![\"Manhattan](\"http:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2017\/06\/de-tangling-difficult-word-problems-on-the-gre-cat-powell.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Ready to take the plunge? <\/i><\/b>Check out our upcoming courses here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n <\/i><\/b>Let\u2019s start with a problem that\u2019s been giving my students trouble recently. Read it through, but don\u2019t try to solve it\u2014yet.<\/span><\/p>\n Yikes! That\u2019s complicated. This is what we sometimes refer to as a \u201cstory\u201d problem or an \u201calgebraic translation\u201d problem. I get a big block of text, and I have to sort through that somehow to set up equations that I can solve.<\/span><\/p>\n When I teach problems like this, the most common mistakes students make come from trying to do too many things at once. Students will then either miss small but crucial details OR get overwhelmed and give up.<\/span><\/p>\n For this reason, there are two really important things to keep in mind when you encounter difficult word problems on the GRE like this:<\/span><\/p>\n Even though I\u2019ve spent A LOT of time on the GRE, when I encounter a hard problem for the first time, I seldom see the entire solution path upfront. Instead, I get a broad sense of what kind of problem it is, and that helps me decide where to start\u2014as long as I can get some foothold in the problem, I trust that I\u2019ll be able to work through it from there.<\/span><\/p>\n Once I\u2019ve decided how to start, I move through the problem at a steady, measured pace, taking it apart piece by piece. I\u2019m very deliberate about each step, and I write everything down.<\/span><\/p>\n Now, let me show you how I\u2019d apply these two ideas to solving the problem above.<\/span><\/p>\n First, I read through the problem. It\u2019s a story problem, so I decide that, to start, I\u2019m going to go back to the first sentence and translate the question into algebra one phrase at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n Ravi and Brynn have won prize tickets<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Okay, so I have two unknown quantities: the number of tickets Ravi has, and the number of tickets Brynn has. I can establish my variables:<\/span><\/p>\n R = Ravi\u2019s tickets currently On to the next sentence:<\/span><\/p>\n Brynn currently has 16 more tickets than Ravi does.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Cool, this describes the relationship between my two variables, so I can set up an equation:<\/span><\/p>\n B = R + 16<\/span><\/p>\n At this point, I might do a quick common-sense check to make sure I\u2019ve set up my equation correctly. Who has more tickets? Brynn. Is that what my equation is saying? Yup. Onward.<\/span><\/p>\n If she gives Ravi 6 of her tickets\u2026<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Okay, so now I have a new situation. I could use new variables to represent the new number of tickets, but then I\u2019m going to have four variables going, and that seems complicated. Instead, I\u2019ll stick with my original variables and use those to write expressions for the number of tickets they have after the exchange:<\/span><\/p>\n R + 6 = Ravi\u2019s tickets post-exchange Now I\u2019m ready to tackle the final piece:<\/span><\/p>\n She will then have 22 less than twice the number of tickets that Ravi will have.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot of information here, so I translate it piece by piece:<\/span><\/p>\n She will have \u2192 \u00a0Brynn\u2019s new tickets equal \u2192 \u00a0B \u2013 6 = I put these pieces together to get:<\/span><\/p>\n B \u2013 6 = 2 (R + 6) \u2013 22 \u2192 B \u2013 6 = 2R -10<\/span><\/p>\n Now, I have two equations with two variables:<\/span><\/p>\n B \u2013 6 = 2R \u2013 10 I can then solve this system of equations and get to my answer. I subtract the bottom equation from the top one to get:<\/span><\/p>\n -6 = R \u2013 26<\/span><\/p>\n I solve for R:<\/span><\/p>\n 20 = R<\/span><\/p>\n Before I fill that in, though, I\u2019m going to double check that I\u2019m entering the right thing. I note what I\u2019m looking for\u2014Brynn\u2019s current number of tickets. Okay, so I plug R into my original equation and get:<\/span><\/p>\n B = 20 + 16 = 36<\/span><\/p>\n And that\u2019s my answer!<\/span><\/p>\n While this problem looks complex at the start, if I take it apart piece by piece it becomes a fairly straightforward process. Note that I didn\u2019t try to deal with that second sentence all at once\u2014that\u2019s when I\u2019d be likely to make a mistake. I broke it down into smaller and smaller pieces until it felt manageable. Applying this idea\u2014turning complex tasks into series of simpler ones\u2014throughout the Quant section improves both efficiency and accuracy.\u00a0?<\/span><\/p>\n Were you able to solve the problem using Cat\u2019s tactics? Let us know in the comments!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Want more guidance from our GRE gurus? You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free! We\u2019re not kidding. <\/i><\/b>Check out our upcoming courses here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Cat Powell<\/a> You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Ready to take the plunge? Check out our upcoming courses here. Let\u2019s start with a problem that\u2019s been giving my students trouble recently. Read it through, but don\u2019t try to solve it\u2014yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,474284,921840,421,6,7,9,733445],"tags":[1362434,1362435],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-challenge-problems","category-current-studiers","category-gre-prep-2","category-gre-quant-2","category-gre-strategies","category-how-to-study","category-math-gre-strategies","category-study-tips-2","tag-difficult-word-problems-on-the-gre","tag-gre-word-problems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10431"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10460,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10431\/revisions\/10460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10431"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"Manhattan](\"\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2017\/06\/cp-6-image-1.png\")
<\/p>\n1. Don\u2019t expect that you\u2019ll see the entire path to the solution right from the start.<\/b><\/h4>\n
2. Never try to do more than one thing at a time.<\/b><\/h4>\n
\n<\/span>B = Brynn\u2019s tickets currently<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>B \u2013 6 = Brynn\u2019s tickets post-exchange<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>22 less than \u2192 \u00a0-22
\n<\/span>Twice the number \u2192 \u00a02 x
\n<\/span>Number of tickets that Ravi will have \u2192 R + 6<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>B = R + 16<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\n![](\"https:\/\/d27gmszdzgfpo3.cloudfront.net\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2017\/01\/cat-powell-150x150.png\")
<\/a> is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in New York, NY.\u00a0<\/strong>She spent her undergraduate years at Harvard studying music and English and is now pursuing an MFA in fiction writing at Columbia University. Her affinity for standardized tests led her to a 169Q\/170V score on the GRE. Check out Cat\u2019s upcoming GRE courses here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"