Good tips for someone who hasnt studied math for 10 years

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Hey guys,

I really haven't seen math for a while. I did the manhattan gmat basics book and that really helped to catch up. I was looking for books to do that with of course hard work and time would help me get to the 700's. Also any strategies that you recommend would be great?

Side note: I did the veritas math pack but something I noticed is that it expected you to know how to solve most math problems and was more focused on the strategies and thinking like the test maker which I feel really screwed me up because I didn't really know the basics. What is something you guys could recommend to learn them well? Thanks for all your help!

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by [email protected] » Thu Dec 08, 2016 8:49 pm
Hi pcm182,

If you're interested in some free math practice and help before you get too deep into your GMAT studies, I recommend that you set up an account at Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org). The site is completely free and makes the learning a bit more fun and 'game-like' (as opposed to the dry academic approach taken by most books). While the site is vast, you should limit your studies to basic Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry. After spending a little time re-building those skills, you can restart your GMAT studies.

You brought up some additional points in another post, so in the event that you don't read the responses to that post, I've included my questions from that post here:

Studies:
1) When you say that you studied for a year, what does that mean exactly? How many hours were you studying per week? How often did you meet with the tutor? Etc.?
2) Was 490 the highest that you scored on any of your CATs? How have you scored on each of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for each)?
3) What were your Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores on the Official GMAT?

Goals:
4) Is your goal score still 700+?
5) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
6) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
7) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

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Rich
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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Thu Dec 08, 2016 9:14 pm
Definitely start with a refresher of some kind.

My pick for the best no-prerequisites-required introduction to math is Art of Problem Solving's Prealgebra. This book is one of the only introductory math books I've ever seen that teaches you how to think mathematically, and everything you'll see in it also happens to be on the GMAT. (It doesn't cover every aspect of GMAT math, but by the time you're done you'll know most of what there is to know and you'll be able to THINK like a GMAT instructor does.)

Once you get through that, your prerequisites should be solid, and GMAT books will be very accessible. Def recommend it over anything you can find for free on the internet.

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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Sun Jul 23, 2017 2:45 pm
Hey pcm182!

Just checking in: did you have any luck with either recommendation?