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You know the drill for Problem Solving - read the question, set up
the problem, perform the calculation and select the best
response from the five listed. About half of these questions are
word problems (i.e. the problems are presented in prose rather
than in mathematical formulae or notation - "what does two plus
two equal?" rather than "2+2+?"), and in total you'll see about
22 Problem Solving questions in the Quantitative section.
Which is the closest approximation of five
billion divided by 397,264?
A. 12.5
B. 1,250
C. 2,250
D. 12,500
E. 20,000
Tips: Avoid unnecessary work.
Speed is crucial to have a shot at a top 10% GMAT math score,
but to a generation of test-takers more familiar with Palm
Pilots than paper and pencil, the no-calculator clause is a time
killer. Learn to approximate. Learn to avoid long, drawn-out
calculations. Above all, learn to avoid doing math the
"traditional" way.
In the question above, do you really want to divide anything
by 397,264? No.! Let's approximate 400,000 and quickly restate
the questions:
5,000,000,000/400,000=?
Cancel out the zeros and you get: 50,000/4=?=(do the math in
your head!) = 12,500=Easy points in mere seconds. |
