GMAT Exam: Quantitative Section

TopMBA.com looks at the quantitative or maths section of the GMAT exam and offers tips on how to score well.

The second section on the GMAT is the Quantitative, or Maths, section, which is in multiple-choice format. You have 75 minutes in which to complete 37 questions.

For many GMAT test-takers, the Quantitative section is the most daunting, especially if you haven’t so much as though about maths for a long time.  However, the maths content covered on the GMAT is not especially difficult or advanced, so you will have seen it all before during high school!  The content comprises arithmetic, algebra, and geometry.  There is no calculus.  There is no trigonometry.  But there are also no calculators allowed, so you must be prepared to brush up on your mental arithmetic as well as review the key concepts.

The content is roughly divided up thus:

• Arithmetic – about half of all questions
• Algebra – about a quarter of all questions
• Geometry – about a sixth of all questions

What exactly do I need to know?

A lot of people are confused as to which maths concepts they need to know to get through the GMAT Quantitative section.  As a basic checklist, you should confidently be able to do the following without a calculator:

• Add, subtract, multiply and divide both positive and negative numbers
• Add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions
• Convert fractions to decimals and vice versa
• Solve an algebraic expression
• Find a percentage
• Find an average
• Find the areas of rectangles, triangles and circles
• Know basic terminology and definitions, e.g. what an integer is, etc.

What are the questions like?

One of the keys to preparing for the Quantitative section is learning the question types to expect – these consist of Problem Solving (approximately two-thirds of all questions) and Data Sufficiency (approximately one-third).  Data Sufficiency questions are found only on the GMAT so most people are unfamiliar with this question type.

Problem Solving Questions

Problem Solving is a classic question type on standardized tests. You are presented with a question and given five possible answer choices. Some questions contain diagrams which may be drawn to scale—meaning you can "eyeball" them to estimate measurements and size relationships. Others won't. Regardless, all the questions will indicate which is the case.

Data Sufficiency Questions

Data Sufficiency problems consist of a question and two statements of data.  You do not have to provide the answer to the solution here; instead your task is to determine whether the two statements provide sufficient data with which to answer the question.

You will be given directions on how to answer Data Sufficiency questions, and all of the questions will have the same answer choices, ie you have to say whether the question can be answered with one or other of the statements on its own, with both statements, or indeed with neither.

Your success with these questions will require a clear understanding of both the directions and also how to eliminate answers efficiently, which will come with strategic practice.

Scoring on the Quantitative Section

As well as your overall score, you will also receive a scaled score for the Quantitative section, ranging from 0 to 60, which reflects your performance compared to all other GMAT test-takers.  The average test-taker score for the Quantitative section is 35.