Hi psredrocksolid,
If you're very weak at math, 1 month may not be enough. What I would suggest is
PRE-GMAT
Get a good manual to help you build up your quantitative fundamentals. Go through it before you begin the GMAT prep itself. My favorites are "Math Smart" from the Princeton Review (ISBN 978-0-375-76216-1) and "Math Word Problems" from cliffs (ISBN 0-7645-4492-6). The former will make you comfortable doing basic math operations; the latter will make you comfortable doing basic and intermediate word translations.
GMAT LESSONS
To learn the concepts that will be tested on the GMAT, I would recommend the
Manhattan GMAT strategy guides. These are topic specific (for example, Geometry or Number Properties).
GMAT PRACTICE
The most important prep tools you can have are the Official Guides (OG12, Quant Review) and GMATPrep. I recommend doing as much work out of the official materials as possible. The OG12 provides alot of practice qeustions, but pretty sucky explanations and no comprehensive strategies. Use the OG12 in conjunction with the
OG Companion to get the most return on your efforts.
TESTS
You must use the
GMATPrep software to take practice tests because it's the only test simulator that uses actual GMAT questions, and the only test simulator that uses the actual GMAT scoring algorithm. Although the software only presents you with 2 tests, there are over 1,200 questions in there, so plenty to learn from. I would recommend taking a GMATPrep test every two weeks, and later every week for the last month. The problem of course is that this resource does not include solutions. Use a forum such as this one to look for solutions. If you need really detailed solving strategies or if you need video solutions, then use the
GMATFix Solutions Engine.
TOPIC-SPECIFIC PREP
In my experience, people who improve the most are those who can organize their study by topic. Studying many questions of the same topic rather than jumping from topic to topic will accelerate your brain's ability to pick up common traits, patterns and solving strategies for each topic. For instance, you may decide to draw up a schedule such as:
Monday - Number Properties
Tuesday - Word Translations
Wednesday - Geometry...
You can accomplish this in several ways:
- The MGMAT guides are topic specific, so the practice questions they contain are also.
- The GMATFix OG Companion has a reference chapter that points to all the questions of any topic/difficulty you seek
- The GMATFix Solutions Engine has a Drill Engine that allows you to generate timed drills and set the topics/difficulty levels of your drills.
Ultimately, in my opinion a strong prep program is one that aims to master as many of the 1,200 GMATPrep questions as possible and to master the pacing of the test (through practice tests and timed drills)
Best of luck
-Patrick
