{"id":10112,"date":"2017-03-15T17:00:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T17:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/?p=10112"},"modified":"2019-08-30T16:38:57","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T16:38:57","slug":"tackling-gre-word-problems-one-thing-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/blog\/tackling-gre-word-problems-one-thing-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Tackling GRE Word Problems: One Thing at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Manhattan<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.\u201d -Confucius<\/span><\/p>\n

Recently, one of my students emailed me the following question. I imagine at some point in your GRE practice you\u2019ve run into the same issue:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still having a hard time tackling Quant problems. I\u2019ll read the question and sort-of know what it\u2019s asking me, but by the time I start figuring it out I run out of time and need to just pick something and move on.\u00a0I just don\u2019t know how\/where to start or how to get quicker at it. My guess is that I just need to practice, practice, practice. But I wanted to just reach out and see what you thought and see if you had any suggestions.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

If that sounds familiar, you\u2019re facing one of the most common problems on GRE Quant. Yes: practice, practice, practice (and learn your mechanics and times tables). However, you may also want to shift the way you look at longer Quant problems. <\/span><\/p>\n

You, like many students, may be trying to plan your way through the <\/span>whole<\/span><\/i> question before you write anything on your scratch paper, trying to \u201cset it up\u201d entirely in your mind before you get to work. Therefore, you end up stuck, with no idea how you\u2019re going to begin to put it all together, much less get to the end of the problem. This holistic \u201cdoing math in space\u201d method will sometimes work with very easy one-step problems, but not with anything more complicated.<\/span><\/p>\n

The best GRE word problems are elegant little puzzle boxes (really, I love them). You won\u2019t even know what step two is asking until you solve step one. Therefore, relax. Just focus on the first sentence, or even just the first phrase, or one tiny piece in the middle you know you can handle. <\/span><\/p>\n

Each step, ask yourself: <\/span>What can I write down? What formulas and rules apply? What math can I do right now? What else do I know?<\/b><\/p>\n

Take the following (made up) problem: <\/span><\/p>\n

The area of a right triangle is 24 square inches. The base of the triangle is two inches longer than the height. What is its hypotenuse?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

If you try to set up that whole problem \u201cholistically,\u201d you might get some awful unsolvable quadratic garbage: \u00bd(x)(x+2) = 24??? And then maybe Pythagoras? (x)^2 + (x+2)^2 = c^2????? Ugh. No.<\/span><\/p>\n