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16 Dec 2024, 07:00
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GMAT Ninja’s 13-Week Study Plan
Week 6 (~15 hours)
Subscribe via E-mail | Join Study Plan Chat Group
Welcome back for Week 6 of the study plan! If you have no idea what’s going on here, then you’ll want to start with Week 1 instead.
One small formatting change this week: you’ll see a non-official quant practice test listed in section (B), instead of in the quant section. You’ll have a ton of options this week, so you might want to skim through the full homework list ASAP, just to help you prioritize your studies.
Friendly reminder: if you’re starting to feel overwhelmed – or if you’re not making progress as quickly as you’d like – you can always pause the study plan.
(A) Inspiration & Advice (optional)+
Check out this somewhat unconventional debrief, humbly titled How NOT to Study for a 700. Karthik740 provides some unusually nuanced wisdom in here – check out mistakes #3-8 in particular for some thoughtful advice.
Also, he went from a 460 to a 560 to a 720, and that’s pretty badass.
In case you’re wondering: these inspiration posts might refer to the old (pre-2024) GMAT scoring system, but the exam hasn’t changed THAT much. Focus on the reasons why these folks improved so dramatically – the general wisdom is still worth reading, and probably always will be.
(B) Practice Tests & Diagnostics (1-2 hrs.)+
FULL, OFFICIAL practice tests are coming very, very soon. But first, we’ll give you a sanity-check with the quant section from an unofficial test. Please, please, PLEASE don’t worry about the score because these unofficial tests are not as accurate as the real thing, but it will hopefully give you a better sense of where you stand.
Week 6 practice test assignments:
1. Do the quant section ONLY of a non-official GMAT practice exam (from GMAT Club or any other non-official source).
Guidance for this week’s diagnostic + practice test:
- On the non-official quant test: concentrate on avoiding unforced errors, and on letting the harder questions go. Remember: scores on adaptive exams like the GMAT are based largely on WHICH questions you miss, not just on the number of questions you miss. If you miss easier questions, you’ll never see the harder ones – so please use your 45 minutes wisely, nailing the ones you can handle and guessing on the ones that give you trouble.
(C) Quant (~2-5 hrs.)+
This week’s topics are relatively minor: counting, sequences, and overlapping sets. If you’re still intimidated by word problems in general, check this week’s resource list for some additional videos if you need them.
By now, careless quant errors should be completely out of your system. Also, you shouldn’t have any significant struggles with algebra, arithmetic, or word problems. If you’re not on track in any of these areas, you might consider pausing the study plan so that you can spend more time on these fundamentals.
Our usual reminder: the study plan includes specific topic-based practice and study resources only in Weeks 1-9. In Weeks 10-13, we’ll focus exclusively on practice tests and mixed sets of official questions.
How to approach quant homework
1. Time each set, but don’t rush through. Do every set with test-like intensity, but don’t impose an artificial time limit -- at least not yet.
2. When you’re finished, please do NOT review your errors at all just yet. On the day you do the homework, just input the results into your error log, and walk away.
Week 6 quant homework
Think carefully about where you really need to spend your time this week. If you really need extra reps on quant (but not on verbal or DI), great – do extra sets from items #4-6, and maybe the optional videos. If you’re doing relatively well on quant, #3 is enough – and you can spend the rest of your time on verbal, DI, and the practice exam.
1. (Optional) If you need help on overlapping sets, watch this video (~1 hr.) This is a relatively minor topic, so only watch the entire video if you’re CERTAIN you need it.
2. (Optional) If you need help with counting and sequences, watch this video (~1 hr.), but again: only watch it if you need it.
3. GMAT Official Quant Review PS #76-100
4. (Optional) Do 15 overlapping sets PS questions, sub-555 level | mixed difficulty
5. (Optional) Do 10 sequences PS questions, sub-555 level | mixed difficulty
6. (Optional) Only if you’re CERTAIN that it’s worthwhile: do extra sets of topic-based questions as needed (algebra, exponents, word problems, percents, ratios, rates, conversions, overlapping sets, sequences, etc.).
What to do AFTER completing a quant homework set
- 1-3 days after completing the set, redo your errors from scratch. Try to “wash your brains” and pretend that you’ve never seen the questions before.
- If you get most of the questions RIGHT the second time: you’re probably making careless errors, and fixing them needs to be your #1 priority. See below for some videos that might help.
