GMAT Study Plan

If you have not done so already - see GMAT FAQ for details. You can also visit https://www.mba.com and poke around. While you are there - go ahead and download GMATPrep - 2 practice tests released by makers of the GMAT. These 2 tests contain real GMAT questions, follow real GMAT principles, and are the best at estimating your GMAT score at any point in time.

Step 2: Take a practice test to find out how far you are from your target.

Many believe it is good to use of one of the free GMAT Prep tests (I'll tell you to actually get more than 2 tests out of the package later), mainly to see your starting point (now) and then compare it against the ending (taking GMAT). Alternatively you can use any other computer adaptive test from Princeton, Kaplan, Manhattan, or others and then use GMAT Score Estimator/Calculator to find your real GMAT equivalent. If you are offered to write an Essay (AWA) - skip it. For listing of all available GMAT tests - see all-gmat-cat-practice-tests-links-prices-reviews-77460.html

Step 3: Find out what GMAT score you actually need.

Just to give you an idea - you need 700 for Top 10 schools, 680 for Top 20, and 650 for Top 50 to pass - meaning your score should not be an issu, but you will need approximately 50 points higher to actually stand out. Most people are able to improve between 50 and 150 points - that should give you an estimate of what you can count on based on the diagnostic test you just took.

Step 4: Figure out your weaknesses

Take a look at your practice test score and note the raw score distribution (you will get one three digit score such as 600 and 2 two-digit scores such as 35, 40 - those two are your raw scores for each of the sections. They have corresponding percentiles). See how you rank in each. Also, do a basic mistake analysis and understand which question types are the most challenging for you. The options are PS, DS, CR, RC, SC and potentially even more detailed such as probability, or assumption questions, etc. Use this information to build your study plan.

Step 5: Design your study plan - finally!

You need to build up your toolkit and get some ammo for the GMAT. You will need books to review fundamentals/test taking strategies and GMAT tests to practice those strategies and also evaluate your prep level. For GMAT book reviews, see this discussion: top-gmat-prep-books-guides-reviews-comments-77703.html
For a collection of all GMAT Tests available today: all-gmat-cat-practice-tests-links-prices-reviews-77460.html
Finally - chart/plot/graph your study plan - use this calendar format

Step 6: Avoid typical GMAT prep mistakes and pitfalls.

Here is the most common one I see - jumping into questions and tests completely unprepared and expecting results/miracles. GMAT consists of several layers and it is important to master each one before moving on to the next - think of it as of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. There is no use in satisfying your social needs before you can take care of basic needs such as safety and food. The same is here, if you don't know the underlying principles that GMAT is testing (such as grammar, arithmetic, etc) there is no use in solving hundreds of questions or taking multiple GMAT tests. This means that if English is not your native language, you should not work on the RC strategies if you can't understand half of the passage - you need to get comfortable reading long passages of text before moving on. To illustrate this principle, consider the following hierarchy for the GMAT:

• In the General Knowledge stage, cover basics for a chapter/section/area
• In the Question Strategies stage, start practicing questions either for the area you just covered or for an entire section but don't attempt questions for sections you have not covered yet
• In the Test Strategies, start taking full length tests and practice on putting questions and knowledge together

Here is one of the most common GMAT study plans used by GMAT Club Members:

Month 1

• Start with Math section first and focus just on math alone (you can do both math and verbal but I suggest you put all attention into one). Plan to spend 4 weeks on it.
• Start using an Error Log - keep track of your mistakes and guesses - this will become your study guide in Month 3.
• Optional Step: If you are feeling the load is too heavy and you are really weak in Math - get MGMAT Math Foundations book; it is great in providing a more general overview of math concepts.
• At the same time, start reading GMAT Fiction (see below for details on what it is for).
• Get involved with the Math Forum - you will learn a lot especially when you try to teach someone or explain something.
• After you are done with the math section - start taking the math portion of the tests you have.
• Evaluate results and decided if you need to spend more time in Math and patch up certain weak areas or move on to Verbal. This decision will be based on your target GMAT score. If you are looking for high 600's and 700's, I would not move past Quant unless I was able to score around Q44 (again Kaplan tests excluded as they are much harder).
• If you need additional help in Quant - refer to the Math Resources on GMATClub or the GMAT Math Books section. In particular Manhattan GMAT Number Properties book comes highly recommended by many members. Another book you may consider is the PR 1012 - it contains targeted GMAT practice questions, which could be helpful in honing one's skills.
• If you are comfortable with Quant but want to get to Q50+, use the GMAT Club Tests - they contain only hard questions and were designed as practice for high-level math scorers.

