GMAT Strategy

I have not studied for this exam yet. I had planned to but it didn't happen. I took a VERITAS practice exam yesterday and got a 560. I only need a minimum of 400 on the actual exam, but in reviewing the Quant section of my results I realized that my basic math is extremely rusty/dusty and I would be much more comfortable on test day if I could improve on that. I haven't had a 'math' outside of Stats in about 12-14 years (where I finished with Calc 2). I use stats in some form or fashion almost daily at my place of employment and I actually retook a stats course last year (b/c I needed to have taken it within 5 years of applying to a program) with no textbook and made a 98 in the course. I wouldn't consider myself math challenged, so much as I am math memory challenged. Anyway, here is my score breakdown on the practice exam.

AWA: n/a
IR: 4
Q: 33
V: 34
Total: 560

To break down the quant a little further:
I completed all items, no random guessing at the end, with maybe 12s to spare.
I got 47% of Data Sufficiency items correct, and 85% of Problem Solving items correct.
The 3 most difficult items I got right were all Problem Solving items in the 500-550 range.
The 3 easiest items I got wrong were 2 Data Sufficiency items and a Problem Solving item, all in the 400-450 range.
Because of my performance on the lower level items, I was never shown any of the higher level items where I think I might have possibly done better.

Anyway, I would like a BASIC refresher math book that I can work through problems where examples are clearly explained and I'd personally prefer a paper version for $25 or less. Algebra, Geometry- things like that. I'm not really interested in strategy.

I've had the Kaplan GMAT Math workbook suggested to me, and also the Manhattan Foundations of GMAT Math. I REALLY need to have the examples of different problems explained so I can remember how to do them. I only have a few weeks before I need to take this exam, so I'd like to work through a few kinds of problems each day. Would one of these be better for me than the other? Or is there something else I should consider? Based on whatever I find out here, I'd like to have the book in hand today or tomorrow.

Thanks!

Hi crhXilm.

I think what Ceilidh said is worth reiterating.

From what you said, you would get a lot out of working on data sufficiency questions. I doubt you have seen questions in that format before, and getting them right often does not require that much math knowledge. Rather you have to be good at noticing key details of the questions and at considering the information provided by the statements.

Given your performance in data sufficiency, it seems that just by learning how to handle the question type you could drive your quant score up significantly in a short period of time.

Even a few days' sessions spent doing data sufficiency sets could change what you have going on a lot, and meanwhile in doing the data sufficiency questions and reading over the explanations, you would be reviewing the math that shows up on the GMAT. Do any practice questions slowly and carefully. Yes, when you take the test you will only have around two minutes per question, but when you are practicing the point is to develop skill in getting right answers. If doing that takes sometimes ten minutes per question in the beginning, that's what it takes. As you become more skilled, you will naturally speed up.

On another note, while you have not said what you need a GMAT score for, just to be clear, your hit rate in problem solving questions and your verbal score on a test basically taken cold indicate that likely you would not have too much trouble getting to a much higher score level.

I think that if you work on the data sufficiency questions as I suggested you will be pretty pleased with the results you get.

For more ideas on how to increase your quant score, you could read this post. How To Increase Your GMAT Quant Score

Thank you all very much. I actually took the test yesterday and scored 640. I know if I had come here in advance and taken the time to really utilize the abundance of knowledge and experience in this forum, I would no doubt have scored much higher (I don't have the score report in front of me but I'm pretty sure I got Q:38, V:40 and IR:8) but I knew I only needed to score above a certain threshold for any school I was considering, and I needed to have time for my scores to reach the school. Thank you all again.