- If you miss a question twice, don’t overreact. Obsessively studying individual questions drains a TON of your study time – if you miss a particular question, you’ll probably never see anything quite like it again. So focus on GENERAL takeaways on how to improve -- don’t spend hours memorizing steps for individual questions.
- For more on how to interpret your results, see the next post in this thread.
Need help with quant?
These resources might help:
1. If you’re struggling with the fundamental content this week, here’s the full-length overlapping sets video and the counting and sequences video that appeared in the homework list.
2. If you answered questions #76-100 in the Quant Review and think you did only 24 questions, read this article about the “fencepost problem”. It’s not GMAT-focused, but it’s well-written and relevant.
3. If quant topics from previous weeks are giving you trouble, whatever you need is probably in this playlist.
4. If you’re making careless errors, this (probably very familiar) video on how to approach GMAT quant is still essential viewing; if you’re feeling inefficient, the video on developing a flexible GMAT quant mindset is still a good fit.
5. If word problems give you trouble, watch these videos on long, intimidating, and weird word problems, or word translations in general.
6. GMAT Club Math Book
7. Heroic quant threads from Bunuel: Ultimate GMAT Quant Megathread | Signature Question Collection | All You Need for Quant
(D) Reading Comprehension (~1-2 hrs.)+
Keep fighting through the RC passages! Those nasty LSAT sets -- which you might despise by now -- will become optional next week. So make the most of the hard practice this week, please.
If you ever need a check on your progress -- or want to be challenged by some tough language -- go ahead and do an LSAT RC set. Once we get you started on full practice tests in the coming weeks, it’ll become harder and harder to find time for extra LSAT sets.
How to approach RC homework
1. Time each set, but don’t rush through. Do every set with test-like intensity, but don’t impose an artificial time limit -- at least not yet.
2. When you’re finished, please do NOT review your errors at all just yet. On the day you do the homework, just input the results into your error log, and walk away. (We’ll say more below about how to analyze your results.)
Week 6 RC homework
1. Do the 3rd set of ~25 questions from your edition of the GMAT Official Guide. (The question numbers vary depending on which edition you’re using, and it’s OK to do a little bit more or less than 25 questions so that you don’t stop partway into a passage.) Again, these will feel MUCH easier than the LSAT.
2. One full LSAT RC set
What to do AFTER completing an RC homework set
- Don’t obsess over the questions you missed. You’re never going to see these passages again, and you don’t want to burn too much time reviewing them.
- Instead, focus on general patterns. Did you miss a bunch of primary purpose questions? Inference questions? Did you get intimidated by certain types of passages (like humanities/culture/literature)? Did you panic? Run out of energy? Pay special attention to errors that surprised you – did you somehow make a silly mistake?
- If you missed, say, three or more questions on a particular passage, you might consider redoing the entire passage (and its questions) from scratch. If you do better the second time, ask yourself: what should you have done differently the first time?
- For more on how to interpret your RC results, see the next post in this thread.
Need help with RC?
If you struggled with your RC homework sets this week, here are some resources that might help:
(E) Critical Reasoning (~1-2 hrs.)+
We’ll feature boldface CR questions this week, but if your general process on CR is rock-solid, you might not need to drill specific question types at all. Boldface CR questions really don’t require any special logic, so if you do choose to watch the (very optional!) video, the fast-forward button might be your best friend.
Also – LSAT CR sets are optional now. Huzzah!
But if you ever need a sanity-check on your progress – or a nice challenge – do an LSAT CR set, and compare the results to Week 1. Hopefully the comparison will put a smile on your face.
How to approach CR homework
1. Time each set, but don’t rush through. Do every set with test-like intensity, but don’t impose an artificial time limit -- at least not yet.
2. When you’re finished, please do NOT review your errors at all just yet. On the day you do the homework, just input the results into your error log, and walk away. (We’ll say more below about how to analyze your results.)
Week 6 CR homework
1. (Optional) Watch this video on boldface CR questions. Again, you don’t need much special sauce for these questions, so feel free to fast-forward liberally, or skip the video entirely.
2. (Optional) If you want extra reps with boldface CR questions, do a few extras from older editions of the OGs; you can find some from OG 12 and the Verbal 2nd edition here, or from the LSAT here.
3. Do the 3rd set of 25 questions from a recent edition of the GMAT Official Guide. These will feel easier than the LSAT. (The CR question numbers will vary slightly, depending on which edition you’re using.)
