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700+ Quant Problems Strategy

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700+ Quant Problems Strategy

by whiskey-tango » Fri May 13, 2011 6:31 pm
I have gone through all of the MGMAT quant books, and now going back and reviewing with OG + Beatthegmat qbank. I am much more concerned about Q than V. If I can hit 80% Q I will be happy.

With that said, my question is- for someone shooting for a 700+ (which would likely mean 80%+ on Q for me), how many "700+" questions should you expect to get in an average section, how many of them do you need to get correct, and, for the fairly high scorers out there, how long are you spending on the hardest questions?

I ask because in both the OG and beatthegmat questions, I've got around ~85-90% accuracy on the 600-700 / 550-700 questions, and usually completing in well under 2 minutes. But I hit a wall with the 700+ questions, and I'm at probably 50% accuracy, and it usually takes me 2:30+. If I let myself spend 3-5 minutes on these questions, my hit rate rises to 60-70% (I know this is way too long). How hard do I need to work on this to get into the 80th percentile?

I'm going to start practice tests soon, but was hoping to gauge how far behind I am right now. Thanks for reading.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Fri May 13, 2011 7:03 pm
You do understand that 700+ is above the 80%ile. In fact that is the 90%ile and above.

I think that you are over thinking it. What are you going to do on test day - question whether something is 80%th percentile and above?

The important thing is to get questions right. Get as many questions right at all levels as you can on the test. It is really important that you be SOLID at those questions from the 550 level to the 700 level. I am glad to see you are good at those. I had a student who could have nailed to 700+ questions if she could have gotten there, but conversely the mid-level questions brought her down.

I think you are in a good position now to reach your goal. My opinion is do not try to come up with a formula - I need this many right of this level. Instead, keep practicing, keep learning, have fun. You seem to be on track to getting the score that you need already.

Have you taken the GMATPrep?

Oh, and you are right 5 minutes on any question on test day is too long!
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by whiskey-tango » Fri May 13, 2011 7:13 pm
Thanks for your reply, David. I do know that 700+ is in the 90s percentile-wise, but I am also under the impression that the Q/V split matters, and that scoring 80th percentile in Quant and 80s/90s in Verbal will put you into the 700s. I am much more confident in my verbal than quant.

I'm not trying to figure out the difficulty of each question, but rather, over the course of 37 questions, how many 700+ questions would you come across if your score ended up in the 80th percentile or so. I guess it doesn't really matter and my real question is, if I'm getting 50% of the 700 Q's right on the practice tests, am I in range (still have another 1.5 months until I plan to take).

And for those 3-5 min questions - I would obviously cut my losses well before then, but hoping that spending the extra time to figure them out on my own on the practice will help me remember which strategies to use and eventually increase my speed.

Have not taken GMATPrep yet, trying to get a solid base before so I don't discourage myself. Although I realize that at some point I need to bit the bullet and figure out where my main weaknesses still are.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sat May 14, 2011 7:43 am
The GMAT is a diabolical test in the sense that it always keeps the tension on. On other paper tests like the LSAT you can figure that a certain group of questions will give you a break because they are too easy to really challenge you and that another group will give many people a break because they are almost too tough to really go after.

But the GMAT is different, it keeps the pressure on by making sure that every question is within the what I call the 60 - 40 range. The questions that the GMAT asks you are questions that the computer thinks that a person who has performed as you have so far on the test would have between a 40% and a 60% chance of getting right (which means a 40% to 60% chance of getting wrong as well).

So you are always in that situation where you could get the question right, maybe even should get it right, but that there is always a good chance of getting it wrong as well. For that reason you can miss questions on the GMAT and still make a good score.

As to how many questions of the 90th percentile you would face, well if you are getting questions consistently right at the 80th percentile then the computer will try to find your limits and will move up until it does, so you could end up facing most of your questions in the range from the 70th to 90th percentile. The reason I would not be as concerned to study only those questions above the 90th percentile is that you really do not have to get many of these right at all to score at the 80th percentile or above. The test will not ask you many of these unless you have already exceeded your goal. If you are getting half of the toughest questions right then you are in a pretty good position to stay in that percentile range if you get there.

