Balancing Quant Foundations and Strategy

GRE Quant Problem Solving
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Q1. What’s the most effective way to maintain remembrance of all the foundational topics (and sub-topics) while also getting sufficient practice with the 15+ quant strategies?

  • Option 1: Choose one of the 15+ strategies at a time and complete a set of questions using only that strategy for an hour everyday, skipping any questions that can’t be solved with it

  • Option 2: For each question, use the strategy that seems most appropriate and then apply any other strategies that can work
    One concern is that this might be less effective (and too cumbersome), since it doesn’t allow for extended practice with a single strategy.

  • Option 3: Something else?

I plan to do the Quant Mountain every day before starting this practice

Q2. How do we know that we have done enough practice with a particular strategy?

  • Is there a benchmark, such getting an accuracy of 90%+ in Easy, 80%+ in Medium, and 60%+ in Hard Questions for each topic and sub-topic?
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option 1 sounds pretty good, but keep in mind some strategies are more rare so it’s harder to drill them. The key strategies to drill are making deductions, choosing numbers, backsolving, and the QC strategies - maybe 10-15 questions each is a good start, but more as time allows.

For the others, you might use ChatGPT to create similar questions based on the example questions in the strategy video quizzes.

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Most people neglect strategies entirely, so if you’re spending dedicated time on nothing BUT strategies, you’re still way ahead of the curve. The way you go about that practice can be somewhat experimental. By devoting an hour to it a day, you’ll start getting into a strategy rhythm and discover what’s working for you and what’s not. Vince makes a good point – not all strategies are equal. Make sure you’re not overpracticing the more niche ones.

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