{"id":31295,"date":"2015-11-17T09:08:41","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T16:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/planning-your-gmat-study-schedule\/"},"modified":"2015-11-17T09:08:41","modified_gmt":"2015-11-17T16:08:41","slug":"planning-your-gmat-study-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/planning-your-gmat-study-schedule\/","title":{"rendered":"Planning Your GMAT Study Schedule"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaptest.com\/blog\/business-school-insider\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2015\/11\/iStock_000055707370_Small.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5658\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kaptest.com\/blog\/business-school-insider\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2015\/11\/iStock_000055707370_Small-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Learn how to study for Test Day.\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Put your GMAT study schedule on a calendar\u2014and make it specific.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>As you start planning for the business school admission cycle, you may need to work on establishing new routines and habits to ensure everything is in order by the time the application deadline rolls around. Now is a perfect time to start (or restart) a GMAT study schedule. We\u2019ve got some advice to help get you on the right track.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>How to study for the GMAT<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/gmat.kaptest.com\/2014\/09\/10\/studying-for-the-gmat-while-staying-focused-and-healthy\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span>Studying for the GMAT<\/span><\/a><span> is a serious commitment, and it usually takes 2\u20133 months or more. While you may already have an idea of <\/span><i><span>what<\/span><\/i><span> to study, you probably have many questions about <\/span><i><span>how<\/span><\/i><span> to study. GMAT study schedules can vary depending on particular factors, including:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/gmat.kaptest.com\/2014\/01\/02\/set-gmat-score-goal\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span>goal score<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>starting score<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>work schedule<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>school schedule<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span><a href=\"https:\/\/gmat.kaptest.com\/2014\/10\/15\/your-mba-and-parenthood-balancing-business-school-and-life\/\" target=\"_blank\">family obligations<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>We at Kaplan have a long history of working with students and observing how they learn best, which has allowed us to develop some general rules of thumb you should keep in mind as you begin to form your personalized plan to study for the GMAT.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>Create a detailed GMAT study schedule<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span>The first thing to know about studying for the GMAT is that this is not a test that you can cram for. Effective GMAT study is like preparing for a marathon. You want to build up to Test Day with a plan that <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/gmat.kaptest.com\/2014\/09\/03\/4-ways-to-build-your-gmat-skills\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span>improves your skills<\/span><\/a><span> and increases your stamina. Because the GMAT tests your critical thinking abilities and content knowledge, you need to know how to think flexibly and thoroughly about the material. Flexibility and critical thinking are skills that ideally require knowledge of the patterns in the GMAT questions. Therefore, it is best to build this type of depth and flexibility in a gradual way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Next, remember to be deliberate in your study schedule. Make dates on your calendar with your GMAT books and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaptest.com\/gmat\/enroll?zip=&amp;tab=events\" target=\"_blank\"><span>practice tests<\/span><\/a><span> and keep them. It\u2019s easy to procrastinate when the deadline is weeks away, so find a way to stay accountable by setting a date reminder and\/or having someone help you stay on track with your schedule.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Along with deliberate GMAT study times, be purposeful with setting dates. Instead of just putting \u201cstudy for GMAT\u201d on the calendar, add specifics about the purpose of the session; for instance, December 13th could be your night to spend some quality time with right triangles in geometry and subject-verb agreement in sentence correction. At the beginning, the purpose of your session should be aimed at mastery of specific topics. Closer to Test Day, start to incorporate pacing and mixed practice into the goal of your sessions.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>How long does it take?<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span>Learning how to study for the GMAT in a way that works for you takes time. Plan to spend about 2\u20133 months or 100\u2013120 hours studying, reviewing, and taking practice tests. The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaptest.com\/blog\/business-school-insider\/2015\/11\/10\/5-secrets-to-earning-a-top-gmat-score\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span>top scorers<\/span><\/a><span> on the GMAT spend 120+ hours total, on average, studying for Test Day over a period of time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The length of each GMAT study session will vary based on your specific situation; however, most students aim for 1\u20133 hours per session. If you take the average 120 hours of studying for a top scorer and divide that over the course of the average 10 weeks of studying, you get approximately 12 hours per week. This includes time spent in class sessions and tutoring sessions for the GMAT. If you spread those hours equally, it\u2019s best to do about 2\u20133 hours per day, 6 days per week, and to take one day off each week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><i><span>Ready to put your plan into action? Start with a <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaptest.com\/gmat\/enroll?zip=&amp;tab=events\" target=\"_blank\"><i><span>free GMAT practice test<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span> to see how you\u2019d score on Test Day.<\/span><\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kaptest.com\/blog\/business-school-insider\/2015\/11\/17\/planning-your-gmat-study-schedule\/\">Planning Your GMAT Study Schedule<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kaptest.com\/blog\/business-school-insider\">Business School Insider<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Put your GMAT study schedule on a calendar\u2014and make it specific. As you start planning for the business school admission cycle, you may need to work on establishing new routines&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,558,243,940],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat","category-kaplan-blog","category-blog","category-gmat-prep-gmat","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}