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Quant Basics Drills whilst at Work

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Quant Basics Drills whilst at Work

by mdwolman » Tue Dec 07, 2010 1:37 am
Good morning everyone,

I don't know if this is the first time this topic has been brought up, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who occasionally gets five minutes free at work, only wishing they could get out all their GMAT course books or go online and take a quick test.

Unfortunately, there are restrictions on browsing at work so I'm quite limited. One quick little thing I've made is an excel sheet testing me on my common powers & roots, and converting percentages to fractions (just fill in the answer in the cell next to it). I find it helps a lot and keeps my GMAT brain active!

If anyone has similar methods or ideas please let me know!

Regards,

Mike
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by ikaplan » Tue Dec 07, 2010 2:25 am
Hi Mike,

I have been doing the same thing for the past years, but in my opinion, trying to steal some time while you are not able to 100% focus on it- it is completely waste of time.

The secret of performing good when trying to solve GMAT problems is to be completely immersed and dedicated to it. If your mind is boggled with trivial issues such as 'will you have enough time during work today to covered what you wanted to cover' and 'will your meeting end on time' can serve as a major distraction; when distracted, people tend to make more mistakes which on the long run, undermines your self confidence.

Cheers,

ikaplan
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:50 pm
Hey Mike,

I like that efficiency - use work time to enhance your studying! Actually, I think the best way to do that is to just get yourself doing math mentally and by hand again. Whenever the situation at work calls for working with numbers:

-Do the calculation by hand (or mentally) and then check with the calculator
-Use number properties to at least predict whether the result will be even/odd, unit's digit, etc.
-Estimate big calculations and then see how close you came once you perform it
-Be the one who calculates the tip or volunteers to manage any other operation that deals with money
-It sound really hokey, but just train yourself to notice things like prime numbers and squares when they show up in phone numbers or other numbers that get thrown around

You can do this in other ways, too - for example, the GMAT is known to feature rate problems, so on car trips estimate how long the rest of the trip will take at different speeds...since you're driving you'll also have to learn to make those calculations/estimates mentally.

The more comfortable you are with calculations like that the more you can focus on the subtlety of the GMAT's questions themselves, and there are plenty of opportunities that arise in daily life to use math if you have that part of your mind activated.
Brian Galvin
GMAT Instructor
Chief Academic Officer
Veritas Prep

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