First read this article that I recently wrote. It seems that it might have been written specifically for you. "Imagine your success on the GMAT"
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2013/01/ ... n-the-gmat
Now that you have read the article,
NO, this does not mean that you are dumb! As you noted math is not something that you have worked with in a long time. Some people do have difficulty in that area. I read that nearly 50 percent of those in the United States who start a college program and are unable to finish failed at least one math class. For many people a single math course is the thing that prevents them from attaining a bachelor's or associates' degree.
With that said you will need to learn the areas of math tested on the GMAT. That means arithmetic, algebra, geometry, statistics, and word problems. You can get buy without permutations and probabilities for now. That is a lot of hard work, but it can be done.
On the verbal side, you sound like you are a native English speaker so your improvement on the verbal should require less background knowledge (compared to math) and more strategy.
I do recommend that you set your timeline back and start with the basics. On the Quant side, you will need to begin with the rules themselves. And not even do any GMAT problems for a while. You need to learn how to manipulate exponents, view division from every angle, and find the hypotenuse of the triangle.
Here is a link to the Veritas book "Math Essentials" It does not involve actual GMAT problems but it does cover the content that you will need to know before you take on the actual problems again.
https://www.amazon.com/Math-Essentials-V ... essentials
On the verbal side, it is all about techniques and methods. Verbal is about reasoning and that is what you need to focus on. The same things that will help on Critical Reasoning, will actually improve your Reading Comp and your Sentence Correction as well and that is reasoning.
Here is a link to a collection of articles and postings that can help.
https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-best-fro ... 01075.html
You are not alone in struggling and you can improve. As I say in the "Imagine your success on the GMAT" article, do not allow yourself negative thoughts and do not allow others to bring you down. The one important thing to decide is "Do YOU Want to do this?" If so do not allow anything to stop you.
As a personal note, after so many years of teaching the GMAT this is one of the areas where I am pretty confident now. But in edition to the other things I do, my heart is set on growing my own fruit. So I am planting some fruit trees this year and getting my first hive of bees! I feel like I know nothing, there is so much to learn, and of course the bees can actually sting me... If all of my trees die this year I will not be stopped. I will learn from it and plant more because this is that important to me. Is Business School that important to you? If so then you simply cannot be stopped!! In the end you will achieve your dream.
