please is there any way of getting a list of most of the tricks that are employed by the test designers in gmats on maths questions and any extra short way of multiplying and dividing?
I am not sure if you should approach Quant like its some bag of tricks. There is more to it viz. applying yourself to the problem. Atleast at a higher level of quant (raw score 45+) that is pretty much what you are going to get. No mindless plugging away values into some arcane greek symbol ridden formula! If you want a basic text on math then most of the strategy books or online courses should suffice.
Again you seem to allude that GMAT is about number crunching it is not. If you are furiously multiplying and dividing 5-digit numbers you perhaps are on the wrong track. Nay! You are certainly on the wrong track.
This brings me to question if we approach math so because of the way it has been taught right from school? There is an excellent video by Dan Meyer talking in TED which underlines this problem:
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math ... eover.html
Arun












