Quantitative is struggling

[Adam]

Hello,

Despite my continued efforts to increase my quant. score, I am still struggling with both problem solving and DS (more so with DS).

My verbal score is generally around the 72nd percentile, but my quant. score is around the 40th percentile. I am taking the online courses and only have three classes left. What is the best approach in order to boost my quant? OG problems, specific strategy guides, what?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[GMAT Eater]

I higly recommend EZ Advanced GMAT Math and GMAT Focus.

they have realisticaly TOUGH GMAT problems.

The problem with OG problems are they are both too easy and outdated. For example, the DS problems in GMAT Prep are different from OG. The MGMAT workbooks provide some good questions but they are of slightly different type than GMAT. The same can be said of MGMAT CAT.

It is clear to me GMAC has made he quant section much more difficult than in the past. I suspect this is attributable to far more foreigners taking GMAT.

So buy GMAT Focus (3 sets for $62 bucks..I bought two sets), EZ Advanced GMAT Math, and of course GMAT prep which is free from mba.com

[StaceyKoprince]

GMAT Focus is definitely good; I have never used / seen the EZ stuff, so can't comment there.

Have you been taking advantage of office hours? If not, sign up RIGHT NOW - literally, don't even finish reading my post. Your half hour of private tutoring every week is use-it-or-lose-it, so don't let any more go by!

Also, for online classes, your teachers will typically be in the classroom at least 15 min before class starts, and often longer than that. Log on early and ask for extra help / advice. Your teachers will be the best people to advise you because they've actually been watching you perform from week to week.

Also make sure that you are completing the practice tests according to the syllabus. This will allow you to qualify for the end-of-course exam review: one of your teachers will review your exams and give you specific feedback about how to continue to improve after the course is over.

You can also do some work yourself to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Go look at the data from your practice tests, from the OG tracker (if you're using that) and from just your own "gut" feel about things. For each area in which you're struggling, WHY are you struggling? Are you still struggling with some of the fundamental concepts or formulas? Do you feel you know the concepts for just regular math questions but you struggle to apply them to GMAT-type math questions? Are you struggling with the timing? Are you struggling with understanding what they are asking or what the significance is of various pieces of info they give you? Are you making careless mistakes with things you actually do know? (And, if so, what kinds of mistakes, why are you making them, etc.)

If you can answer those questions, you can then begin to think about what kind of study to do and what kind of habits to implement to improve these very specific things. Note also that your answer to the questions may be different depending upon question type and content area. Maybe you can do rate problems but you're a little too slow, while on divisibility and prime questions, you struggle to understand what they're asking or what you should do to answer the question. Or maybe you're okay on geometry problem solving questions but make mistakes on geometry DS questions. That sort of thing.

When you actually have the data, you can also ask your instructors in class or the instructors here for help in how to combat any specific weakness.