GMAT Strategy

Ive been working so much on work rate, permutation, and geometry that Im making careless mistakes on simple conversion type problems. Whats the easiest and most efficient way to solve these types of problems? Im doing them long hand, and it can get quite messy. Here's a couple...If you can, please try to explain how you went about solving the problem. Thanks!!


1: What is one-one hundredth, of one-tenth of one percent?




2: What is the difference between 35 superticks and 40 superticks of 5 million dollars? (100 superticks = 1%)

Hey mkbigmoz

Translate words to equations:

percent => /100
of => multiply
what => x
is => "="

1. What is one-one hundredth of one-tenth of one percent

x=(1/100)(1/10)(1/100)

2. What is the difference between 35 superticks and 40 superticks of 5 million dollars? (100 superticks = 1%)

If 100 superticks = 1%, divide each side by a hundred to get 1 supertick = (1/100)%. Then Translate the question to:

x = [(40/100)% - (35/100)%] of 5,000,000
= [(0.40)% - (0.35)%] of 5,000,000
= (0.05)% of 5,000,000
= (0.05/100) (5,000,000)
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You might benefit from the GMATFix Live class on Fraction Decimals and Percentages (www.GMATFix.com)

@TedCornell, I'm just curious: how much do the people at Gmat fix pay you? I'm not easily annoyed, but it's getting on my nerves to see you promoting that stuff all the time. If that prep company wants publicity on the forum, they should contact Eric and become community sponsors. That would be a fair way of doing business!

Another useful tip is to memorize the equivalent decimals/percentages of common fractions.

some are very easy:
1/4, 1/2, 1/3, 3/4 etc....

some not so easy:
1/8, 2/8, 1/6, 2/6 etc...

and some hard
1/7, 2/7, etc...

it is not imperative but you can save yourself a lot of long division (a good thing considering most of us haven't had to long divide since grade school, and the process is prone to errors)

best of luck!