The answer is that you are certainly in range of your goal. The most important thing is how well you are performing on the questions up to the 90th percentile. This is where your test will be won and lost. If you get several 90th plus right then that would be a nice bonus.

I admire your patience. There is no way that I could have lasted this long without yet taking the GMATPrep test to see where I stand. And remember that you can reliably take each of the 2 exams twice so you actually have at least 4 total exams that you can do.
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by whiskey-tango » Sat May 14, 2011 8:13 am
Thanks, David, this is really great advice. And I did not know that about the GMAT Prep tests - very good to know.
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by littlearistotle » Sun Jul 10, 2011 4:53 pm
Hi David,

I just had an interesting experience during the exam. I received a very poor quant score and very high verbal for a total of 700. The interesting thing is that I thought quant was a strength. I believe what happened was that I have recently put so much emphasis on high level math questions that I forgot some of the basics and was unable to break through to the ones I was actually more comfortable with. My goal is very reasonable. I only wish to achieve an 80th percentile on quant, as my verbal is already 97th. Could you please recap the core type of questions I will find up to the 80th percentile during the quant portion of the exam so I can double my study in those areas leading up to the exam?

By the way, I already took the Veritas course and found it to be an excellent learning experience. I started at 550 and reached 700 in the real deal. My average practice tests were around 730 so I was actually disappointed.

Thank you
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sun Jul 10, 2011 6:27 pm
That is an amazing gain from before your Veritas course to after! From a 550 to a 700 (on the actual exam) is really well-done! You must have worked hard. And yet I understand that you want more. Let's see if I can help.

I cannot really give you the list that you mention. The reason is that many topics can be anywhere from below the middle level all the way to above the 700-level depending on how they are addressed. For example, Geometry or more specifically right triangles could be an easy question, a moderate question or even a very difficult question.

With a goal of the 80th percentile there are very few things that would not be fair game. For example, you would certainly see some statistics, you would have good odds of some probability (little pun there) and you might even run into some kind of basic combination or permutation problem.

The key is not so much what you are studying but how. If you can do the more difficult problems you can do the less difficult ones that they are built on. But here is the difference -- while it might be acceptable to get 6 out of 10 (or even 7 or 8 out of 10) on the harder questions that is not acceptable on the ones that you can get right. Your problem is likely NOT to be that you could not do the problems at the easier levels, but rather than you are not able to guard against any "silly" errors.

What I mean is this -- you need to be so well-prepared on these mid-level questions that you make very few mistakes. This will not only allow you to see the tougher questions that are needed for a higher score, but will also convince the computer that you can accomplish these questions. So that is my advice. Not so much a list of topics to study, but rather to get Official Questions, Veritas Questions and possibly others and really make sure that any question that you can get right is one that you do get right. Every time.
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by Arpitha Kakularapu » Thu Jul 14, 2011 11:02 pm
littlearistotle wrote:Hi David,

I just had an interesting experience during the exam. I received a very poor quant score and very high verbal for a total of 700. The interesting thing is that I thought quant was a strength. I believe what happened was that I have recently put so much emphasis on high level math questions that I forgot some of the basics and was unable to break through to the ones I was actually more comfortable with. My goal is very reasonable. I only wish to achieve an 80th percentile on quant, as my verbal is already 97th. Could you please recap the core type of questions I will find up to the 80th percentile during the quant portion of the exam so I can double my study in those areas leading up to the exam?

By the way, I already took the Veritas course and found it to be an excellent learning experience. I started at 550 and reached 700 in the real deal. My average practice tests were around 730 so I was actually disappointed.

Just want to know your journey from 550 to 70o. How long it took, what you did, what you didn't do, any tips etc..please throw some light..

Thank you
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by Arpitha Kakularapu » Thu Jul 14, 2011 11:05 pm
Hi LittleAristotle,

Just want to know your journey from 550 to 70o. How long it took, what you did, what you didn't do, any tips etc..please throw some light..

Thank you
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