Hi schultau,

Much of the 'work' that you have to do in the Quant section revolves around taking the information/data that you're given and reorganizing it. When doing calculations, that often involves 'simplifying' the math. That can include combining like terms, converting fractions to decimals (or vice versa), factoring out variables, etc. It's important to remember that nothing about a GMAT question is ever random - the wording and numbers were specifically chosen so that you could do something with that information. To that end, there aren't that many 'moves' you can make with the limited information that you're given, so you have to consider the possible (limited) options and go from there. As you continue to study, you should be able to get a better sense of when to approach certain questions in certain ways. In that same way though, you also have to pay attention to your mistakes. By defining WHY you made a mistake, you have a better chance of avoiding similar mistakes in the future.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich