different books are too easy because I just breeze through most of them only getting like one or two wrong due to careless errors.

P.S. Not trying to come off as an elitist prick. I realize that for many people, 78 percentile is an acceptable score. However, for the programs that I want to get in (quantitative finance), a score like that on the quantitative section simply is not good enough. This is also coming from a person who has had substantial mathematical classes in college (math minor).

Check out this post for some verified information regarding the scoring - if you miss the last 5 questions, a 70% turns into a 55%, which is pretty bad. If I were you, I'd give the current question 1 minute and try to guess and then tick whatever you feel like for the 4 questions in the last 2 minutes.

Fact is, most people can get all the 37 questions right, given enough time. However, you only have 2 minutes per question and you need to deal with that! To improve speed, here are a few tips:
- always always time your practice
- try to memorize some rules and facts (if you don't already know them), such as: in a right triangle, the side facing the 30-degree angle is half the hypotenuse; squares up to 15; a number is divisible by 3 if the sum of its digit is divisible by 3 etc.
- try to use mental math. Here's an example: what is 15*38? If you do it the classical way, it's gonna take a lot of time. But if you notice that 38 = 40 - 2, it's much faster: 15*38 = 15(40 - 2) = 15*4*10 - 30 = 600 - 30 = 570.

So by not answering the last 5 questions, you can get a 15% decrease? So it's better to just put C's for everything when you're about to run out of time?

There's at least a 20% chance you're getting it right, so yeah, it's better to just tick "C" or something else.

Oh and I just remembered: what masters are you looking at? I'm also applying for some quant finance masters...

DanaJ wrote:Oh and I just remembered: what masters are you looking at? I'm also applying for some quant finance masters...

Hey, I'm looking at some quant finance masters programs as well. Do you think its worth it? Everyone I've talked to has told me that if you can do the doctorate then go that route if you want to get in with a quant hedge fund, but I'm too old to start a 5-8 year program. What have people in the industry told you?

I'm actually just going for a one-year program in Europe. It's because here, with the new Bologna system, we only do three years of undergrad, which employers perceive is too little. Undergrad is like the inferior cycle of your studies (with general stuff) and the masters is the superior cycle (more specialized). I'm also looking for a one-year because I do want to go for an MBA at some point so for me wasting another two years on this masters is just not going to cut it.

If you're looking at doctoral studies, two-year finance masters are the way to go (or so I've been told). I'm pretty sure that you don't need a doctorate to work in a hedge fund though. In my country, most people with doctoral studies are either professors or work at the National Bank. But hedge funds are not a big thing here - the situation might be different someplace else.

Im freaking out. I just finished the GMAT but did not submit my response to the AWA section on time. My score came out abismally low and I am wondering if the AWA had anything to do with it. How much not not completing the AWA section affect the actual score represented? It was my verbal score that looked really bad and I have never performed that poorly in verbal before taking the test. Please respond if you guys know how this scoring works. Thanks!