10 Tricks To Ace Your Quantitative Aptitude Test

10 Tricks To Ace Your Quantitative Aptitude Test
10 Tricks To Ace Your Quantitative Aptitude Test

Introduction

A quantitative aptitude test is the most common way to test the aptitude and thinking ability of a candidate. It is widely used by various examinations starting from engineering to management to government exams. Do you too want to excel in any of these examinations and get a head start for your preparation? Then, this is the perfect place for you. In this article, we will be discussing the preparation strategy and important tips.

Quantitative aptitude mostly involves playing with numbers and mathematical concepts. Most of the questions are based on school maths and with a bit of observation and logic can be easily solved. The main focus comes in solving more problems in less time.

Any examination preparation requires hard work and consistency. Whatever tips will be provided below is the most effective with dedication and consistency. Let’s see the 10 most important tips and tricks for acing a quantitative test.


1. Basic Maths: Practise a lot of basic mathematics questions from some of the following chapters –

  • Divisibility tests
  • Number system
  • Sum, arithmetic progressions, geometric progressions
  • LCM, HCF

2. Difficult Problem Practise: Always try to solve difficult problems, problems with a higher difficulty than actual examination. This will boost your confidence and also train you to be observant and efficient while solving problems.

3. Percentage Trick: Solving questions in less time is the key to score high in this section. For e.g., the most common type of problem is like find 77% of 64. Now, most often you will do 77/100*64 and try to cut the even number and factorise but this will take a huge time. We know 100% of 64 = 64, 50% of 64 = 32, 25% of 64 = 16, so we can say 75% of 64 = 32+16 = 48. Now, we are left with 2%, 0.02*64 = 1.28 is much easier to calculate hence our answer becomes 48+1.28 = 49.28! Isn’t that faster? Ah! Do this with few questions and you will get the hang of it.

4. Profit and Loss: In profit and Loss type of problems we often get a situation of multiplying like 45*(1+12/100) for some 12% profit you can directly multiply your amount with 1.12. This will save a lot of time and reduce any chances of mistake.

5. Train Relative Speed: For types of problems of train cross bridges or persons, always remember to directly add the trains speed and outside person’s speed if they are moving in opposite directions and subtract if in same direction and then calculate the time of crossing with this relative speed.

6. Square Foot: Find the square root of unknown numbers can be quite hectic but you can use this trip below suppose your number is 2209 so Since 9 is the units digit of the given number, the unit number can be 3^2= 9 or 7^2=9. The given number approximately fall between 402=1600 and 502=2500. So, 2209 is either 43 or 47 452 = 2025. From this, we can say 2209 is greater than 2025, thus the answer is 47.

7. Resources: Pick up any free site and practise questions regularly every day. Set targets and time. Always try to time your solution making capability to keep a check on your progress.

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8. Rare Topics: Some of the not much common but important topics include mixtures and allegations, pipes and cistern. These might not be included in many tests but are quite important in terms of CAT and government type of examinations.

9. Time & Work Problems: They are quite common and can take a major amount of your exam time so be sure to practise a lot of such problems. Keep the formula w1m1/d1=w2m2/d2 handy, where w is the amount of work, m is the number of men, d is the number of days to complete. This formula helps to calculate the answer much faster and efficiently.

10. Permutation Combination Problems: Permutation and Combinations can be quite scary in these examinations. Personally, I feel a stronghold on this subject is very necessary to actually perform well in this section. You can start practising questions from this section through any textbook of secondary or college level and start building confidence. 

Apart from this R.S. Agarwal‘s book for aptitude practice is considered quite the best for getting confidence and stronghold on every such topic necessary. You can also check out Aptitude preparation from our Coding Ninjas site for an organized curriculum for the same.

Did you know IBM has asked lots of aptitude questions in the iPAT exam?

Frequently Asked Questions

How difficult is it to learn?

Aptitude is quite easy when you practise a lot. Questions in this section are quite easy but the main competition comes in time management. So, practise a lot to do problems efficiently.

How to manage time if I am stuck in a single question?

Never stay put to one question, give a maximum of one minute to solve a question, if you can not solve it, move to the next and revisit the question if you have extra time in the end.

Can I guess the answer?

Well, most of the times the options are write easy to distinguish, in that case, you might try to eliminate options and get the right answer, but guessing the answer might cost you if there is negative marking for wrong answers.

Which book to follow or any resources?

I personally will suggest R.S. Agarwal.

Conclusion

Quantitative aptitude test is mostly taken with other aptitude tests to test the logical and quantitative thinking ability of a candidate. Most of the companies prefer to shortlist for the next rounds by using this aptitude test, so it becomes quite important to have a decent grasp of this section to get shortlisted.

Hope this article helps you to strategise your preparation for the aptitude test and also helps you to perform well in this section.

By Aniruddha Guin