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jjomalls · 2003 October 18th, 06:36 PM

Took the test today. Very happy with the verbal, very disappointed with the math, considering the majority of my 3+ month study time was in quant. Some of the performance can definitely be attributed to test-day jitters.

In a nutshell, however, to me the quant questions looked very little like those in the Official Guide. The first two were easy, and then the difficulty for quant increased exponentially. I know I got nailed in at least 1-2 of the first 10 questions. The difficulty seemed to mirror those of the Kaplan problems, especially in regards to timing. Questions on repeating decimals, extensive calculations (something like "what is the units digit of (7^9)(2^22)(8^6)(9^19)?", and probability.

My question now is this: I plan to take the test again. I've done all of the Official Guide quant problems, and Kaplan & PR CD CAT tests, and will probably go through them again. However, beyond this my resources are exhausted. I wonder what other sources are good to practice on the types of quant problems they'll ask on the test.

In my opinion, Princeton Review and Barrons are not worth the paper they're printed on. If you're aiming for a low 600 score, these materials are fine. But I believe that most of us on this board are aiming for high 600's or greater. The quant problems in these books are very simple, and rarely require more than 1 step, or more than 30 seconds of time to compute.

My questions:
1) What other quant sources do you guys recommend?
2) Are the 3 ETS paper tests more like the real test than the Official Guide problems?

Thanks.

hellogmat · 2003 October 19th, 01:39 AM

Sorry to hear about your trouble with Math. I strongly recommend that you learn some "short-cuts". Almost every complex GMAT question has an easy way of solving and a very difficult (but common) way of solving. For example, the question that you mentioned above, if you look at simplifying the expression, it should not take you more than a minute and a half to solve that answer. (Hint: 2^22 = (2^11)^2) and so on...

Now, answers to your questions: -
1) Try to figure out which area you need help on. Once you choose a specific area to focus on, there is plenty of material online (E.g. probability tutorials) that you can find by using the search engines.
2) The ETS papers are similar in the level of difficulty to the Official Guide problems and the real test. (In my opinion, the test questions were of same difficulty level as the OG)

I hope that you improve your score. Good luck.

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2003 October 18th, 06:36 PM	#1 (permalink)
jjomalls Eager! Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 78	Took the test today. Very happy with the verbal, very disappointed with the math, considering the majority of my 3+ month study time was in quant. Some of the performance can definitely be attributed to test-day jitters. In a nutshell, however, to me the quant questions looked very little like those in the Official Guide. The first two were easy, and then the difficulty for quant increased exponentially. I know I got nailed in at least 1-2 of the first 10 questions. The difficulty seemed to mirror those of the Kaplan problems, especially in regards to timing. Questions on repeating decimals, extensive calculations (something like "what is the units digit of (7^9)(2^22)(8^6)(9^19)?", and probability. My question now is this: I plan to take the test again. I've done all of the Official Guide quant problems, and Kaplan & PR CD CAT tests, and will probably go through them again. However, beyond this my resources are exhausted. I wonder what other sources are good to practice on the types of quant problems they'll ask on the test. In my opinion, Princeton Review and Barrons are not worth the paper they're printed on. If you're aiming for a low 600 score, these materials are fine. But I believe that most of us on this board are aiming for high 600's or greater. The quant problems in these books are very simple, and rarely require more than 1 step, or more than 30 seconds of time to compute. My questions: 1) What other quant sources do you guys recommend? 2) Are the 3 ETS paper tests more like the real test than the Official Guide problems? Thanks.

2003 October 19th, 01:39 AM	#2 (permalink)
hellogmat Within my grasp! Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 177	Sorry to hear about your trouble with Math. I strongly recommend that you learn some "short-cuts". Almost every complex GMAT question has an easy way of solving and a very difficult (but common) way of solving. For example, the question that you mentioned above, if you look at simplifying the expression, it should not take you more than a minute and a half to solve that answer. (Hint: 2^22 = (2^11)^2) and so on... Now, answers to your questions: - 1) Try to figure out which area you need help on. Once you choose a specific area to focus on, there is plenty of material online (E.g. probability tutorials) that you can find by using the search engines. 2) The ETS papers are similar in the level of difficulty to the Official Guide problems and the real test. (In my opinion, the test questions were of same difficulty level as the OG) I hope that you improve your score. Good luck.

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