I'm 21, a college senior graduating in May with a BA in English (minor in Sociology). I decided like 3 weeks ago that I want to be a CPA, so now I've signed up for a GMAT test appointment for early March. Since my undergraduate degree isn't business, and I've actually only taken one class that even remotely resembles a business course (Personal Finance), I think I probably really need a super good GMAT score to help me have a chance at grad school. I'm looking at either a post-baccalaureate certificate for people with degrees in non-business fields that is all the stuff necessary to qualify to sit the CPA exam and become certified, or, for just 9 more credits, a M. Acc. (Ok, yes, I admit I didn't think a lot about what I was going to DO with my degree when I chose my major.)
So I downloaded the GMATPrep software and decided to take the first full-length practice test as a "pre-test" and save the second one for like the night before the real thing. I skimmed some of the math review because I haven't taken a math class that even came close to challenging me since 11th grade (as an English major, I only had to take one math course during college, and I did it 1st semester freshman year, and it was "Mathematical Thinking"... we did things like count the spirals on pineapples). During the math review, I was missing things like order of operations and adding things that had minus signs between them... probably because I was always good at math, but since it's been so long... I was rushing through with a lot of unwarranted confidence.
I just took my "pre-test" last night and scored a 660 (Q38, V42).
I'm fairly happy with the verbal score. I think I can get a little better on it if I skim some study materials. I didn't even look at the question types before launching into my pre-test, so I got to the first question and was like, "Why is part of the sentence underlined?" haha. So I plan to at least familiarize myself with the question types and some common tips and tricks. But I'm about to get an English degree, so my verbal score had better be at least decent.
Math, on the other hand... oh boy. I need to relearn a lot of things that I used to know. To this end, I've ordered a copy of the Kaplan GMAT Math Workbook from Amazon, which should arrive by Tuesday-ish. I'm going to work through that and see how far that gets me. Any other material I need beyond that book, I plan to try to get for free online (I'm short on cash). If anyone has any suggestions for really good online resources, I'll love you forever
So I guess... am I on the right track? What should I be the most worried about (other than my mathy weaknesses)? I had to look up the percentile ranges of my practice scores because I had no concept of what my score numbers meant. I truly am the newbie to this.
