The GRE General test is often the first step on a journey to graduate and, in recent years, professional school, as the exam is now accepted for admissions to both MBA programs and law school. Overall, the exam features questions which reflect the type of thinking you’ll do in graduate school.

Today, we’ll be focusing on a sample problem from the Quantitative Reasoning section of the exam. The Quantitative Reasoning section assesses how well you comprehend, interpret and analyze quantitative information. You’ll solve problems utilizing basic math concepts, algebra, geometry and data analysis. To learn about this section direct from ETS, click here.

In the video below, we’ll be discussing how to solve a Quantitative Comparisons Geometry question, in which you are provided with 2 quantities (A & B) and a figure, your job is to determine which quantity is greater, if they are equal or if the relationship can’t be determined.

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To summarize the video, with quantitative comparison questions, again, you are provided with 2 quantities (A & B) and a figure, your job is to determine which quantity is greater, if they are equal or if the relationship can’t be determined.

Here is a four step process for approaching these types of questions:

1. Always begin by setting up your scratch paper, write out any quantities given.
2. Remember, you only know what is written and provided to you in comparison, not how the Plane Geometry figures are drawn. Meaning, you only absolutely know what is written, not what appears to be true.
3. Don’t assume that figures are drawn to scale. Just because one figure appears larger, or one line appears longer this doesn’t necessarily mean that it is.
4. Consider methods for skewing the figure that change the outcome between the quantities, but does not violate the written restrictions. For example, in this video Stefan moves one of the lines in the figure thus changing the shape of the figure and the distance between each point. This ultimately affects the relationship in question, helping him determine the answer is D: it is not possible to determine which of the given quantities is bigger (because it can be manipulated, causing various outcomes.)

The above approach should lead to more success answering GRE quantitative comparison questions.

About the Authors

Stefan Maisnier is the Director of Online instruction as well as an expert online GRE tutor.