I’ve spoken with multiple students lately who received a disappointing (lower than they were expecting) score on the Quant section and who all said that the Quant felt relatively easy or straightforward. How is that possible?

First of all, thinking that a test like the GMAT is easy is actually a warning sign: things probably are not going very well. If the test was going very well, then you’d be seeing some seriously hard—next to impossible—problems.

Second, the test writers are phenomenal at writing questions that don’t seem all that complicated but are in fact your worst nightmare. My worst nightmare is not an impossible question—I know I can’t do it, so I just pick and move on. My worst nightmare is a question that I think I can do, and I spend a decent chunk of time doing it, and then I get it wrong anyway—even though I’m sure I got it right! Read more