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\u201cI\u2019m just not a math person\u201d is probably the most common thing GMAT students tell me about themselves on the first day of class. I\u2019m here to tell you the same thing I tell each of those students: Odds are, you\u2019re totally wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ve worked with students who made it through high school, then never took another math class. I\u2019ve worked with students who haven\u2019t even made it to high school, much less through the math courses. And in every single case, that student has been much much better at math than they think they are. Here\u2019s an example of a recent conversation I had with a student who told me she\u2019s never been able to do math.<\/span><\/p>\n Question: If x is 40% of y and 50% of y is 40, then 16 is what percent of x ? (Source: <\/span><\/i>All the Quant; Chapter 5 Drill Set; Question 3<\/span><\/i><\/a>.)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Student: This is way too confusing. There are too many variables and percents. I don\u2019t know how to make the equations.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Me: Ok, then forget about equations. You said the percents are the confusing part. I see 40% and 50%. Which one is easier for you to deal with?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Student: The 50%; that\u2019s the same thing as saying half.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Me: I totally agree. It makes me think of a big half-off sale. So instead of saying 50% of y is 40, imagine that you pick up something at a sale. You don\u2019t know the original price, but you know it\u2019s half-off, so now it\u2019s $40. Can you figure out the original price?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Student: Sure, it\u2019s $80.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Me: Exactly. So 50% of 80 is 40.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Student: Oh, so y is 80. And I guess you can write an equation to get to x ?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Me: Yeah, you could if you wanted to and were comfortable with it, but you don\u2019t have to. Stick with our scenario. You\u2019re still holding that original $80 thing, but now you discover it will actually only cost you 40% of the original \u2014 same as saying 60% off. What does that mean?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Student: Well, now it\u2019s less than $40. So maybe $30?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Me: Nice estimation. 40% of the price will definitely be less than 50% of that same price, so going lower than $40 is the right move. Depending on the answer choices, saying it\u2019s about $30 could be enough to pick the right answer, but let\u2019s imagine we need to be more precise. You\u2019ve probably never calculated 40% of something except in school, but you were fine with 50%. What other percents do you regularly use?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Student: Uhm, I\u2019m not sure.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Me: Think about going out to a nice restaurant.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Student: Oh, tip! I figure out 20%.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Me: How?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Student: Move the decimal over one, then double it.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Me: Ok, so can you tell me what 20% of $80 is?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Student: Well, that would be 8 doubled, so $16?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Me: Perfect. So if 16 is 20% of 80, what do you think 40% of 80 might be?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Student: Double again? So 32?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Me: Absolutely. So you\u2019ve just computed x to be precisely 32. Look back at what this question is asking. You can rephrase it now to 16 is what percent of 32?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Student: So now we need to make an equation?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Me: Nope. Treat it like a discount. The thing was $32, now it\u2019s $16. What\u2019s the sale?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Student: Half-off. Oh, so it\u2019s 50%!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Me: Totally right.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Notice that at no point did I ask the student to do math she doesn\u2019t regularly do. We all do mathematical computations every day, we just don\u2019t put pen to paper and write out an equation so we don\u2019t recognize it as math.<\/span><\/p>\n Most of it isn\u2019t. <\/span>There are a few new things you\u2019ll have to learn<\/span><\/a>, but much of it doesn\u2019t require math you don\u2019t regularly do or couldn\u2019t easily do with a little refresher. It just feels harder because it makes you feel like you\u2019re back in school when the teacher wanted you to do intense computations in very particular ways.<\/span><\/p>\n The good news is that the GMAT doesn\u2019t care how you get to the answer. You get the same value from a mathematically rigorous derivation that you would from a lucky guess. So pull from what you know. Pay attention to what math you\u2019re already comfortable with, even though you don\u2019t realize you\u2019re doing it, and <\/span>reframe the quant questions to be more realistic<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n There are a few things you\u2019ll have to learn, and it\u2019s possible they will be things you have no memory of or remember being very bad at. If you were bad at it then, there\u2019s no chance you\u2019ll get it now, right?<\/span><\/p>\n Wrong. One of the unfortunate features of many modern school systems is that they emphasize quantity over quality. So in any given year, your class may have had to learn ten different units, and the teacher would be forced to move from one to another whether or not you were comfortable with the previous lesson. Add to that the fact that math is cumulative, and you\u2019ve got a recipe for disaster. If you miss a major idea in one unit (and haven\u2019t we all?), you can\u2019t understand the next unit because it\u2019s building on that idea. Every lesson from that point forward will be building on information you don\u2019t have, and unless you or your teacher was great at spotting that gap, you probably just decided you have no mathematical skill and simply can\u2019t do math.<\/span><\/p>\n What this means for you is that if you try to learn math now, knowing it\u2019s just a matter of finding and eliminating those gaps, you\u2019re much more likely to be successful. <\/span>There\u2019s a relatively small quantity of mathematical concepts on the GMAT<\/span><\/a>, so you can emphasize quality. Don\u2019t settle for just learning the mechanics. Yes, it\u2019s true that cross multiplication involves moving the denominators of the fractions over to the opposite side, but why? What does that mean? What does that represent? What\u2019s a real life example that shows how those fractions are related and therefore proves that cross multiplication is the right method?<\/span><\/p>\n Probably not. But even if you are (or at least have convinced yourself that you are), study after study has shown that intelligence is malleable. For everything you are currently good at, there was a point in your life when you were bad at it. At one point, you were bad at cooking, at driving, at speaking, and even at eating. You learned. And we don\u2019t lose that ability to learn: to change our weaknesses into strengths.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n You are not naturally bad at math. You just haven\u2019t learned the easiest way to do it yet. Remind yourself that there is no such thing as being bad at math. All intelligence, including mathematical intelligence, can change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n UP NEXT: <\/b>“I’m Bad at Grammar” And Other Lies You Tell Yourself<\/a><\/p>\n You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free! We\u2019re not kidding. <\/i><\/b>Check out our upcoming courses here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Emily Madan<\/i><\/b><\/a> is a Manhattan Prep instructor located in Philadelphia, Pa. <\/i><\/b>She has a master’s degree in chemistry and tries to approach the GMAT and LSAT from a scientific perspective. These tests are puzzles with patterns that students can be taught to find. She has been teaching test prep for over ten years, scoring a 770 on the GMAT and 177 on the LSAT. <\/span><\/i>Check out Emily\u2019s upcoming LSAT courses here<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI\u2019m just not a math person\u201d is probably the most common thing GMAT students tell me about themselves on the first day of class. I\u2019m here to tell you the same thing I tell each of those students: Odds are, you\u2019re totally wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52871],"tags":[233,283,284,57393,722],"yst_prominent_words":[55840,54095,57387,57392,53653,57391,53635,57383,53798,53785,57390,53997,57386,54600,53876,56704,55938,57245,57382],"class_list":["post-18570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat-strategies","tag-gmat","tag-gmat-math","tag-gmat-math-help","tag-preparing-for-the-gmat","tag-taking-the-gmat-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18570"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18640,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18570\/revisions\/18640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18570"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}You Do Math Every Day<\/b><\/h3>\n
Why is GMAT math so much harder?<\/b><\/h3>\n
How Can You Learn Math You Didn\u2019t Even Understand in School?<\/b><\/h3>\n
Are You Bad at Math?<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n![\"emily](\"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2020\/01\/emily-madan-taking-the-gmat-225x300.jpg\")
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