4. Do the 3rd set of 25 questions from a recent edition of the GMAT Verbal Guide (skinny little book). These will also feel easier than the LSAT.
5. (Optional) One full LSAT CR set
What to do AFTER completing a CR homework set
- 1-3 days after completing the set, redo your errors from scratch. Do your best to “wash your brains” and pretend that you’ve never seen the questions before.
- If you get most of the questions RIGHT the second time, that’s a sign that your overall CR process isn’t nearly as consistent as it needs to be, and fixing your process needs to be your #1 area of focus. See below for some videos that might help.
- If you miss a question a second time, don’t overreact: obsessively studying individual questions can drain a TON of your study time – and it really isn’t very valuable on CR. So don’t spend hours memorizing the steps for individual questions.
- For more on how to interpret your CR results, see the next post in this thread.
Need help with CR?
If you struggled with your CR homework sets this week, here are some resources that might help:
- Another link to that video on boldface CR questions. Boldface CR questions also make a quick cameo in this crash-course segment, at around the 6:16 mark.
- Beginners’ guide to CR
- LIVE YouTube video on how to approach CR or a not-so-live video on how to approach CR
- All GMAT Ninja CR resources on GMAT Club
- More full CR explanations than anybody should ever read
- A whole lot more LIVE YouTube videos on a wide variety of topics
- CR “pitfalls” videos: Missing the Heart of a CR Passage | Paraphrasing on CR | Obsessing over CR Question Types | Anticipating Correct CR Answers... Incorrectly | Falling in Love With Answer Choices | Irrelevant & Out of Scope Answers | CR Word-Matching | Rejecting Imperfect Answer Choice
(F) Data Insights (~4-5 hrs.)+
As you probably know, Data Insights features five question types. This week, we’ll dive into question type #4, Two-Part Analysis. In Week 7, we’ll introduce the fifth and final question type, Multi-Source Reasoning – just in time for you to take your first, official practice test.
Our usual disclaimer: you’re probably itchy to do more official DI practice than we’ve assigned here. Please keep in mind that there’s a very limited supply of official DI questions. We’ll carefully assign the official stuff to maximize its value, so please don’t race ahead -- we’ll get to everything over the course of the study plan.
Week 6 DI assignments:
1. (Optional, but recommended) Watch this live video on how to approach Two-Part Analysis questions
2. (Optional) Watch these videos (which also appear in the quant homework) as needed, but please skip them if you’re performing well in these topics: Overlapping Sets (~1 hr.)| Counting & Sequences (~1 hr.)
3. 10 Two-Part Analysis questions from the GMAT Official Guide question bank on MBA.com – see below for instructions on how to set this up.
4. 15 mixed questions from the GMAT Official Guide question bank on MBA.com. Use GI, TA, and TPA questions only – no DS or MSR, please. See below for setup instructions.
5. Do the third set of 20 Data Sufficiency questions from your edition of the Official Guide. (The exact question numbers will depend on which edition you’re using.)
6. Do 15 overlapping sets DS questions. Sub-555 level | Mixed difficulty
7. Do 15 sequences DS questions. Sub-555 level | Mixed difficulty
8. (Optional) Do 15 word problems DS questions. Sub-555 level | Mixed difficulty
9. (Optional) Do 15 graphs & tables questions. Sub-555 level | Mixed difficulty
10. (Optional) Do 15 Two-Part Analysis questions. Sub-555 level | Mixed difficulty
Instructions for DI practice sets on (MBA.com)
- Access the GMAT Official Practice site at mba.com, and locate the "GMAT Official Guide 2024-2025" product (or whichever edition of the OG you’re using)
- Click the "Study" button -> "Practice Questions" in the left navigation menu -> "Start New Session" button.
- To start a session, select the "Choose the type, difficulty, and number of questions" radio button; click the checkbox to the left of the assigned question type(s) to select ALL remaining questions for that type. Keep the "Unlimited" radio button selected (under "Duration"), and select "Exam Mode" (under "Mode").
- Week 6 details: select easy & medium TPA questions for the first set, and stop after you complete 10 questions. For the second “mixed” set, select easy & medium GI, TPA, and TA questions only (no MSR or DS) – and please stop after you’ve completed a total of 15 questions.
- Click the "Start Practice" button. Try to hide/ignore the timers at the top of the page, since you won't have those on test day.
