Just an update, in case anyone is in a similar boat as I am
I picked up Jeff Sackmann's
Total Gmat Math and really am getting a lot out of it. I just finished the book today. Considering I bought it almost two months ago (2/4) - I feel that I've made a lot of progress.
How I went through this book:
One section at a time. This book is broken up into 2-3 page sections which makes it really easy to navigate. You go from concept to concept and he gives you drills followed by GMAT-like problems, sometimes followed by even tougher "Challenge" problems. I'd read the section, do the drill problems - mark those, see if I needed to study further before proceeding to Practice/Challenge problems. If not, I'd proceed. From there I'd mark off any problems I either got incorrect or felt I could improve upon (any problem where I found myself taking up more than half the page with scratchwork or taking longer than 2-3 minutes to solve).
Once I went through each section, I'd go back to the beginning and attempt the problems I got wrong once again. Re-marking them a different color if I had further trouble. I'm now on my third go-over and I'm not running into too many problems I don't know how to solve. I'm not worried about the whole "remembering the answer" thing either because I've put enough time in between retries and I've also been trying to do some problems from other sources. After this final go-through, I'm going to know exactly what question types are my weakest points and I will go over those concepts in greater detail to nail them down.
I don't really know the difficulty level of the questions in Jeff's book - I started the book with a 40-41Q score and I feel a bit more confident after going through his book, but I don't know the exact level I should be performing upon mastery of the concepts explained in the book. This is just step one to a higher quant score, I am going to re-do my
MGMAT books next.
Anyway - for those of you who are like me and started out pretty weak in Quant - I recommend this resource. I wish I had this when I started and I hope I'm saying that even more unequivocally after I take my final GMAT.
I'll try to post some more updates along the way.
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"You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you." - Walt Disney
Going to be hitting the books again. Decided that I'd like a 700+ score. Not looking forward to spending the next few months studying, though!
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