1. It has not been my impression from people on here that they always do better on the CAT test, but that it is always different. 2. People on here have liked Barrons. 3-6 no idea. 7. I wouldn't write practice essays. I would do outlines, and study enough history and current news so that I can have an example outside of personal experience to illustrate whatever point I made. 8. I don't know. But I do know I scored 30 points higher on the math than the verbal but got more math section questions wrong.
I disagree about the practice essays. You do need to practice writing outlines and considering useful examples from literature/history/current events. Writing outlines takes a lot less time than writing a whole essay (so you can practice it more in the same amount of time) and helps you learn to quickly identify the points you need to stress. But I would definitely write practice essays as well! You want to be able to write as much as you can in the time allotted - the sad fact is that length and not quality is the main determinant of your score. So set a timer and write. You might be surprised at how disconcerting it is to watch the clock tick down as you scramble to pull your essay together
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That's true; I was thinking less about writing and more about editing! You don't have enough time to edit and each paragraph/sentence with a different idea is an entire different monster to edit. But you're right, you DON'T want to edit down on the GRE, so writing practice essays really couldn't necessarily take that long.
In other words: I was thinking about it in terms of practicing editing, but you have just demonstrated why that's wrong.
Which, IMO, shows everything that is wrong with the AW portion of the GRE.
I'm having problems with your first math question because anytime you take the difference between a 5 digit number and its reflection, you get the same number (ex, 54321-12345=41976), which is divisible by any of those numbers. Am I missing something?
And secondly, I don't think you take the negative factors into account. So I think a and b would be the same.
And lastly, in my practice tests, I most certainly have come across many combination/permutations. Like for example, if there are 5 runners in a race, and three medals to win (gold, silver, bronze) how many possible ways can the medals be distributed?
5!/(5-3)! = 60 ways
or if there are like 5 people who can be chosen for a committee of 3 (where order doesn't matter), then you would have 5!/3!(5-3)!
Regarding the first question, it didn't specify that the 5-digit numbers had to have digits that were consecutive. So, for example, 24951-15942=9009. So obviously you could keep trying these until you eliminated each of the possibilities for what something HAD to be divisible by, but I can't think of a quicker way to do this.
Ok, good to know the negative factors shouldn't be taken into account. But such a concept could be confusing, and a test-taker who did take them into account would get that question wrong! Seems unfair.
Thanks for the info about combinations/permutations. Guess I have to memorize those formulas, which thankfully, won't be too hard.
Not to confuse you more, but I was under the impression that with math on the GRE, you have to read the directions as including ALL possible options, unless otherwise stated. So I would think you WOULD include negative factors, unless the questions asked for the number of POSITIVE factors of 24.
But then again, I scored much lower than you on math, so I could be way off. :)
As for writing (which is my area) I think you should at least write the practice essays on the PowerPrep tests, because after you do, you get to look at sample graded essays on that same topic, and this will give you a sense of the formula they are looking for. I too am an SAT/ACT tutor, so I'm sure you know what usually kills people on these is trying to be too creative, and not following the standard structure the graders are trained to look for.
You can eliminate two using simple logic, as well. For a number to be divisible by two, the last digit (units digit) has to be even. When you subtract a reflection from a number, the units digit ends up being the unit digit of the original number minus the first (ten thousands digit). (So for example, units digit of 4445 - 5444 is 5 - 4 = 1.) So what you should ask yourself is: must the difference of two single-digit numbers be even? No. So 2 is ruled out.
Another trick is to come up with computationally easy examples. The easiest one I can think of is 10,000 - 1 = 9,999. Remember that a number is divisible by 9 if the sum of its digits is divisible by 9.
Or...a much simpler method to solve this problem is what I said below. 2, 4, 6 and 8 will only divide into EVEN numbers. So, if you can get a difference which is odd, 9 must be the answer by process of elimination.
Having one end of the number even and the other odd (1xxx2, 4xxx7) will always result in an odd number. Odd numbers are not divisible by even numbers, so 9 must be the correct answer. Simple.
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2. People on here have liked Barrons.
3-6 no idea.
7. I wouldn't write practice essays. I would do outlines, and study enough history and current news so that I can have an example outside of personal experience to illustrate whatever point I made.
8. I don't know. But I do know I scored 30 points higher on the math than the verbal but got more math section questions wrong.
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1. Ok, well I won't rely on currently having a better score than my practice tests have shown.
2. Good to know I'm not making 1000 flash cards for nothing.
3-6. Thanks anyway.
7. I hadn't even thought of studying history/current events, even though that's always what I tell my students to do for their SAT essay.
8. Wow, weird. I guess your math errors happened in the later part of the test?
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In other words: I was thinking about it in terms of practicing editing, but you have just demonstrated why that's wrong.
Which, IMO, shows everything that is wrong with the AW portion of the GRE.
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I'm having problems with your first math question because anytime you take the difference between a 5 digit number and its reflection, you get the same number (ex, 54321-12345=41976), which is divisible by any of those numbers. Am I missing something?
And secondly, I don't think you take the negative factors into account. So I think a and b would be the same.
And lastly, in my practice tests, I most certainly have come across many combination/permutations. Like for example, if there are 5 runners in a race, and three medals to win (gold, silver, bronze) how many possible ways can the medals be distributed?
5!/(5-3)! = 60 ways
or if there are like 5 people who can be chosen for a committee of 3 (where order doesn't matter), then you would have 5!/3!(5-3)!
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Ok, good to know the negative factors shouldn't be taken into account. But such a concept could be confusing, and a test-taker who did take them into account would get that question wrong! Seems unfair.
Thanks for the info about combinations/permutations. Guess I have to memorize those formulas, which thankfully, won't be too hard.
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But then again, I scored much lower than you on math, so I could be way off. :)
As for writing (which is my area) I think you should at least write the practice essays on the PowerPrep tests, because after you do, you get to look at sample graded essays on that same topic, and this will give you a sense of the formula they are looking for. I too am an SAT/ACT tutor, so I'm sure you know what usually kills people on these is trying to be too creative, and not following the standard structure the graders are trained to look for.
Good luck!
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Factors are defined as being elemts of |N, so, they cannot be negative. Problem solved ;)
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Perfect; thank you. That helps a lot. So the 2 and the fact that most of them are divisible by 2 is the trick there. I feel a lot better now.
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Another trick is to come up with computationally easy examples. The easiest one I can think of is 10,000 - 1 = 9,999. Remember that a number is divisible by 9 if the sum of its digits is divisible by 9.
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Having one end of the number even and the other odd (1xxx2, 4xxx7) will always result in an odd number. Odd numbers are not divisible by even numbers, so 9 must be the correct answer. Simple.
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