Should I take GMAT again after taking a few months off from studying?

Hello, ericjones130. You ask some good questions. I will give you my honest feedback from the perspective of a tutor, one who has worked with clients in similar situations and witnessed various outcomes. My in-line responses below.

Several students have come to me after earning a pretty fair score--in fact, one I can think of off the top of my head earned the same total score as you in her first attempt--but have then seen a drop in subsequent attempts to raise it and have hit the panic button to get their scores up. I suspect the students would choose to have another go if they could do it over again--nothing lost, nothing gained, right? We humans have this nagging What if? thought that enters our mind and refuses to bow out, especially if circumstances do not go as planned. Say you applied to a top-tier school and did not get in. Would you be able to silence that voice in the back of your own mind that would question whether the outcome would have gone differently, perhaps, if... ?

The hardest thing to do will be to gain and maintain the same sort of momentum you had attained the first time around. You will have to find unexplored avenues to become sharper at different question types and content areas, whether this means trying a new study guide, attempting different questions that you had not completed before from the OG or the Verbal or Quantitative review, or, when reviewing past missed questions, seeing if you can get to the bottom of how each question is put together, as well as how each potential response can be deconstructed. It looks to me as if your Quant performance stands to gain more in a shorter period of time. A 45 is by no means poor in the area, but you can systematically attack the concepts and practice new questions and probably see that number rise within a couple weeks. Had you maxed out your potential for that section the first time around, or did you feel as though you could have pushed a little higher? Did you check out this post by Bunuel, for instance?

Keep in mind what it took for you to reach a 710 in the first place. You do lose test-sharpness after inactivity, so you will have to regain it by putting in just as much effort as you had initially. As I said above, keeping yourself engaged with the material will be key, rather than saying to yourself that you know something, you will get it on the test, and so on without full dedication and practice. Many test-takers see their hard-earned scores go down because they take things for granted.

Sure thing. Good luck to you with your studies. Please let the community know a bit later how this all turns out.

- Andrew