Business-Like Approach To GMAT Math

The GMAT quantitative section is different from most math tests. You dont usually see Data Sufficiency questions outside the GMAT, for one thing. Theyre tricky, and mastering them requires a high level of familiarity. The good news is that the answer choices are the same for every question, and precise calculations are often unnecessary. Then there are the word problems. All that text takes a long time to read. With 37 questions to do within a scant 75-minute period, you have an average of about two minutes to answer each question. It can be nerve-racking to spend almost half of this precious time just parsing out questions that are essentially prose versions of a companys balance sheet. Maybe it seems silly to you to have to read through a lengthy explanation of two trains traveling on parallel tracks at different rates, when it would be a lot simpler to just look at a well-labeled diagram. After all, there is a reason why balance sheets, graphs, and diagrams exist, right? There is a reason behind the test-makers strategy, however. These questions are testing how well you can take information thats disorganized, messy, and portrayed in a slightly illogical way, and turn it into a correct decision. As a banker, manager, CEO, COO, CFO or any other leader in the world of business, youll have to make decisions based on information from people that report to you. Its likely that these people wont have the type of intense training youll have had at business school. Chances are, theyll communicate with you in a somewhat disorganized, messy, and slightly illogical way. How do you answer more GMAT quantitative questions correctly? Take the same steps that a good businessperson would take in order to make a decision: Calmly and carefully obtain information. Think analytically. Decide without second-guessing yourself. Though all three steps are required for all GMAT math questions, the bulk of the work required for overly-wordy math problems comes in the first step: calmly and carefully obtaining information. It doesnt pay to read the prompt and answer choices as quickly as possible. Getting the question correct requires a thorough knowledge of all information in the prompt. Skimming will only increase your risk of misreading or omitting important facts. Consider the following question, taken from the 2nd edition of the GMAT Quantitative Review: One week a certain truck rental lot had a total of 20 trucks, all of which were on the lot Monday morning. If 50 percent of the trucks that were rented out during the week were returned to the lot on or before Saturday morning of that week, and if there were at least 12 trucks on the lot that Saturday morning, what is the greatest number of different trucks that could have been rented out during the week? A: 18B: 16C: 12D: 8E: 4 This long-winded question boils down to: Find the maximum value for t if (1/2)t + (20 t) 12 This inequality is easily reduced using algebra (pop quiz: solve this.) The tasks of reading the question and interpreting it into a suitable equation are a lot more time-consuming. If you felt rushed and skipped the simple phrase of that week, then the incorrect answer choices C and D would become far more compelling than if you had read the question accurately. The key here is to read the question as if you had all the time in the worldthe first time through. Read it carefully. Absorb every word. Write down expressions and equations. Misreading a question will either lead to an incorrect response or a reread. Having to reread a question means that your first reading was a waste of time, and wasted time, much like an incorrect response, will always add up to a lower score. Nathan Burke is a Math Content Developer at Knewton, specializing in GMAT prep.