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Has the GMAT quant become SUPER TOUGH?

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Has the GMAT quant become SUPER TOUGH?

by zaarathelab » Mon Jan 02, 2012 10:18 am
Hi,

I want to take the GMAT within a week because of application deadlines. I took GMATPREP 1 today and scored a 730 (q49 v40). I guess this score was largely because I had seen most of the questions in some forum/OG book.

I am terrified of the math section as my timing is not up to the mark. Moreover, probability and permutations and combinations are my weaknesses.

I've been hearing all sorts of stories from my prep mates that the quant on the actual gmat has become SUPER TOUGH. Most of my prep mates took the GMAT in December and scored below 700. This is when they were scoring above 720, 50+ on the quant section, on all practice tests.

Has it become really tough?? Seeing the quant level on the GMATprep software itself intimidates me.

What should one do for the quant section? (I scored a 48 in the quant section on the actual gmat 2.5 yrs back)
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by David@VeritasPrep » Mon Jan 02, 2012 2:58 pm
The answer to your question is "yes" and "no."

Yes it is harder to score at the top percentiles than it used to be. That is because people are more prepared and are taking the test in countries where math is actually taught (as opposed to US where math education is weak).

However, the influx of people that are really good at math, plus the change a few years ago in the company that writes the questions for the GMAT has led to a gradual change in emphasis. The emphasis was always on REASONING in the Quant Reasoning section but now this is more so... The math skills are required but many of the questions require logical thinking to get you in position to do the math. Therefore people who are good at math but not at reasoning might find it more difficult. There are also lots of traps to catch people who are hurrying through the section. So easy to get fooled on an official GMAT question and do 98% right and miss it in the last 20 seconds.

I am probably better at reasoning actually, so I got my highest Quant score on the most recent test - last September. I did not find the math to be tougher in terms of scoring, but I did find several questions where it was very hard to get started. In fact, I had to guess at something like 8 questions on my way to a 770. I say that not to mention my score but to let you know that one thing your friends did wrong when they scored lower. They may have approached this like a math test and tried to get every question right, even when they could not even figure out how to begin.

In this post I have gathered lots of my postings - what you might want to read are the articles at the top under "GMAT Strategy and Timing" It should help you understand what people do wrong with the Quant strategy.
https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-best-fro ... 01075.html

If you have longer than a week and need to study probability and permutations and combinations the Veritas Combinatorics and Probabilities book is considered to be very good. Here is the Beat the G review https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/07/ ... ook-review
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by chieftang » Mon Jan 02, 2012 4:06 pm
zaarathelab wrote: I want to take the GMAT within a week because of application deadlines. I took GMATPREP 1 today and scored a 730 (q49 v40). I guess this score was largely because I had seen most of the questions in some forum/OG book.
Ya, this is why I REALLY WISH people would post sources for questions, so everyone else would know to avoid the ones that come from CAT exams they intend to take in the future. I'm mainly avoiding most questions that don't have sources cited now, myself.

Anyhow. Let me say this: you've got to have a certain mastery of concepts in order to score Q49 even if you feel familiar with the solutions for some of the questions. Probability and Combinatorics represent a miniscule number of Quant questions. But if you really want to attack them, you could take a look at any number of prep sources. I've also put together a succinct set of notes that are linked in my signature, that might help. I'd try to drill yourself on the basics. First collect several random questions and start by asking yourself - what kind of counting method is needed to solve this problem? If you can't first answer that question correctly for every problem, then you're not ready to try solving the questions.

Now, with that said, I see you've got a V40. So your bang for the buck is *probably* going to come from increasing your verbal score. Or put it this way: it might be easier to go from a good verbal score to a very good verbal score, than to go from an excellent quant score to an even more excellent quant score. :) And, in general, if your score in verbal is excellent and your score in quant is ok, you're going to have a higher overall score than if your score in quant is excellent and your score in verbal is ok. I.e. V49/Q37 is probably a 720. But Q49/V37 is probably a 700.
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by sam2304 » Tue Jan 03, 2012 8:53 am
David@VeritasPrep wrote:
Yes it is harder to score at the top percentiles than it used to be. That is because people are more prepared and are taking the test in countries where math is actually taught (as opposed to US where math education is weak).
So this means if you had scored a say 49 two years back it would be 85%ile then and now it will be 90%ile with the same scaled score of 49. There won't be any change in the scaled score and it will reflect only in our percentile right ? Or is it that we will be getting the same percentile with less score say 85%ile with 47/48 as our scaled score now ?
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by David@VeritasPrep » Tue Jan 03, 2012 9:03 am
No change in scaled score or overall score - just that the percentile is lower. For example, on the GMAT 750 was a 99th percentile until 2006, now it is the 98th percentile, but it is still a 750 (of course scores are only reported for 5 years so my example might have just expired like an old carton of milk).

The LSAT made an adjustment on their scoring as well. 170 is now the 97th percentile when it was the 98th. I guess students are just studying more effectively for these tests!
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