Venting after first practice test

[newera]

hello,

today i took my very first practice test from the 800score company and got a 620 without really studying anything (just started CR bible a week ago and i've been busy browsing through here as well). i'm hoping to take this up to a 710 and 720 if possible. while my verbal was ok, i'm really surprised how terrible the math was! this is especially surprising for me since i work in finance and always considered math to be a strength of mine. last time i took geometry and rate problems was literally 10 yrs ago!! and while the problem most people have with math is its complexity, gmat math is a whole other ballgame. so many times during the test, i would overcomplicate things. with gmat math you really have to simplify, simplify, simplify, at least thats what i think the problem is with me....plus, of course, refreshing on formulas for the geometry section (don't remember anything haha).

anyway, looks like i'll be buying a math book to remind me the math fundamentals that the gmat tests. i clearly underestimated that section!

thanks for listening, just wanted to get that out of my system

[VP_Jim]

It sounds like you know what you have to do to improve!

One piece of advice: since you work in finance, I'm going to guess that you use a calculator and computer all the time. Try to get in the habit of using mental math - even if it's just estimating before checking your work on the computer - at work. Mental math is a huge part of the GMAT.

Good luck!

[newera]

thanks a lot for the tips! i will definitely try to get into the mental math mode from now, as annoying as it seems...:0)