The Quantitative Section
The Quantitative Section is
45 minutes long, with 28 questions. This gives you approximately a minute and a
half to answer each question. All questions are designed to be answered in about
a minute and a half, but many should be answered more quickly, and you may find
that you need to spend more than a minute and a half on some questions. However,
you should not persist too long with any one question, as you do not want to run
out of time at the end.
There are two basic Quantitative question types, Problem
Solving and Quantitative Comparison. Within these two basic types, a variety of
mathematical topics may be covered from arithmetic, algebra, geometry and word
problems. Some questions also test “data interpretation” and require you to
analyze information presented in a graph. None of the problems require more than
a high-school level of algebra and geometry, but that does not mean that the
test should be easy if you have studied mathematics at a higher level. The GRE
is testing your ability to reason and to solve problems efficiently more than it
is testing your knowledge of any particular area of math. For this reason, it is
crucial not only to review the content that might be tested on the Quantitative
Section, but to do enough practice problems that you become familiar with the
kind of logic used to construct the problems and the most effective ways to
quickly assess them and find the correct answer.
Problem Solving
problems present a problem and require you to select the correct answer from
among five choices. The problem could be as straightforward as an equation,
where you need to solve for x. It could be a word problem, or a geometry
problem with a diagram that you may need to copy on your scratch paper. Solving
the problem may involve doing simple computation (Of course, you don’t get to
use a calculator, so brush up on your arithmetic skills!). You are expected to
be proficient with such concepts as exponents, square roots, fractions and
decimals, etc. as well as algebra (linear and quadratic equations) and geometry
(for speed purposes you must memorize basic formulas which will be crucial to
solving problems). One thing to keep in mind is that, unlike on your high school
math tests, the correct answer to each question is already on the screen.
You won’t be graded on “showing your work,” so getting to the answer quickly
is much more important than getting to the answer using a particular method. You
can often use the answer choices to help you. About half of the 28 questions on
a given Quantitative section will be Problem Solving questions.
Quantitative Comparison
questions are quite different from Problem Solving questions. In a QC question,
you will be presented with two columns, Column A and Column B, and there may be
additional information centered above the two columns. In each column there will
be a quantity – either numerical (for example: 35 or the square root
of 11) or variable (for example: x + 6, or ab/2). The quantity
in a column could also refer to an accompanying diagram or to the information
that is centered above the two columns (for example: the length of segment BC
or the number of miles that John travels). Your task is to compare
column A to column B. You are not asked to “solve a problem” – you
are asked to decide whether a) the quantity in Column A is larger than
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