Of course, a facile discussion of this topic might say —- the most common GMAT Verbal questions are Reading Comprehension, Sentence Correction, and Critical Reasoning — those three questions are the only questions you see on the Verbal section. Similarly, all you see on GMAT Quant are Problem Solving and Data Interpretation. If you are not familiar with this general format, it’s vitally important to learn the variations and strategies for each of these five question types. In fact, it’s important to be familiar with the format of the GMAT and how long the test is overall.
Most folks, though, know all this already. Yes, the GMAT Quant section will be split between PS & DS questions, but given that format, what is the GMAT likely to ask? That’s the real question.
Most Common GMAT Questions – Quantitative
The same mix of topics show up on both the PS and the DS — those two question formats do not discriminate in any meaningful way as to mathematical concepts tested.
At Magoosh, we did an analysis of the frequency of GMAT Quant concepts in various official materials. Here are the headlines.
The big granddaddy topic is Number Properties, especially Properties of Integers — that one topic (actually, it’s a zoo of interrelated topics!) accounts for 10% – 15% of all math questions you see on the GMAT.
Another extremely frequent topic is percents (including interest & discounts) — which certainly makes sense for a test designed for folks going into business!
Other heavy hitters include (a) statistics, (b) two equations with two unknowns, (c) rate questions, (d) fractions, (e) exponents & powers, and (f) coordinate geometry. Together, those are the most common GMAT Quant questions.
A couple more quick facts: of course, you should know that there is no calculator on the GMAT Quantitative section. This means, regardless of topic, you need to practice your mental math skills, including estimation, divisibility tricks, and the doubling & halving trick. Those are some of the most common skills you will need when answering GMAT Quantitative questions. It’s also important to know how to study for GMAT math.
Most Common GMAT Questions – Verbal
Here, the most common topics vary by question format, so I will discuss the three formats separately.
Reading Comprehension: by far, the most common GMAT RC question is the “main idea/ author’s purpose” question. The most important skill is being able to distill the main purpose both the whole passage and of any paragraph in the passage. Another very important RC skill is knowing how to infer from the passage what is not explicitly stated.
Critical Reasoning: the three most common GMAT CR questions are the “weaken the argument” question, the “strengthen the argument” question, and the “find the assumption” question. Those three are well over 50% of the CR section right there. One crucial skill on the CR section is simply learning to distinguish the CR question types.
Sentence Correction: The two biggest categories for GMAT SC questions are “Logical Predication” and “Rhetorical Construction.” “Logical Predication” has to do with the logical implications of the word order — misplaced modifiers, and the subtle shift in meaning we get between, say, “not almost a hundred” vs. “almost not a hundred“. Not completely different, “Rhetorical Construction” is about language that is direct, clear, and powerful, avoiding anything awkward or ambiguous or too wordy. Together, these two are concerned with how well-crafted a sentence is. Yes, you have to know correct grammar to craft a sentence artfully, but the focus is really at a higher level than the grammar per se. Good grammar is the “clay”, the raw material, from which a cogent sentence is skillfully constructed.
Another very common GMAT SC question type concerns parallelism, another “higher level” concept. Virtually any grammatical forms can be put into parallel, but the GMAT of course loves putting long complicated forms in parallel, such as participial phrase, gerunds, and infinitive phases. The GMAT SC also loves comparisons, a special case of parallelism.
Finally, another common GMAT SC question type concerns idioms. Yes, Virginia, the GMAT does ask about idioms. Here, we don’t mean “idioms” in the sense of colorful metaphorical expressions (“scarcer than hen’s teeth“, “up the river“, “in a pickle“), but rather, the unique combinations of words that “sound right” — matching the right preposition to a verb, or knowing which verbs require infinitives, or phrasing a comparison the right way, etc.
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