GMAT Strategy

This past weekend I took the Veritas math class. I was pleasantly surprised. I got a Q-47 on the GMAT so I felt pretty confident about math, but I really think that I learned a lot. Veritas does a good job of teaching everything that you will see on the exam. The class began by going through their Arithmetic book. This book encompasses, fractions, deceimals, percents, exponents, and roots. The instructor did a great job breaking things down for everyone in the course. In addition to spending time on learning the content, we also spent time on time saving techniques for those that struggle with timing on the quant section. For instance we learned short cuts that would allow you to determine the answer without always performing all of the calculations. For instance, if you have to multiply 783 * 293 you know that the units digit will be 9 (3 *3) so if there is only one answer choice that has nine as the units digit you can stop calculating and save time. I think this will help a lot of people that struggle to finish the math section on time. Also, it will allow you to save time to work on the more time consuming problems that you will encounter once you begin improving your quant performance. Another aspect of the Veritas course that really impressed me was the fact that they view "plugging in" as a last resort. The plugging in strategy was the main thing that annoyed me about Kaplan and Princeton Review. Don't get me wrong, it is a valid strategy if the direct algebra isn't readily apparent to you, but I really appreciated the Veritas instructor taking the time to go through and making sure that we understood the algebra of the problem before relying on plugging in.

The other point of interest that I believe many will find useful is that Veritas does the best job of teaching Data Sufficiency out of all the test prep materials I have encountered. Their book is very thorough. It really does an excellent job outlining almost every trap that the test makers could possibly throw at you. Many find the Data Sufficiency questions the most difficult just because there are so many tricks that the test makers use, but the Veritas instructor really made this part of the test simple. My confidence with DS questions has increased dramatically.



Additionally, another huge advantage that Veritas offers is that in their books they offer a scaled back problem immediately following the difficult problem. This offers great insight into how the test makers make problems difficult. It allows you to dissect each problem and solve it step by step and learn to see the layers that the test makers will include in problems.


Overall, I would say that the Veritas class is the best value, because I think that they do the best job on verbal of any company, and the math is definitely good. Let me know if you have any questions about my experience, I will be happy to answer them

Which program would you recommend full or weekend course?

The full course if you can. That way you can fully digest all of the material and do all of the homework.