First mock: 485(Q66, V82, DI74). Realistic to hit 630-680 in ~2 months

Question

Took my first mock with zero prep and got  485 (Q66, V82, DI74) , 21st percentile. 
 
The split is lopsided: Verbal is fine (74th percentile), DI is okay, but Quant is at the 5th. I haven’t touched math in ~6 years, so no surprise there. I was decent at it in school though and think I can pick the fundamentals back up quickly. 
 Test is in ~2 months. First month I can do 2-3h/day, final month full-time. I have the Official Guides, the full Manhattan set, and plan to use GMAT Ninja and e-GMAT. 
 
Questions: 
 1. Since basically all my deficit is Quant, is 630-680 realistic here or should I aim lower for a first attempt? 
2. Go all-in on Quant fundamentals first, or keep all three sections in rotation from day one?

kingbucky · Answer

Hello !
That's a fine start. Now, did you leave the Quant section or any other section incomplete ? GMAT penalizes incomplete sections heavily. Now, assuming that you completed all the sections within the allocated time, your Quant score is a major red flag. But, you can still manage it decently and improve your overall score with Verbal and DI(which also has heavy math part). Before choosing the source. Once take TTP's 5 day trial and see if it aligns with your study style.

And keep all three sections or atleast 2 sections per day. But keep track of your Quant skills, closely observe if youre improving or not. With sheer hard work and well defined plan you can definitely achieve your target score. You can keep this thread updated with your progress, so that others too can comment and guide you.

All the best for your test !

MistyRide · Answer

630-680 from a 485 base in two months is realistic, but only if the Quant work is the right kind. Q66 usually isn't a "learn harder concepts" problem, it's a fundamentals-and-fluency problem: the easy and medium questions are eating your clock, so you never build momentum. Fixing that moves the score more than any hard-question technique at this stage.

On your actual question, don't go exclusively Quant. V82 and DI74 will quietly decay if you drop them for weeks, and clawing them back later costs you more than you'd save. I'd weight it maybe 60% Quant, but touch verbal and DI every few days to hold the line.

For the Quant itself: separate "I don't know how to do this" from "I know how but I'm slow." They need opposite fixes. The first is concept review. The second is just reps on the specific operation until it's automatic, and it's usually the bigger hidden cost at the Q66 level. Diagnose which one you're actually hitting before you pour time into either.

AdarshSambare · Answer

Keep all three sections in rotation from day one, check out Aditya kumar video on Youtube.

Edskore · Answer

Q66 with six years of rust is honestly one of the more fixable profiles, so I wouldn't panic about the ceiling. What I'd actually watch for is the exact thing MistyRide flagged, whether you're missing concepts or just slow, because those get treated completely differently in a prep plan.

When I was rebuilding my own quant after a long gap, I ran every practice set untimed first and logged which questions I solved correctly but slowly versus which ones I genuinely didn't know how to start. Anything in the second bucket got flagged for concept review, anything in the first bucket just went into a timed drill set I redid every few days until the process felt automatic, not just correct. That split mattered more than any single content review.

One thing worth adding for you specifically: DI on GMAT Focus leans heavily on the same rate, percent, and ratio skills as quant, so time spent fixing quant fundamentals will quietly help your DI score too, it's not wasted effort split across three separate buckets.

Two months is enough runway if you're honest about which bucket each mistake falls into. Good luck with it.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Zero prep and a 485 with Verbal already solid is a fine place to start, mainly because your deficit sits in one place. When one section is doing all the damage, you know exactly where to aim.

You're right that Quant is the story. It's at the 5th percentile and dragging everything down, so that's where most of your gain comes from. I'd push back a little on "all my deficit is Quant," though. DI is only middling and has plenty of room, and since it leans on the same math you'll be rebuilding, it tends to rise as Quant does. Don't write it off as done.
And be careful with "I can pick the fundamentals back up quickly." Some will come back faster than it would for a beginner, but a 5th-percentile Quant after six years off is genuine rebuilding, not a refresh. Plan for that.

On your target: the Focus scale runs in 10-point steps ending in 5, so 630 and 680 aren't real scores. Call it 635 to 685. The low end sits just under what most programs treat as competitive, and the top reaches into top-25 range, so it's a sensible band. Realistic in two months? That's a 150-to-200-point jump, nearly all of it from rebuilding Quant off the floor.

The bottom is doable; the top is a stretch. I wouldn't lower your goal, but let readiness set the date. If Quant isn't there when the date comes, push it a few weeks and take it ready. Sitting underprepared just burns an attempt.

On going all-in: give Quant the lion's share, no question, but don't shelve the other two. Skills fade fast on this test, and if you drop Verbal entirely, your strongest section quietly slips and you waste time later winning it back. Verbal looks like your strong suit so far, so assuming that holds as you do more mocks, it just needs light upkeep. Keep it ticking with small regular sets, give DI steady attention, and put the rest into Quant.

For Quant, go one topic at a time. Learn the concepts and techniques for a topic, then drill only that topic untimed until your accuracy is high before moving on. When you miss one, pin down why: concept you didn't know, misread, careless slip, or a trap. Then redo it cold, with no solution in front of you. If you can't, you haven't learned it yet. Speed follows from that depth, so add the clock once accuracy is there, then mix topics so you get used to spotting question types on the fly.

One more thing: whatever materials you use, run your Quant through one sequenced order of topics and track your accuracy as you go. Use the official mba.com questions and the Official Guides for practice, and save the full-length tests for later, when you're checking readiness.

If Quant's climbing well at two months, sit the test. If not, push and keep building.

Here's a solid walkthrough on raising a Quant score from scratch:  20 Tips for Increasing Your GMAT Quant Score

Hope this helps, and good luck with your prep!

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First mock: 485(Q66, V82, DI74). Realistic to hit 630-680 in ~2 months

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