Beat The GMAT a GMAT & MBA community

Hello everyone,

I am a student at San Diego State University majoring in communication (Social Science) with a minor in business management. I am roughly 3 semesters away from my graduation and I am looking to apply to several MBA programs once I graduate. Unlike many of the people who I have been reading posts from, I do not have any aspirations to attend a top business school, nor is my academic background in any way quantitatively intensive. I have always had an extremely hard time understanding mathematics and mathematical logic.

During my time in high school I graduated while only completing Pre-Algebra (After failing it twice in middle school). In community college I had to repeat pre-algebra and pass algebra and statistics in order to transfer to SDSU. In order to pass these basic math courses I would receive tutoring from my instructors during their office hours and would attend every single office hour session they had available. I was that guy who skipped his English or history class to make it to his math professors office hours to get help solving basic algebra. During statistics class I had to wait 6 hours from my final class to the time one of my old professors had his office hours. My class got out at 12pm and his office hours started at 6pm. I would sit on campus doing homework, studying and reading until his office hours to get 60 minutes of (generally) uninterrupted private tutoring in statistics. It is thanks to these caring and helpful professors that I was able to pass all my math courses with B's and Cs as well as transfer to SDSU. Sorry for the long paragraph but I wanted to write it to give you guys a better understanding of where I am at with regards to math.


I am here to ask for general advice regarding the math portion of the GMAT. I would love to hear from some of you who have done well on the exam and are also quantitatively challenged.

Outside of math I seem to be doing just fine. I could do better in the critical thinking section, but I feel as though with enough studying I can accomplish good results on my own. In terms of my academics I am a 3.8 GPA student and have an extensive writing background. I feel as though I wont have a problem on the verbal section of the exam.

Moving on....

I bought the book "GMAT for Dummies" in order to get a basic understanding of some of the concepts that I can except to come across when taking the GMAT. I am currently in the process of studying that book. After I feel that I have obtained all the knowledge I can get from that text, I will purchase the Manhattan GMAT complete strategy guide set to supplement GMAT for Dummies.

My Goal is to score a 600-620. The schools that I will be applying to only require 450-560 scores, but I want to aim higher than the minimum. My first choice school requires a total score of 500.

If anyone here has some good advice, or good study guides for understanding the quantitative section of the exam, I would greatly appreciate any and all information you can send my way.


Thank you very much for your time.