GMAT Forum
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- bplotts
Question Format
Do questions on the actual GMAT follow the same form as questions in the Offical guides? Example - If I practice all the questions in the official guides will I recognize the same type and format of questions (but with different numbers) on the actual GMAT? This relates to the Math section. Thanks
- RonPurewal
- Students
- Posts: 19744
- Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 8:23 am
this depends on what you mean by "format".
since you explicitly included the phrase "...but with different numbers", it seems to me that you're asking whether the problems will follow, more or less, exactly the same template as the o.g. problems, just with different numbers substituted in.
the answer to that is, of course, "no", because otherwise you could pretty much guarantee yourself a 51 on the quant section just by memorizing the solutions to all the o.g. problems.
you will see problems that test the same CONTENT, CONCEPTS, and TECHNIQUES as do the o.g. problems, but, in all likelihood, in radically different ways.
this is why it's important for you to study TAKEAWAYS and RELATIONSHIPS between the different problems: you are not going to see problems that look exactly like the ones you've already seen (with possibly a few exceptions at the most). therefore, your studying will be ineffectual unless you can extract general lessons about problem-solving techniques.
in other words:
don't bog yourself down with the petty details of problems; instead, concentrate on what to look at, in the problem statement, to figure out the proper solution technique. this isn't easy to figure out, but studying problems together in subject-based groups will help a lot. for instance, if you have our number properties strategy guide, you can look at all the divisibility and primes problems TOGETHER, and concentrate on the elements that those problems have in common. that way, if you see any of those common elements on a future problem - whether or not that problem looks like any of the problems you've seen in the official guides - you'll be able to come up with an opener.
since you explicitly included the phrase "...but with different numbers", it seems to me that you're asking whether the problems will follow, more or less, exactly the same template as the o.g. problems, just with different numbers substituted in.
the answer to that is, of course, "no", because otherwise you could pretty much guarantee yourself a 51 on the quant section just by memorizing the solutions to all the o.g. problems.
you will see problems that test the same CONTENT, CONCEPTS, and TECHNIQUES as do the o.g. problems, but, in all likelihood, in radically different ways.
this is why it's important for you to study TAKEAWAYS and RELATIONSHIPS between the different problems: you are not going to see problems that look exactly like the ones you've already seen (with possibly a few exceptions at the most). therefore, your studying will be ineffectual unless you can extract general lessons about problem-solving techniques.
in other words:
don't bog yourself down with the petty details of problems; instead, concentrate on what to look at, in the problem statement, to figure out the proper solution technique. this isn't easy to figure out, but studying problems together in subject-based groups will help a lot. for instance, if you have our number properties strategy guide, you can look at all the divisibility and primes problems TOGETHER, and concentrate on the elements that those problems have in common. that way, if you see any of those common elements on a future problem - whether or not that problem looks like any of the problems you've seen in the official guides - you'll be able to come up with an opener.
2 posts Page 1 of 1