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GRE Coordinate Geometry Practice Question of the Week #35 Answer

By on January 24, 2012 in Challenge Questions, Coordinate Geometry, Geometry, Math Concepts, Practice Question of the Week

Here’s the answer to yesterday’s practice question! Thanks for commenting with your answers!

Video Explanation

About the Author

Margarette graduated from UC Berkeley as a double major in English Literature and Linguistics. She has been teaching for large companies and tutoring privately for more than 5 years.

6 Responses to GRE Coordinate Geometry Practice Question of the Week #35 Answer

  1. Nikhil April 19, 2012 at 10:22 am #

    To save more time, don’t solve for “a”.
    Equate 4a-5=2a+6
    and obtain 2a= 11, meaning 4a-5 = 2(2a)-5 =2(11)-5 =17
    and 2a+1 which is the height of the triangle, 11+1= 12.
    Thus area =0.5 (17) (11) =102.

    If you find that a=5.5 and then substitute that value, it will take a little more time.

    I find math quite difficult. Verbal on the other hand is quite easy.

    Reply
    • Nikhil April 19, 2012 at 10:23 am #

      My apologies, I mistyped.
      Thus area =0.5 (17) (12) =102.

      Reply
      • Chris April 19, 2012 at 12:00 pm #

        Thanks for catching that :) .

        Reply
    • Chris April 19, 2012 at 11:59 am #

      Great job finding a quicker way to do the problem. With such facility in math, you must have quite formidable verbal skills :) .

      Reply
      • Nikhil April 19, 2012 at 10:18 pm #

        Thank you for the compliment! The last time I took the GRE I scored a 620/800 on verbal. I’m actually lucky that I got a real head start when it came to verbal skills. I am a voracious reader and I used to love essays even as a child. So when you suggested Best American Essays, I was taken aback because that was exactly the same book I was reading on my Kindle! Also, might I recommend Arguably, by Christopher Hitchens? It’s a wonderful collection of essays and critiques and should prime the brain for the tough RCs.

        I have one question for you, Chris. Can you recommend a book available on the market that has practice questions equivalent to the “tough” Quant questions on the revised GRE? I’m asking because none of your book reviews revealed an answer to the question :D . I’m using Barrons and Grubers just for refreshing my basics. I’m a biology major, but thankfully I still remember most of the Quants syllabus.

        Reply
        • Chris April 20, 2012 at 10:04 pm #

          Hi Nikhil,

          Wow, that’s quite uncanny that you happened to be reading The Best American Essay Series. For more synchronicity, I actually just picked up a used version of the Best of Essay Series edited by Christopher Hitchens (I already excerpted an essay from that book as a blog post. It just went live today).

          So thanks for the recommendation on Hitchens. In general his prose is as erudite as it is labyrinthine. And for those who need practice with literature-based RC, it doesn’t get much better than HItchens.

          Anyhow, for tough quant questions Nova’s is very good – except for the fact that they haven’t updated their material to reflect the changes to the GRE.

          In the non-book based department, most are users say that Magoosh’s product (gre.magoosh.com) has the toughest questions – indeed they are tougher than the ones on the exam.

          I hope you find that helpful, and thanks again for the recommendation :) .

          Reply

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