- After doing the assigned number of questions, click the "Pause" button at the top right -> "Pause Custom Practice" button in the popup -> "Submit and End Session" (red, scary button) to confirm.
What to do AFTER completing a Data Insights homework set
- 1-3 days after completing the set, redo your errors from scratch. Try to “wash your brains” and pretend that you’ve never seen the questions before.
- If you get most of the questions RIGHT the second time: you’re probably making careless errors, and fixing them needs to be your #1 priority. See below for some videos that might help.
- If you miss a question twice, don’t overreact. Obsessively studying individual questions drains a TON of your study time – if you miss a particular question, you’ll probably never see anything quite like it again. So focus on GENERAL takeaways on how to improve -- don’t spend hours memorizing steps for individual questions.
- For more on how to interpret your results, see the next post in this thread[/url].
Need help with Data Insights?
If you make careless errors or struggle on this week’s content, these resources might help:
1. If you’re making careless errors on quant or Data Sufficiency, this (probably very familiar) video on how to approach quant and DS questions. For a deeper dive into Data Sufficiency, check out this live video or this prerecorded one
2. For help on Two-Part Analysis questions, check out this live video (also linked above). Or, this two-part TPA series might help: TPA quant | TPA verbal.
3. If you’re struggling with your approach to Table Analysis questions, you could check out this video on how to approach TA questions or this one that says these questions are pretty much Excel.
4. If GI questions still give you trouble, check out this live video on how to approach Graphical Interpretation questions, or try this not-so-live GI intro video and perhaps its sequel on odd-looking graphs and charts.
5. If you’re worried about DI in general, here’s an overview video on how to approach the Data Insights section.
6. If you’re struggling with quant-specific content (percents, ratios, etc.) on DI questions, please take a look at the resources list under the quant section of this week’s study plan.
16 Dec 2024, 07:00
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How to Interpret Your Week 6 Homework Results
Please read this section each week if you’re serious about optimizing your study time. If you don’t read this, it will be harder to (A) choose your homework wisely, and (B) avoid wasting time reviewing things that don’t really matter.
Obviously, some of this advice will be similar from week to week. But plenty of things will change, too. So if you’re panicking about a homework result – or if you’re tempted to spend a half-billion hours reviewing individual questions – please take a deep breath, and read through this post first.
Also, if you’re worried about something that isn’t addressed here, please post your questions/worries/doubts either here or in the Week 1 thread. I guarantee that other students are suffering in the same ways as you are.
Practice Tests+
If you did a non-official quant test (from GMAT Club or another source), our advice should look familiar:
- Don't overreact to the score. It's nearly impossible for practice tests to mimic the actual scoring of the GMAT, so the score itself doesn't matter much.
- Count your careless errors. This process will end well if you don’t make careless errors – I promise. It won’t end well if you’re sloppy.
- Look for questions that took 3+ minutes. Your job is to spend your 62 minutes wisely. If you’re chasing questions that are hard for you, that’s bad. Learn to let go! Ideally, you shouldn’t have questions that take you more than 3 minutes.
- Don’t spend a ton of time reviewing your mistakes. Why? These aren’t official questions, and some will definitely be HARD on an adaptive test – these simply aren’t worth your time.
Quant+
Benchmarks for Your Week 6 Quant Results
The first part is the same as in previous weeks:
- Count the errors that make you go "whoa, how the 🤬 did I miss THAT one?!?" No really: count them, for EVERY quant set you completed. Then divide that by the total number of questions to get your careless error rate.
If your long-term goal is to score in the 80s, here are the metrics I’d like you to hit in Week 6:
- Careless error rate: < 2%. You’ve heard this before: the careless errors need to be gone, or almost gone.
- Quant Review set (#3 on the list): 80%+ correct is excellent, 70-80% is probably fine, since these are getting harder. Just remember that WHAT you miss is more important on the GMAT than how many you missed. If you missed OG questions on topics that you haven't studied, that's totally cool -- you'll have time to learn those things. And again: the questions are getting harder.
- Overlapping sets, counting, and sequences questions (#4-6 on the list): 75% or above is probably excellent, but take the results with a grain of salt! These sets are random, and if you happened to see nasty, strange questions, 50-60% might be pretty good. The quality and difficulty of number properties questions varies HUGELY, so don’t overreact to your results.
- Speed: On the OG and topic-based sets, you're still in good shape if you’re reasonably close to 2 minutes per question. If you're slower than, say, 2:30 per question on average, it might be a sign that your skills are shaky, or that you're not choosing efficient paths forward.