Month 2

• Start working on the Verbal section. You can start with any section, but my suggestion would be to tackle Sentence Correction first.
• Error Log!
• Sentence Correction Optional Step: If you are not a native speaker, you will need a good grammar book that steps beyond GMAT and gives you a strong background that you can use as a foundation for GMAT-specific books. Several grammar books are recommended on the Forum (best-gmat-grammar-book-for-international-students-79934.html) but the one that comes up most often is Doing Grammar by Max Morenberg. Another book to consider is Kaplan Verbal Foundations - it is more suited for the GMAT but not as detailed in some areas. This is for you to decide how much help you need or how much time you have. Kaplan Verbal Foundations is quicker and probably easier but incomplete. Also, take a look at GMAT Club's Verbal Resources for many copies of study notes.
• For your verbal practice, you can start with Kaplan Verbal Workbook - it has good strategies. However a very good alternative is the PowerScore Verbal Bible - I would say it is a good notch higher in terms of value and score improvement. It covers SC, CR, and RC.
• Optional Step: A large number of GMAT Club members actually skip the step above and instead use specialized books to tackle each of the questions types. The books they use are:
  • Sentence Correction - either MGMAT SC or PowerScore SC
  • Critical Reasoning - either MGMAT CR or PowerScore CR
  • Reading Comprehension - MGMAT RC
  • Note1: MGMAT CR and MGMAT SC come without any practice questions. Instead they refer to questions in the Official Guide 12 and OG Verbal, so you must have those two books to practice and preferably should not have covered it in the past. On the positive note - all Manhattan books come with access to 6 online CAT tests, so you should buy at least one Manhattan GMAT book (any one of them).
  • Note 2: This approach of specialized prep takes closer to 2 months for verbal.
• Critical Reasoning Optional Step: If you need additional help with Critical Reasoning - Do not get both PowerScore CR and Manhattan GMAT CR - the books are virtually identical (not really but kind of). Instead you can again use the PR 1012 book for targeted practice with Assumption or Conclusion questions or you can go very heavy weight and use LSAT books, but that's a tad too hardcore and usually unnecessary.
• Reading Comprehension is often the hardest area to conquer - there are no clear rules and it is all about understanding the passage. Unless you strongly feel that reading is your forte, I would recommend you pick up a reading habit for the time being. I have written a large post on what I call GMAT Fiction and its benefits - take a look. I felt that reading books was a big contributor to my SC and RC abilities. There are no downsides to this - really - the worst thing possible is that you would have read some great books. And yes - make sure you read them during your low productivity time (at night, during transit, etc).
• Verbal forum should be your hobby by now
• Take the verbal-only portion of the tests to evaluate your progress (compare to how you did in the diagnostic test).

Month 3

• This month should be spent on 2 things: (1) Taking full length tests (polishing your test taking techniques, timing, stamina) and (2) Reviewing your error log (going through your weaknesses, making sure you understand why you keep making mistakes and how to solve every problem you encountered). You can start using the Error log earlier than this by the way - the earlier the better.
• Schedule your test if you have not done so already.
• Start taking full length tests (including AWA) - this is important for your test stamina. Plan to spend a Saturday on this and then subsequent test review.
• Spend a few weeks taking tests and drilling down into your areas of weakness. Create a "black list of questions" that you continue to struggle with and find a way to solve them with minimal mental effort.

Other thoughts/suggestions:

How long should really you prep?

The study plan above suggests 3 months, and that's probably 10-15 hours per week (2 hrs/work day and 5 hours on the weekend). Over 3 months, that's about 120 - 180 hours, which includes reading some books, so the true study time is probably 80 - 120 hrs.

Here is some useful information from about 8,000 users GMAC surveyed in 2010 - you can see a general relationship though of course there is no guarantee since we don't know the study habits or the starting level.

There is a typo in the label for the second bar from the right; it should be 600-690

There is not enough data to do a detailed analysis but here is the distribution of the amount of time the 8,000 test takers used