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Quant is the bane of my existence

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Quant is the bane of my existence

by janextine » Sat Oct 15, 2011 2:16 pm
I've never been a math person. It's also been at least 6 years since I've taken a math class.

I've finished studying the verbal section, and plan on fine-tuning with frequent practice questions until my targeted test date of late November.

Math, on the other hand...
I started studying last weekend with the Word Translations - Manhattan GMAT book. I've also looked through the Official Guide Quant review book. I'm already feeling overwhelmed, and am already telling myself that I'm not going to score well on the quant section.

Math just doesn't come easily to me. For instance, I'm working on algebraic translations. When I see a word problem, I can't quickly think of an efficient way to set up an equation. Once I see the book explain an answer, I can more or less see how they got there, but when I try to do it myself, I completely blank out. Once the equation is set up, I can solve it easily. It's just using the logic part to correctly set up a problem that kills me.

Does anyone have tips on how I can get by on the quant section with the "bare minimum"? My target score is only 550, so my plan at this point was to work hard on verbal so that my verbal score offsets a low math score.

ANY TIPS ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED!
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Sun Oct 16, 2011 7:07 am
janextine wrote:I've never been a math person. It's also been at least 6 years since I've taken a math class.

I've finished studying the verbal section, and plan on fine-tuning with frequent practice questions until my targeted test date of late November.

Math, on the other hand...
I started studying last weekend with the Word Translations - Manhattan GMAT book. I've also looked through the Official Guide Quant review book. I'm already feeling overwhelmed, and am already telling myself that I'm not going to score well on the quant section.

Math just doesn't come easily to me. For instance, I'm working on algebraic translations. When I see a word problem, I can't quickly think of an efficient way to set up an equation. Once I see the book explain an answer, I can more or less see how they got there, but when I try to do it myself, I completely blank out. Once the equation is set up, I can solve it easily. It's just using the logic part to correctly set up a problem that kills me.

Does anyone have tips on how I can get by on the quant section with the "bare minimum"? My target score is only 550, so my plan at this point was to work hard on verbal so that my verbal score offsets a low math score.

ANY TIPS ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED!
There are two components to preparing for the quant section:
1. understanding the concepts tested (e.g., exponent laws, geometry rules, etc.)
2. applying GMAT-specific strategies to solve questions quickly and accurately

Step 1 comes before step 2, but a lot of students try to jump right into solving questions.
Be sure to find a resource that starts at step 1.

Cheers,
Brent
Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com
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by sunman » Mon Oct 17, 2011 6:03 pm
www.khanacademy.org

Watch the videos and take notes.
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by FutureWorks » Tue Oct 18, 2011 3:58 am
Hi Janextine,

We would say that stay positive as such anxieties are common during exam preparation time. Mathematics is not a big deal if you start working smartly on the questions. Devote some more time on the solved queries as it will help you in pointing out your weakness and will give you more idea on the exam queries. As you are already using top books for the preparation so we'll suggest you to keep going with them. You can't cut-off efforts if you want a good score in GMAT as there is no short cut to success. Keep practicing and devote extra time on your math section than the other sections.

What else we could help you with? Let us know!
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by FutureWorks » Tue Oct 18, 2011 4:04 am
Hi Cinnia,

First of all don't feel discouraged at this moment as you have a long way ahead. This could have happened because you were out of touch with the mathematics from last 12 years and you can't expect so much from yourself in the very first practice paper. Take a break and go back to your core preparations, find out your weakness by attempting some solved queries as it will help you in finding your glitches. You will need to solve some online questions and keep track of the time taken for each question. Once you are ready with your preparation then you may go for practice test.

Hope this may work for you � For further assistance let us know.
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