What the Quantitative Section Tests

Math Content Knowledge

Of course, the GMAT tests your math skills. So you will have to work with concepts that you may not have used for the last few years. Calculator use is not permitted on the Quantitative section, and even if you use math all the time, it’s probably been a while since you were unable to use a calculator or computer to perform computations. So refreshing your fundamental math skills is definitely a crucial part of your prep.

But the range of math topics tested is actually fairly limited. The GMAT covers only the math that U.S. students usually see during or before their first two years of high school. No trigonometry, no advanced algebra, no calculus. As you progress in your GMAT prep, you’ll see that the same concepts are tested again and again in remarkably similar ways.

Areas of math content tested on the GMAT include the following: algebra, arithmetic, number properties, proportions, basic statistics, certain specific math formulas, and geometry. Algebra and arithmetic are the most commonly tested topics—they are tested either directly or indirectly on a majority of GMAT Quantitative questions. Geometry questions account for fewer than one-sixth of all GMAT math questions, but they can often be among the most challenging for test takers, so you may benefit from thorough review and practice with these concepts.

A large part of what makes the GMAT Quantitative section so challenging, however, is not the math content itself, but rather how the test makers combine the different areas of math to make questions more challenging. Rare is the question that tests a single concept; more commonly, you will be asked to integrate multiple skills to solve a question. For instance, a question that asks you about triangles could also require you to solve a formula algebraically and apply your understanding of ratios to find the correct answer.

Quantitative Analysis

Most of the math tests you’ve taken before—even other standardized tests like the SAT and the ACT—ask questions in a fairly straightforward way. You know pretty quickly how you should solve the problem, and the only thing holding you back is how quickly or accurately you can do the math.

But the GMAT is a little different. Often the most difficult part of a GMAT Quantitative problem is figuring out which math skills to use in the first place. In fact, the GMAT’s hardest Quantitative problems are about 95 percent analysis, 5 percent calculation. You’ll have to do the following:

• Understand complicated or awkward phrasing
• Process information presented out of order
• Analyze incomplete information
• Simplify complicated information

In the next few chapters, we’ll show you how to approach Quant problems strategically so you can do the analysis that will lead you to efficient solutions, correct answers, and a high score. But first, let’s look at some techniques for managing the Quantitative section as a whole.

Pacing on the Quantitative Section

The best way to attack the computer-adaptive GMAT is to exploit the way it determines your score. Here’s what you’re dealing with:

• Penalties: If you run out of time at the end of the section, you receive a penalty that’s about twice what you’d have received if you got all those answers wrong. And there’s an extra penalty for long strings of wrong answers at the end.
• No review: There is no going back to check your work. You cannot move backward to double-check your earlier answers or skip past a question that’s puzzling and return to try it again later. So if you finish early, you won’t be able to use that remaining time.
• Difficulty level adjustment: Questions get harder or easier, depending on your performance. Difficult questions raise your score more when you get them right and hurt your score less when you get them wrong. Easier questions are the opposite—getting them right helps your score less, and getting them wrong hurts your score more.

Obviously, the best of both worlds is being able to get the early questions mostly right, while taking less than two minutes per question on average so that you have a little extra time to think about those harder questions later on. To achieve that goal, you need to do three things:

1. Know your math basics cold. Don’t waste valuable time on Test Day sweating over how to add fractions, reverse-FOIL quadratic equations, or use the rate formula. When you do math, you want to feel right at home.
2. Look for strategic approaches. Most GMAT problems are susceptible to multiple possible approaches. So the test makers deliberately build in shortcuts to reward critical thinkers by allowing them to move quickly through the question, leaving them with extra time. We’ll show you how to find these most efficient approaches.
3. Practice, practice, practice. Do lots of practice problems so that you get as familiar as possible with the GMAT’s most common analytical puzzles. That way you can handle them quickly (and correctly!) when you see them on Test Day. We’ve got tons in the upcoming chapters.

If you follow this advice, you’ll do more than just set yourself up to manage your pacing well. You’ll also ensure that most of the questions fall into a difficulty range that’s right for you. If you struggle on a few hard questions and are sent back down to the midrange questions, that’s OK! You’ll get them correct, which will send you right back up to the high-value hard questions again.

During the test, do your best not to fall behind early on. Don’t rush, but don’t linger. Those first 5 questions shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes total, and the first 10 questions shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes. Pay attention to your timing as you move through the section. If you notice that you are falling behind, try to solve some questions more quickly (or if you’re stuck, make strategic guesses) to catch up.

Strategic Guessing

Since missing hard questions doesn’t hurt your score very much but not finishing definitely does, making a few guesses on the hardest questions will give you the chance to finish on time and earn your highest possible score.

Occasionally, you’ll find that you have to make a guess, but don’t guess at random. Narrowing down the answer choices first is imperative. Otherwise, your odds of getting the right answer will be pretty slim. Follow this plan when you guess:

1. Eliminate answer choices you know are wrong. You can often identify wrong answer choices after a little calculation. For instance, on Data Sufficiency questions, you can eliminate at least two answer choices by determining the sufficiency of just one statement.
2. Avoid answer choices that make you suspicious. You can get rid of these without doing any work on the problem! These answer choices either don’t make logical sense with the problem, or they conform to common wrong-answer types. For example, if only one of the answer choices in a Problem Solving question is negative, chances are that it will be incorrect.
3. Choose one of the remaining answer choices. The fewer options you have to choose from, the higher your chances of selecting the right answer. You can often identify the correct answer using estimation, especially if the answer choices are spaced widely apart.

Experimental Questions

Some questions on the GMAT are experimental. These questions are not factored into your score. They are questions that the test maker is evaluating for possible use on future tests. To get good data, the test makers have to test each question against the whole range of test takers—that is, high and low scorers. Therefore, you could be on your way to an 800 and suddenly come across a question that feels out of line with how you think you are doing.

Don’t panic; just do your best and keep on going. The difficulty level of the experimental questions you see has little to do with how you’re currently scoring. Remember, there is no way for you to know for sure whether a question is experimental or not, so approach every question as if it were scored.

Keep in mind that it’s hard to judge the true difficulty level of a question. A question that seems easy to you may simply be playing to your personal strengths and be very difficult for other test takers. So treat every question as if it counts. Don’t waste time trying to speculate about the difficulty of the questions you’re seeing and what that implies about your performance. Rather, focus your energy on answering the question in front of you as efficiently as possible.