Poor Math Knowledge and QR

[Murl]

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So my math skills are extremely poor, I understand very little about math other than solving for X. I have been doing the DAT Destroyer QR section and I may get 50% of them right if I am lucky. I have Crack Dat math and I do worse on it, plus the explanations suck. There are 40 questions and 45 minutes to do them, I can't finish the test in under two hours with math books and even get 60% of them right. Is there any hope? Do you guys rec. any other resources? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[oviedolion]

dude dont feel bad im the same way. Ive been doing cdm and even tho the explanations suck im finding it very helpful. Ive done 5 tests on it and it has brought my grade up from a 12 to 18. so just dont give up and keep practicing.

 

[Murl]

dude dont feel bad im the same way. Ive been doing cdm and even tho the explanations suck im finding it very helpful. Ive done 5 tests on it and it has brought my grade up from a 12 to 18. so just dont give up and keep practicing.

I am so ******ed when it comes to math, I'm glad I'm not the only one. Are you just disabling the timer and completing the entire test? I feel like I should work through some no matter how long it takes.

 

[nze82]

First of all, I'm not the best person to give out any advice regarding QR since I got a 17 myself.
However, this is the way I see it...
Doing well on the QR section of the DAT has very little to do with your knowledge of mathematics; it's more about time management. I've taken many math classes throughout my college career and I never earned anything lower than B+. However, I can only do math, when I'm given enough time to think. That's why I struggled with the QR section of the DAT, where time is scarce.
So, what is my time management advice?
Don't waste more than a minute on any question. If you come across a word question that will take you just 30 seconds to read it and 20 seconds to think about how you'd go about solving it, then you need to move on. Just pick an answer (so you won't leave anything blank), mark it, and move on. Like you said, you're good at solving for X😉, so try to answer the questions that you think you can answer correctly first. If you have time at the end, go back and focus on the marked questions.
Keep in mind that there are 40 math questions, so you can miss 6-7 questions and still end up with score in the 19's.
Finally, remember that QR is the least significant individual score. In other words, many students will do poorly in this section, which is why it wouldn't affect your application significantly, as long as you get a 17+.
However, by no means, does this mean you should ignore this section and not study for it. Like I said, try to see which types of questions your more comfortable answering, when you're practicing. This way you'll know which questions to answer first during your real exam.

 

[Murl]

That would be great, but at this point I will ending skipping over half and just guessing if I can't come up with an answer. Right now doing practice questions, when I sit down to think about a question for >5min I still only get less than 50% correct.

 

[ethanyoo726]

Hey again Murl.

Stop timing yourself. Yes I said it. Stop. What is the point in trying to time yourself on a subject that you don't really have a good grasp on? You just stress yourself out and don't really learn. Speed comes with KNOWING how to solve problems, right?

I highly recommend going through Destroyer QR, TopScore QR, and Crack DAT QR without a timer and try to solve each question. Attempt the ones you don't know and if you can't solve it, mark it, guess, and move on. Then afterwards, figure out which subsections of math you are seriously struggling on. And then take each of those subjects one by one use the internet, Kaplan, or whatever math resources to help explain it to you. Seriously analyze each step on how to approach those problems. And then do practice problems for that subject using what you learned. Then go through each problem.

My weakness is stats/probabilities. I hate it. So I used the internet to help explain some concepts on combinations and permutations. Then I went through TopScore, Achiever and Destroyer to help me with stats. If I still got it wrong, I tried to commit the problem and the steps to solve it to memory. And sure enough, when I came across another problem very similar in wording to it, I just used what I learned from my mistakes. Got better at stats.

I'm not saying you'll be perfect (you might), but you'll definitely score better. Post problems on the forum to have others help you.

You got this Murl.

 

[Murl]

Hey again Murl.

Stop timing yourself. Yes I said it. Stop. What is the point in trying to time yourself on a subject that you don't really have a good grasp on? You just stress yourself out and don't really learn. Speed comes with KNOWING how to solve problems, right?

I highly recommend going through Destroyer QR, TopScore QR, and Crack DAT QR without a timer and try to solve each question. Attempt the ones you don't know and if you can't solve it, mark it, guess, and move on. Then afterwards, figure out which subsections of math you are seriously struggling on. And then take each of those subjects one by one use the internet, Kaplan, or whatever math resources to help explain it to you. Seriously analyze each step on how to approach those problems. And then do practice problems for that subject using what you learned. Then go through each problem.

My weakness is stats/probabilities. I hate it. So I used the internet to help explain some concepts on combinations and permutations. Then I went through TopScore, Achiever and Destroyer to help me with stats. If I still got it wrong, I tried to commit the problem and the steps to solve it to memory. And sure enough, when I came across another problem very similar in wording to it, I just used what I learned from my mistakes. Got better at stats.

I'm not saying you'll be perfect (you might), but you'll definitely score better. Post problems on the forum to have others help you.

You got this Murl.

Got it, I read about permutations yesterday, the artical cleared it up a little. I guess I just need to do tons and tons of practice.

Would you guys rec. only doing math for a week or should I do other stuff too. I have been doing a subject about every two days. I did well on the Gen Chem destroyer and really well on the org section. I try to read some biology every night before bed.