All posts tagged: Problem Solving

GMAT Quant Skills – Tackling Word Problems

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One of the big reasons why the those who have good language skills do well on the GMAT is that even the Quantitative section has a lot of English comprehension. The Quantitative section of the GMAT has quite a few Word Problems or problems involving barely any symbols and lots of language in both the Problem Solving and the Data Sufficiency formats. This is especially challenging for non-native speakers of English who take the test since they tend to put English and Math or Verbal and Quantitative skills into separate compartments. Asian test-takers, especially those from India, are used to thinking of Math problems in terms of notational or algebraic language rather than English. So the skill to convert English into either Logic or Algebra is something that test-takers have to master if they aim to score a 50 or more on the Quant section. This post will deal the steps involved in mastering this skill and solving these seemingly lengthy problems faster.

GMAT Quant: The Roman Numeral Problem

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The GMAT Quant generally throws up a few problems that designed to act as speed-breakers during the course of the 75-minute Quantitative section. Not surprisingly, these questions are what are usually referred to as the Roman Numeral problems — information followed by III statements, with the question asking you identify the statements that could be true, must be true or is true. Depending upon the the question stem — could be or must be — you need to follow a specific approach to nail these questions without wasting much time. But one still has to proceed with the knowledge that these problems will take a tad longer to solve than the others since the equivalent of since almost three questions is built into one question.

Problem Solving – Logic Not Formulae

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A lot of test-takers feel that like for other tests for the GMAT Quantitative as well they need to learn a lot of formulae. They often come and tell us they are revising all the formulas in the last few days before the test; nothing could be more superfluous since very few GMAT problems actually test your knowledge of formulas apart from problems involving Geometry. What is evaluated your ability to reason in a quantitative context as this question from the Official Guide (OG) illustrates. If s and t are positive integers such that s/t=64.12, which of the following could be a remainder when s is divided by t? (A) 2 (B) 4 (C) 8 (D) 20 (E) 45 Many test-takers are flummoxed by this problem because they do not know what to do with it! They quickly realize that there is no formula they can apply and that they only have their wits to rely on. So how does one approach it?