What Should You Do About Your Quant Weaknesses in Week 6?
Our usual reminder: on an adaptive test, job #1 is to be accurate on the questions that you’re capable of getting right. If you’re accurate on the easier ones, you’ll get pounded by harder questions – and you’ll miss plenty of them. Embrace the pain.
So don’t obsess over the hard questions that you’ve missed. They aren’t worth much of your precious time.
- If your careless error rate is too high: that’s bad. Do whatever you need to do to fix this. Do it now. Pause the study plan if you need to. Just fix the careless errors.
- If you struggled on the Quant Review set (items #3): as usual, ask yourself WHY you struggled. If you’re at, say, 70% accuracy, that’s not ideal, but context matters: if nearly all of those errors are on topics that you’ve never really studied, you’re in great shape, since you have plenty of time to study those over the next month or two.
- If you struggled on the overlapping sets, counting, or sequences sets (items #4-5): concentrate on putting your errors into context. These questions can be weird – especially non-official questions. If you missed really hard ones or oddball questions, please don’t waste your time reviewing them. If you got CRUSHED on easier questions, you might want to revisit the videos in the study list, but don’t overreact – these topics aren’t worth THAT much time.
- If you struggled on other topic-based sets (item #6): again, concentrate on putting your errors into context, and look for broad patterns. If you made similar errors on several relatively easy questions, then you might want to revisit the quant books or videos. But if you missed hard or strange questions, who cares?
- If you got CRUSHED by ALL of the quant homework: if you’re nowhere close to the benchmarks on quant – and if your long-term goal is a score in the 80s – then maybe you need to back away from the study plan, and invest some time in rebuilding your basic quant skills. If that’s the case for you, tag us in the thread, give us as much detail as you can about your situation, and we’ll try to help.
- How much time should you spend reviewing individual quant questions? Not much, please! Because it can take SOOOOOOO much time to review a question, it should be your absolute last resort. That’s why we want you to redo questions first – sometimes, you’ll see your mistake right away, and that’s the best way to learn. If you miss a question a second time, then maybe it’s a sign of an underlying issue.
- No, really: resist the temptation to obsess over individual questions. Instead, look for patterns in your errors – an error on one question might be a fluke (or a weird, hard, or badly written question), but if you miss several related questions, you have an opportunity to get a good ROI on your study time by addressing a general weakness via a video or articles or books.
CR & RC+
Benchmarks for Your Week 6 RC & CR Results
- Official Guide RC & CR sets: these sets are getting a little bit harder now, so if your goal is 90th percentile on GMAT verbal, we’d like to see 80-90% accuracy, in no more than 2 minutes per question. (Adjust accordingly if your goals are more modest.) Our usual warning: these sets will get harder as you move through the books, so don’t be alarmed if your results are somewhat flat over time.
- Random sets of boldface CR questions from the older OGs: sorry, we can’t really give you a benchmark for these, since randomness plays a role. Maybe you saw tougher questions, and maybe not. Did you at least feel confident and systematic in your approach? If so, you’re probably fine.
- Accuracy on LSAT CR & RC sets: 80% accuracy is still the goal if you’re trying to hit the 90th percentile on GMAT verbal; 70% accuracy is fine if you’re happy with an 80V. If you need a check on your progress, it’s a good idea to do an LSAT set occasionally, and compare it to your Week 1 results.
- Efficiency on LSAT CR & RC sets: 60 minutes or less is your long-run goal to have a shot at finishing the GMAT verbal section on time.
- Consistency on LSAT CR & RC sets: your errors and times should fall within a fairly narrow range across ALL of your LSAT sets. LSAT sets (~25 Qs each) do not vary much in difficulty, so if your errors or times fluctuate wildly, that’s a sign that you’re doing very different things at different times, and you might need to work on your approach to questions.
What Should You Do About Your CR & RC Weaknesses in Week 6?
- Look for “careless” errors. As with everything on the GMAT, pay close attention to anything that seems to be an “unforced error.” Did you miss a ton of questions that felt easy to you, especially in the OG and Verbal Guide? If so, you might want to revisit the techniques in the videos and articles in the assignment lists. This is MUCH more important than getting better at harder questions.
- If your results are significantly better on RC than on CR: you might want to invest time in some extra CR sets or videos – we’ll provide some recommendations each week.
