GMAT Quant - Preparation Strategies

We interviewed Nand Sharma, a Grockit tutor, to learn more about the preparation strategies necessary for GMAT Quantitative section.  He has been in educational mentorship business for about 7 years and loves to mentor students to achieve their best. Nand did his bachelors from IIT Bombay (India) and masters from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He has taken many students from GMAT 600 level to 700+ levels. He, himself, went way past 700 applying certain strategies mentioned below.

F1GMAT: Your blog, “How to start preparing for the GMAT Quant Section” has stressed on the importance of learning the fundamentals.  Which topics in GMAT Quant can give the GMAT test takers an edge in terms of the number of questions that they might encounter?

Nand: Well, it depends on what score students want. When students are targeting for 730 and above,they should have a good hold on each topic. Now some topics are easier than others and for some , you have to understand the fundamentals of other related topics. Say for probability, one need to understand permutation and combination.

For Students, targeting around 700-720 (Quant 48-50), it is a good idea to review all topics from the Official GMAT Guide 11(OG 11) and 12(OG 12). Now you got to make sure that you answer the easy questions correctly and thus revise your basic formulas for number property, geometry, simultaneous equations, absolute values, work problems (GMAT loves them) and inequalities (again a very important topic as soon as you start scoring good). For beginners, understand that the basic official guide review and practice of OG12 questions will give you a good start. Then comes mastering the tougher questions - hence inequalities, absolute values, work problems and coordinate geometry are important topics. Your good hold on probability and permutation and combination topics with ample practice would put you in a very comfortable and advantageous position in Quant.

F1GMAT: For someone who is weak in Math, what would be your prescribed preparation plan?

Nand: I first want to make clear here that GMAT Quant is very different from your college Math. It is a basic fundamental high school Math and you are at a better mindset once you approach it like that. All you need is your high school Math and a lot of practice. Having said that, if you feel that you have difficultly with numbers etc or have forgotten your high school Math, start taking notes from Official GMAT Guide 12. The best approach would be read the notes from Official GMAT guide and start preparing your own notes. Try to prepare a list of topics that are covered in the Official Guide. Then write down each topic. Some topics are easy for you and others are difficult. Write down your level of competence for each topic on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest. Prepare an excel sheet for this purpose. Once you know what topics are covered in GMAT, you can target your preparation accordingly. Also, practice some of the Official Guide problems. The problems (PS and DS) are easier in the beginning and you want to solve those in the beginning. Once you have solved 50 problem in each section, its time to get involved with discussion (Grockit games provide a wonderful environment for discussion).

Once you are comfortable with the general topics and topics which you like, its time to get some help on difficult topics. I would recommend this to anyone who wants a good quant preparation. Know the topics, know your level on each topic and target your preparation accordingly.

F1GMAT: There are two theories on the use of rough sheets. Some tutors advice the students to write down the entire steps and some don’t. Which strategy do you believe in?

Nand: Well a very important question indeed. Remember this- GMAT is knowing the fundamentals, avoiding silly mistakes and then fighting out with the time. Now the habits, which you shall develop in the beginning of your preparation, are what are going to stay with you towards the end and thus you want to form healthy productive habits. You want to develop habits, which avoids silly mistakes, saves time and allows you to think clearly. For this purpose, I would recommend you to write down the important steps and solve clearly. Be very organized on the rough sheets because initially you may think you are saving time, yet in effect reading again and going back and forth wastes a lot of time. All you want to do is to solve the question in steps and once on most instances. Thus, I would recommend, write clearly in steps (you can avoid very easy steps if you feel comfortable) and then try to think clearly and stay on track with time. Also on the same note, try to have a good copy for your rough, because believe me or not, you shall come back to it in your revision phase and thus do not want to waste time by not saving your work. When I was preparing for my GMAT, I saved all the rough sheets and notes as well. Also, I prepared a database of all of my wrong and right answers whenever I was practicing from a particular book.

F1GMAT: If a GMAT test taker is targeting a score of 700 and above, what score he/she should target in the Quant Section?

Nand: It depends as to how good you are in verbal. A good target is 48-51 in quant section. If you average in verbal 36-38, about 49-50 in quant is a must. There are all sort of permutation and combinations with math and verbal scores leading to a 700+, but I would definitely recommend to be near 50 (48-51) and that helps to cross 700. Also you do not put a lot of pressure on your verbal score that way.

F1GMAT:  How useful have you found Vedic Math and Math Calculation Shortcuts in GMAT?

Nand: I would say that is useful. But take things with caution. You should apply shortcuts only when you understand the fundamentals. I have seen students trying to apply shortcuts and make silly mistakes even for some easy questions. I myself have used some of the Vedic math section for questions with intense calculations, but I did that only when I became good with the fundamentals and was able to solve most of the questions without any problem. Use it some time later in your preparation but I shall recommend Vedic math 3 weeks before the exam and again for some topics for which it would be useful. I think we can always have another post for topics to be covered by Vedic math.

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