TEST THE ANSWERS Before You Touch the Algebra

Here's a scene I watch play out every single week. A smart, busy professional opens a Quant question about splitting a dinner bill. She reads it, grabs her pen and writes "let x be the number of people." Three minutes later she has fractions stacked on fractions, a quadratic she hasn't factored since high school, and a sinking feeling in her stomach. And the whole time, the correct answer was sitting right there on the screen. It was one of five choices. She never looked at them.

So here's my blunt verdict. On Executive Assessment Quant, when the answer choices are numbers, you should think about TESTING THE ANSWERS before you write a single variable. Not as a backup plan. As the FIRST plan.

Why the answer choices are a gift

The Executive Assessment gives you 14 Quant questions in 30 minutes. That's a little over 2 minutes per question, on average. Those questions come in two types. Problem Solving is a regular math question with five answer choices. Data Sufficiency asks whether you have ENOUGH information to answer a question (more on that below). The section is adaptive section by section, which means how you do early on shapes how hard the later questions get. And Quant is one of three sections that count the same toward your total score of 100 to 200, according to GMAC's page on the test structure. A third of your score lives here.

Now stop and think about what a Problem Solving question really is. The test hands you five possible answers and promises that exactly one of them works. Algebra asks you to BUILD the answer from nothing. Testing the answers asks you to CHECK five candidates. Which is easier: building a key from scratch, or trying five keys in a lock?

Checking is almost always easier. It also leaves fewer places to make a silly mistake, and silly mistakes (not 'hard' questions) are where most lost points actually live. There's a bonus, too. When the choices run in order from small to large, you can start in the middle. If the middle choice is too big, everything above it is too big as well. One test can knock out three choices.

How to do it WELL: 5 mistakes I see every week

Testing the answers is simple. That doesn't mean people do it right. Here's where they go wrong.

1. Starting with (A) and grinding down the list. If the answer is (E), you just did five checks. INSTEAD: start with the middle choice, or with whichever choice is easiest to compute. Then let the result tell you which way to go.
2. Testing in your head. "240 over 7 is... something... close enough." That's how a 10 becomes a 12. INSTEAD: one line per choice on your paper: the choice, the result, a check or an X. Your notes ARE the work.
3. Forgetting what the choices stand for. You plug 6 in as the NEW group and everything falls apart. INSTEAD: before you test anything, write what the answer represents ("original group = ?"). Then drop each choice into exactly that spot.
4. Forcing it when the choices are variables. If the choices look like "3x + 2" you can't plug them in directly. INSTEAD: pick your own simple numbers for the variables, find the target, then see which choice hits it. Same idea, different door.
5. Refusing because it feels like 'cheating'. This one is pride, plain and simple. Some people think the 'real' way is the algebra way. INSTEAD: decide what you want MORE: a higher Quant score, or to feel like a mathematician. The test pays for correct answers, not elegant ones.

"Could be" questions: stop the moment one works

Some questions ask which choice COULD be true. These are made for testing. You don't need the full solution. You need ONE choice that survives.

What about Data Sufficiency?

Data Sufficiency is different. You get a question and two facts, and the five answer choices are always the same: Fact 1 alone is enough, Fact 2 alone is enough, you need both together, either one alone is enough, or even both together aren't enough. There are no numbers to plug in. But the same instinct applies. You're not there to find THE answer. You're there to decide whether you COULD find it, which is why you should stop solving Data Sufficiency questions and start judging them. Plugging in your own numbers to see if the answer can change is the DS cousin of everything above.

When algebra wins

Testing the answers is not a religion. If a question says 2x + 6 = 20, just solve it. That's one step, and testing would be slower. The rule isn't "never use algebra." The rule is: before you start, take two seconds to look at the choices and ask which route has FEWER steps and FEWER places to slip. Strong math students often plateau because they never ask that question. They stay mathematicians when the test rewards strategists.

And if your algebra is rusty after years away from school? That's not a disaster. Testing the answers mostly needs arithmetic you already use at work every day. It's a way to score points NOW while you train everything else.

Here's your challenge for today. Pull up five Problem Solving questions you've already answered correctly with algebra. Redo each one by testing the answers, with a timer running and every step on paper. Write both times side by side. I'll bet at least two of them come out faster the second way. Then ask yourself why you weren't doing that already.