- If you’re better at CR than RC: When this happens, the most common reasons are that you’re obsessing over details when you read RC (and missing the “big picture” by doing so), or you’re struggling to stay focused through a long passage. Maybe you’ll want to err on the side of getting a bit of extra practice on RC in the coming weeks, and we’ll keep feeding you videos that might help, too.
- If you’re slow ( > 60 mins per LSAT set, > 2 minutes per OG or Verbal Guide question): sadly, there are a ton of different reasons why your times might be high. At this stage, maybe you’re still learning new approaches, so you’re still figuring out how to integrate them into your process – if that’s the case, your times will come down. Maybe you’re not doing each set with test-like intensity. Maybe you need more coffee or more sleep. Maybe you’d be sharper at a different time of day. Maybe there’s inefficiency in your process – and if that’s the case, it’s likely that you’re still struggling to fully incorporate the techniques that you’ll see in the videos. It’s also possible that you’re a slow reader, and that’s a hard thing to fix. I wish I could tell you which of these things is happening – but you’ll have to figure that part out for yourself, unfortunately.
- If you’re getting impatient with your results: hey, it’s still only Week 6. If you’re hitting our benchmarks, you’re doing GREAT. If you’re not quite hitting the marks yet, are you at least seeing some improvement? If so, you’re on track – keep at it! And remember that you can always pause the study plan if you need to.
- If you’re getting CRUSHED on CR & RC: well, I’m impressed that you’re still reading this in Week 6. If you’ve already worked hard to address your approach issues – by, say, watching our videos or reading the beginner’s guides to RC and CR – then it’s very possible that your reading skills might be the big issue. If you think that’s the case, this article and this one will give you some ideas for how to improve over time. Just please be aware that improving your fundamental reading skills can take quite a bit of time.
Data Insights+
We’ve been slow-playing the DI content, mostly because the practice resources are limited, and we don’t want you to burn through them too quickly. So if your results aren’t spectacular yet, please don’t overreact – there’s still plenty of time, and it’s still very possible that you’re not quite used to the DI question formats just yet. If that’s the case for you, more practice will obviously help.
That said, if you struggled badly on the practice sets this week, you might want to consider investing a little bit more time into DI. The available practice questions are limited, but maybe some extra time with, say, DI instructional videos will help – those will always appear in the “need help?” section of the homework list.
Benchmarks for Your Week 6 Data Insights Results
Before you do anything else:
- Count the errors that make you go "whoa, how the 🤬 did I miss THAT one?!?" No really: count them, for EVERY set you completed. Then divide that by the total number of questions to get your careless error rate.
If your long-term goal is to score in the 80s, here are the metrics I’d like you to hit in Week 6:
- Careless error rate: < 3%. You’ve heard this before: the careless errors need to be gone, or almost gone. This is the first week you’ve done any Two-Part Analysis questions, so you might see one or two careless errors slip through as you get used to the format, but do everything you can to get rid of them as soon as possible.
- Non-DS sets from MBA.com (#3-4 on the list): these sets are short and there’s some randomness involved in them, so I don’t want you to hold yourself too rigidly to benchmarks. I would think of it this way: 80% is a very good result at this stage, but WHAT you miss is more important than how many you miss. In particular, I’m far more worried about errors on easy questions than on medium ones, and if you missed OG questions on topics that you haven't studied, that's totally cool -- you'll have time to learn those things.
- OG Data Sufficiency set (#5 on the list): these questions are getting tougher, so 80% is a decent result at this stage; 90% is excellent. But again, context matters: careless errors are the enemy, but if you missed questions on quant topics that you haven’t studied yet, that’s totally fine.
- Randomized batches of forum questions (#6-10 on the list): 85-90% correct is good on the sub-555 questions, but if you did mixed difficulty sets, you’ll have to take the results with a grain of salt. If you happened to see nasty, strange questions, 50-60% might be pretty good. Don’t overreact if the percentage wasn’t great, though.
- Speed for Data Sufficiency: On the OG and topic-based sets, you're in good shape if you’re reasonably close to 2 minutes per question. If you're slower than, say, 2:30 per question on average, it might be a sign that your basic skills are rusty, or that you're not choosing efficient paths forward -- and you'll be able to improve those things over time.
