GMAT Quant: How to Beat Advanced GMAT Arithmetic

Is Advanced Arithmetic – factoring, roots, powers, all that nonsense – standing between you and your target GMAT score?

This book can help.

GMAT Arithmetic isn’t as bad as it looks.

A lot of that is because a lot of Arithmetic isn’t really about “math” in the standard sense.

The few rules that you learned in middle school are actually pretty much all you need.

The problem with these rules–given no basis–is that they disappear into thin air as soon as you’re not using them. They seem like just a bunch of arbitrary rules to memorize.

After all, they’re not practical math like percentages or ratios. When was the last time you needed the ⅓ power in real life?

Luckily, in principle, there are only a few moves you’re actually “allowed to make” in Arithmetic.

hose fundamentals have to be rock-solid, so we begin with a review to make sure everything is in order.

This includes a few technical points that your middle school teacher might not have used–particularly if he or she was only interested in teaching you to pass the state exam.

That means learning the “why” of these fundamentals, not just the convenient “hows” you were probably taught.

Beyond that, you’ll have to learn a few “tricks” that the GMAT uses to make questions look more complicated.

These tricks are simple–but not straightforward–consequences of Arithmetic that the GMAT presents over and over.

Unfortunately, the only people who tend to learn these sorts of shortcuts are people who do math at the university level.

That doesn’t mean they’re complicated–far from it, in fact–but they’re the sort of “shortcuts” or “rules of thumb” that tend to be given only to initiates.

With this book, you’ll become an inititate.

Questions might be about little logic tricks that pop out only with some clever factoring.

These questions might look like your normal Pre-Algebra, but they don’t solve the same way.

Luckily, the GMAT follows distinct patterns for each of these rules.

This book will teach you how the GMAT thinks about these concepts.

It’s time to learn not only the concepts, but the techniques–as the GMAT would prefer you to know them.

This book includes:

–How to relate high-level Arithmetic such as roots and powers to adding, subtracting, and multiplying

–How those high school rules you sort of half-remember actually relate to the GMAT (and where the GMAT likes to trick you based on these fuzzy memories)

–Roots vs. Fractional Exponents

–Boost your speed at simplifying roots

–Quick ways to remove roots from the bottom of a fraction

–Rationalizing even complicated polynomials!

–Negatives – in the powers, in the brackets, outside the brackets

–How to use Algebra as a model for dealing with roots and exponents

–How to make Factoring questions the easiest “hard questions” in GMAT

–How to unpack the language of a factoring question

–Scientific Notation: when and how to use it appropriately (hint: it’s more often than you think!)

GMAT Arithmetic is eminently conquerable once you achieve a solid understanding of the basics and keep a few little logic tricks in your back pocket

Follow through this book and work each example to see when and where to apply the specific concepts – exactly the way the GMAT chooses to present them.

Bonus videos

With purchase of the book, you’ll get access to a free series of eight worked Official Guide questions that directly address the concepts that we’ve discussed throughout the book!

Learn the rules, then learn the tricks, then beat GMAT Arithmetic

Ultimately, it’s just a bit of back-and-forth with a few simple techniques–all of which you’ll learn in How to Beat Advanced GMAT Arithmetic.

Breathe a sigh of relief when the GMAT throws you an Arithmetic question, and beat all those Arithmetic questions to arrive at your target score.