GMAT Math Fundamentals

December 01, 2008

For many people, the breadth of the GMAT Quantitative section is disconcerting. With so many topics to learn, where do you start?

One way to approach that question is to start with a list of GMAT math topics, and then pick out some content areas that are most fundamentals. One such list is the Table of Contents to my Total GMAT Math.

Here is a list of what I consider the most fundamental GMAT math topics. These aren't necessarily the most important, but they are the ones that are important to learn first. For instance, you won't see a lot of questions on the GMAT that explicitly test your ability to simplify expressions, but if you can't simplify expressions, you'll have serious problems with many other more challenging topics.

Ten Fundamental GMAT Math Topics

• Fractions
• Simplifying Expressions
• Linear Equations
• Exponents
• Right Triangles
• Circles
• Ratios
• Rates
• Multiples
• Averages

GMAT Building Blocks

These are, essentially, the building blocks of GMAT math success. You might see more Weighted Average questions than Average questions, but you won't understand Weighted Average very well until you can handle conventional Average problems.

The same thing applies to Work (simultaneous rate), a topic that comes up on the test all the time. If you don't have a firm grasp of Rate problems, forget about understanding Work.

When you've mastered these topics (perhaps with the help of the relevant chapters in Total GMAT Math), you can move on to the topics you're most likely to encounter on the test. I've summarized those in a previous article.

About the author: Jeff Sackmann is a GMAT tutor based in New York City. He has created many resources for GMAT preparation, including the popular Total GMAT Math and Total GMAT Verbal, as well as 1,800 practice GMAT math questions.

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