GRE Prep – Math Primer

Quantitative GRE

According to the official GRE prep materials “the quantitative section measures your basic mathematical skills, your understanding of elementary mathematical concepts, and your ability to reason quantitatively and solve problems in a quantitative setting.” Well that clears it all up right? You now know exactly what to expect from the quantitative GRE? Right.

If you are anything like me I read this and think sure I can do “basic” math—that’s adding, subtracting and multiplying right? As for “elementary mathematical concepts” that’s more of the same…? Really this is exactly what ran through my head the first time I was preparing for the GRE. I was in for a surprise.  Well perhaps surprise isn’t the right term. Shock might be a better word choice.

I was a political science major, as such I hadn’t sat through an actual math class for at least 5 years prior to taking the GRE, and to be quite honest math was never a strong suit of mine anyway. I sat down at my first practice GRE and encountered this symbol n!. Now for those of you that remember what this means more power to you. Unfortunately I did not. I realized that ETS’ version of elementary and my version of elementary might, in fact, be slightly different. I was thinking elementary as in school, and they were thinking elementary as in “my dear Watson.”

To help you avoid the same unpleasant surprise when you go to tackle the GRE quantitative, I’ve put together a brief overview of the kind of concepts and types of questions you can expect.

The major concepts covered will be:

Arithmetic – including knowledge of integers, order of operations, powers, radical expressions, estimation, percentages, absolute value, and number lines.

Algebra – including factoring, simplifying expression, exponents, understanding concepts of relations and functions, inequalities, linear and quadratic equations, solving simultaneous equations, setting up equations to solve word problems, coordinate geometry (slope, intercepts, and graphing equations and inequalities).

Geometry – Including parallel lines, circles, triangles (isosceles, equilateral, 30-60-90), rectangles, polygons, area, perimeter, volume, angle measure, Pythagorean Theorem.

Data Analysis–including probability, statistics (mean, median, mode, range, standard deviation, percentiles) interpretation of data in graphs (line, bar, circle, frequency distributions) and tables.

Symbols You Should Know:

IxI

m II n

n!

x < y

x≠ y

√x

About Numbers:

• All numbers used are real numbers.

About Figures:

• The positions of points, angles, regions, etc., can be assumed to be in the order shown
• A line shown as straight can be assumed to be straight
• Figures lie in a plane unless otherwise indicated
• Do not assume figures are drawn to scale unless stated