- Speed for the non-DS Data Insights questions: On the OG-based sets, you're in good shape if you’re reasonably close to 2:30 minutes per question. If you're slower than, say, 3:00 minutes per question on average, it might be a sign that your basic skills are rusty, or that you're not choosing efficient paths forward -- and you'll be able to improve those things over time.
What Should You Do About Your Data Insights Weaknesses in Week 6?
Our usual reminder: on an adaptive test, job #1 is to be spectacularly accurate on the questions that you’re capable of getting right. If you’re taking care of business on the easier ones, you’ll get pounded by harder questions – and you’ll miss plenty of them. Embrace the pain.
In other words: don’t obsess over the hard stuff. It isn’t worth much of your precious time.
Here’s what to do once you’ve analyzed your results:
- If your careless error rate is too high: address this problem ASAP. Nothing else matters until you do. Do whatever you need to do to fix this. Do it now. Check out the resource list in the study plan for help.
- If you struggled in general with a specific DI question type (DS, GI, TA, TPA): the videos in this five-video playlist or this longer DI playlist might help. Hold off on the MSR for now, though – we’ll get to those soon.
- If you’re struggling disproportionately with verbal-based DI questions: it’s possible that this is a sign that your underlying verbal skills are shaky. Are you also struggling on CR and RC? If so, check out the verbal section for advice on what to do. If you’re doing well on CR and RC but you’re getting whacked by verbal-based DI questions, then something is funky with your approach to DI. Maybe you’re getting disproportionately squirrelly on DI, and you’re rushing through the questions and getting sloppy. Maybe the issue is that DI questions are more likely to contain useless information than their CR & RC counterparts – and you’re obsessing unnecessarily with every little piece of information. Or maybe you’re just misreading the questions themselves on DI. Bottom line: give it some thought, and see if you can figure out what the underlying issues are.
- If you’re struggling disproportionately with quant-based DI questions: similarly, it’s possible that this is a sign that your underlying quant skills are shaky. Are you also struggling with the quant section? If so, check out the quant section for advice on what to do. If you’re doing well on quant but you’re getting whacked by quant-based DI questions, then something is funky with your approach to DI. Maybe you’re getting disproportionately squirrelly on DI, and you’re rushing through the questions and getting sloppy. Maybe the issue is that DI questions are more likely to contain useless information than their quant counterparts – and you’re obsessing unnecessarily with every little piece of information. Or maybe you’re just misreading the questions themselves on DI. Bottom line: give it some thought, and see if you can figure out what the underlying issues are.
- If you struggled with specific quant-based topics (overlapping sets, counting & sequences): don’t panic. It’s far too easy to overreact to a few errors, and study these problems until your eyeballs burst. Instead, try to put your struggles in context: did you miss particularly hard or strange versions of these questions? Were your errors careless? If so, you probably don’t need to do much studying, exactly. But if you missed basic questions because your foundations are shaky, then you might need to do some remedial studying, and it might even make sense to “pause” the study plan to do so – but don’t assume that you need to do this unless the data is very, very clear about your weaknesses.
- If you struggled on the OG, Data Insights Guide, or mba.com sets: don’t panic. Again: ask yourself WHY you struggled. If you’re below, say, 70% accuracy, that’s not ideal right now. But context matters: if most of those errors are on topics you’ve never really studied, you’re in great shape, since you have plenty of time to learn those in the next 7 weeks.
- If you got CRUSHED by ALL of the homework: if you’re nowhere close to the benchmarks on DI – and if your long-term goal is a score in the 80s – then maybe you need to back away from the study plan, and invest some time in rebuilding your basic skills. If that’s the case for you, tag us in the thread, give us as much detail as you can about your situation, and we’ll try to help.
- How much time should you spend reviewing individual questions? Not much, please! Because it can take SOOOOOOO much time to review a question, it should be your absolute last resort. That’s why we want you to redo questions first – sometimes, you’ll see your mistake right away, and that’s the best way to learn. If you miss a question a second time, then maybe it’s a sign of an underlying issue.
- No, really: resist the temptation to obsess over individual questions. Instead, look for patterns in your errors – an error on one question might be a fluke (or a weird, hard, or badly written question), but if you miss several related questions, you have an opportunity to get a good ROI on your study time by addressing a general weakness via a video or articles or books.
26 Jan 2025, 21:27
Kudos
Bookmarks
Thanks again for setting this up! Don't think the links are working for Data Insights section again, unfortunately. Also, could you explain how to access the GMAT Club tests for the practice test for this week? Thank you!
