Hi,
On average it takes students about 80-120 hours to hit the 85-90% progress mark on our course. At this point, you will have finished all the lessons and theory. You will then switch to maintenance mode for the remaining 15%. In maintenance mode, we present you with problems to review what you've already covered, as based on need. You will get a mixture of new and older question to hone your skills. The sim tests will require an additional 15-30 hours. You should take your first sim test at about the halfway point, starting no later than two weeks before the real test.
Although our course is a fully comprehensive one, if you feel you need more practice, the only resource we recommend is
the Official Guide for GMAT Review (the 12th and, especially 13th edition). It is a resource of real, retired GMAT questions, so you can add a bit more time to the above hours. You should only use this book once you have completed most of our program, as it is only a practice book and does not teach a student how to attack each question type. We have 5,000+ questions in our program, so
the Official Guide, which only has about 850 questions, contains fewer questions.
The Official Guide does not always provide the most proper explanations, so rely on our lessons and techniques even if you use the
OG. This is also why I strongly suggest doing the
OG a bit later in our course. The point is:
The Official Guide is an excellent extra resource. Use it in conjunction with our program, not as your main study resource.
In terms of how many hours per day a student should study, look at how much time you have available versus the hours discussed above. In general, we suggest that students study for at least 1.5 hours to 4 hours per weekday. If you find that 4 hours of study is too much and you are not assimilating information, then stop. It would be counterproductive to continue. Each session should be a maximum of one hour at a time, so do take a small break after each session to clear your head and renew your energies. Ideally about 10-17 hours per week is good, but this can easily go up or down based on availability. Part of the hours should also involve reviewing summaries and notes you should take on the summaries and stop signs.
As you can probably tell, there is a lot of material to cover for the GMAT. We've worked hard to condense a lot of the theory so that students with little time can finish our course quickly without missing what they need.
Enjoy your studies!
Sincerely,
Evan