Jumping back in after a month hiatus, advice?

Question

Thanks in advance for the advice!

I studied for 3 months, first took a Kaplan class, and after completing all of their material I didn't find it sufficient to get the 700+ score I'm aiming for. So I got Manhattan GMAT books and worked with a tutor for the last month before my test. I was expecting approximately a 680 on the test and got a 620. I did worse on both quant and verbal than expected. I usually get in the 85%ile on verbal, so math is my big problem. On the actual exam I got 48th%ile!

I took a month break to do applications and now have to dive back into my test prep so I can retake it in a month. I started doing math problems yesterday and found that I was quite rusty after just a month.

Does anyone have advice has how to address rusty skills? 
Is it better that I embrace the rustiness and just start at the beginning with my Manhattan GMAT books so to try to take care of the holes I must have in math?

Thank you so much for the help!

Hussain15 · Answer

Hey, quasarpks welcome to the club!

Can you kindly share with us your scores in practice CATs & also the details that how many CATs did you take during your preparation?

To grab the fundamental Quantitative skills, you need to go through a book covering basic concepts. There are many in the market but you can also check the details here. best-gmat-math-prep-books-reviews-recommendations-77291.html There are foundation books from Kaplan & MGMAT.

Also do go through this link for devise a retake strategy should-i-retake-gmat-thread-retaking-gmat-strategies-83339.html

Best of luck & keep us posted.

quasarpks · Answer

Thanks so much! So another piece of info I should share is that I have been granted extended time (time + 1/2) for the test.
This is a list of my tests. 1st half and final practice taken w/o extra time:

9/30/10 Kaplan Diagnostic test- Overall: 250 (Quant 4%ile completed 17 q's/ Verbal 23%ile completed 25 q's) (No extended time)
10/05/10 Kaplan CAT 2- Overall: 560 (Quant 42%ile completed 27 q's/ Verbal 53%ile completed 34 q's) (No extended time)
10/13/10 Kaplan CAT 3- Overall: 410 (Quant 15%ile completed 17 q's/ Verbal 27%ile 28 q's) (No extended time)
10/17/10 Kaplan CAT 4- Overall: 400 (Quant 13%ile completed 19/ Verbal 29%ile completed 25) (No extended time)
10/26/10 Kaplan CAT 5- Overall: 510 (Quant 31%ile completed 23/ Verbal 29%ile completed 33) (With 50% Extra time)
11/5/10 GMATPrep 1- Overal: 630 (I clicked past the score screen! so I don't know breakdown) (Q answered 37/17 wrong/ V 35 answered 10 wrong) (with 50% extra time)
11/8/10 Manhattan GMAT CAT 1- Overall: 540 (Q 35% completed 28/ V69% completed 39) (with 50% extra time)
11/28/10 Manhattan GMAT CAT 20- Overall:630 (Q 48% completed 29/ V 89% completed 41) (With 50% extra time)
12/09/10 Kaplan CAT 6 taken at Pearson- Overall:570 (Q 46% completed 28/ V 53% completed 26) (NO EXTENDED TIME)

12/13/10 GMAT- Overall: 620 (Q 48%/ V 83%) (50% extra time)

I had a serious timing problem in the practice tests that I didn't nail until the final practice test (I was on pace if the test had been the extended time I would get on the actual exam). My scores took a major nose dive when I didn't finished the test, and based on the Manhattan GMAT percentile assessment after the end of each question, it seemed that I would score in the upper 600's/ lower 700s if I got my timing down. However, when I took the exam, I didn't time out and I got the 620.

Now after completing applications the past month I am able to dive back into studying and I was expecting my skills not to have atrophied as much as they did. I want to be as effective as possible these few weeks I have before I retake the exam!

Does anyone have a good strategy for busting through rusty skills so I can get back up to pace and improve my problem areas?

Thanks so very much!

Hussain15 · Answer

As discussed above you may go through the foundation books mentioned in my post. Your only problem is Quant section. GMAT Math Book gmat-math-book-87417.html will also help you alot in developing the key concepts. Just give it a try, its a free resource from gmatclub.

Best of luck.

quasarpks · Answer

Thanks so much for your thoughts on this.

In case someone in the future has my same question of how to best break through rust after a GMAT hiatus, I found the following to be effective:

To warm up, I did the first 25 problems or so in the GMAT Quant book. They are easy, and help turn your test taking brain back on. 
Since math is more my weakness, I went back to the beginning of my math books, and practiced the foundations/ fundamentals that are the building blocks. Since I use Manhattan GMAT, I reread the Number Properties books and did the problems again. This helped me remember concepts and brought them to the forefront of my brain. It was helpful to revisit this book since it was one of the first things I tackled my first try at the test. I also did some of the chapters from the Foundations of GMAT Math book in which I thought I could use more practice. Although the Foundations book is conceptually more basic than I need, I found that the long problem sets were very good at helping me get quicker at manipulating numbers and performing operations. 
I have been working my way through the books again, and after about a week, I feel like the rust is gone.

I'll write a entry about how I nailed my retake when I take the test in two weeks. This is just my brief strategy to get rid of the rust.

Happy studying!

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Jumping back in after a month hiatus, advice?

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