GMAT Ninja 13-Week Study Plan (2024-25 ed.) Week 8

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GMAT Ninja’s 13-Week Study Plan  
  Week 8 (~15 hours)  
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Welcome back for Week 8 of the study plan! If you have no idea what’s going on here, then you’ll want to start with  Week 1  instead.

Until now, we’ve spent a lot of time building skills and foundations, with lots of practice with LSAT sets and specific quant topics... but not too many practice tests. That’s starting to change now. This is the final week of topic-based quant practice, and practice exams are becoming a bigger part of your life.

We’ll start blasting through the official mba.com practice tests soon, and the end of the study plan isn’t so far away anymore. So if the data says that your skills aren’t quite good enough yet, now is a good time to pause the study plan if you need to. We’ll be here whenever you’re ready to come back.

In keeping with the themes of the past couple of weeks, check out  yet another debrief that focuses on what NOT to do in your studies .

You don’t necessarily need to read the whole thing, but I strongly recommend checking out item #5 in that debrief. It’s easy to be too hard on yourself at this stage, and if you’re struggling, don’t compare yourself to anybody else – just find your rhythm and be patient with yourself.  
   
Things are getting real. This week, we’ll give you the option of repeating a full, official mba.com practice exam #1. If you don’t want to do that, we’ll have an alternative for you.

In honor of your full practice exams, here’s a short video that we recommend:

How to create a successful GMAT test-day routine  (9 minutes)

Week 8 practice test assignments 
The party begins!

Week 8 practice tests:

1. Full mba.com test #1, even if you’ve taken it before. Remember: always  practice like it’s test day , and keep honing  your test-day reset routines  if you need them.

If you’ve already taken this test, that’s OK – we’ll want to save the others for later. If you see any familiar questions, do your best to pretend that they’re brand-new, and keep in mind that your score might be a little bit inflated by the familiarity.

If you do see repeat questions, we’ll help you interpret your results in the next post in this thread. 
   
This week, our focus area will be factors, multiples, and remainders. You won’t see too many of these questions on your actual exam, so don’t go overboard on studying these topics, unless you’re already GREAT at nearly everything else (especially verbal!).

There’s only one more week of content before you’ll be focusing on mixed sets and practice exams. So if the data says that you’re not close to your desired results, now is a good time to pause the study plan if you need to.

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 8 quant homework 
Items #2-3 are the most important items this week. Remainders and divisibility questions can get very difficult and very obscure, so please don’t waste too much time on them – and if you do invest in these questions, we’d recommend skipping the hardest questions. Contrary to popular belief, they won’t make or break your GMAT score.

1. (Optional) If you need help on remainders & divisibility, watch  Number Properties I  (~1 hr.) Here’s  Number Properties II  (~1 hr), but it’s probably not the best use of your time unless you’re already crushing basically everything else on the GMAT.
2. GMAT Official Guide PS #151-175
3. (Optional) Do 15 multiples and factors PS questions.  Sub-655  (recommended) |  Mixed difficulty 
4. (Optional) Do 15 remainders PS questions.  Sub-655  (recommended) |  Mixed difficulty 
5. (Optional) Do 15 number properties PS questions.  Sub-655  (recommended) |  Mixed difficulty 
6. (Optional) Only if you’re CERTAIN that it’s worthwhile: do extra sets of topic-based questions as needed.

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?

If you’re struggling on quant this week, these resources might help:

1. Videos:  Number Properties I  |  Number Properties II 
2. If quant topics from previous weeks are giving you trouble, whatever you need is probably in  this playlist .
3. 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 Quant Mindset  is still a good fit.
4.  GMAT Club Math Book 
5. Heroic quant threads from  Bunuel :  Ultimate GMAT Quant Megathread  |  Signature Question Collection  |  All You Need for Quant

OK, the proverbial gloves are off now. If you’re following the study plan strictly (which may or may not be the right thing for you), you’re only about five weeks from your exam. So we’re down to one RC set per week.

LSAT RC sets are still optional, but if you need an extra check on your progress -- or a good challenge -- it’s still a good idea to do a set or two occasionally.

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 8 RC homework 
 
1. Do the 4th set of ~25 questions from a recent edition of the Verbal Guide. (The question numbers will 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.)
2. (Optional) One more 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?

The usual list of RC resources in case you need them:

A full GMAT RC video course  
  A ton of LIVE YouTube videos on all sorts of topics, including RC  
  All GMAT Ninja RC resources  
  More RC explanations than anybody should ever read  
  Beginner’s guide to RC again

Practice tests will soon be the dominant force in your GMAT life, so we’ll ease up on the CR homework. We’re also done picking on individual question types, so if you’re still struggling with one or more of them, now is a good time to watch a video or read an article to fix your weaknesses.

As always, LSAT sets are optional at this stage, but we still recommend them if you need the challenge of some hard language, or a sanity-check on your progress over time.

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 8 CR homework 
 
1. Do the 5th set of 25 questions from a recent edition of the GMAT OG.
2. (optional) Do a 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:

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  
  A 9-video Critical Reasoning playlist , focused on the underlying causes of CR errors   
    
We’re easing up on quant and verbal homework, but holding steady on DI so that you get enough reps before test day.

This week, you’ll notice that there are plenty of options here. If you really need extra practice on certain topics or question types, go for it. But if your performance is pretty good on the official DI sets, please feel free to skip all of the optional stuff.

Week 8 DI assignments:

1. (Optional) If you need help on remainders & divisibility, watch  Number Properties I . If you’re truly crushing everything else, check out  Number Properties II , but it’s probably not the best use of your time. (Both of these videos also appear in the quant homework.)
2. Do the fourth set of 20 Data Sufficiency questions from your version of the Data Insights Review (skinny little book).
3. 15 mixed questions (GI, TA, TPA, MSR) from the GMAT Official Guide question bank on MBA.com – see below for setup instructions. Use all four non-DS question types, but please read the MSR disclaimer below first. Select easy & medium questions for now.
4. 15 mixed questions (GI, TA, TPA, MSR) from the Data Insights Review question bank on MBA.com – see below for setup instructions. Use all four non-DS question types, but please read the MSR disclaimer below first. Select easy & medium questions for now.
5. (Optional) Do 15 multiples and factors DS questions.  Sub-655 level  (recommended) |  Mixed difficulty 
6. (Optional) Do 15 remainders DS questions.  Sub-655 level  (recommended) |  Mixed difficulty 
7. (Optional) Do 15 number properties DS questions.  Sub-655 level  (recommended) |  Mixed difficulty 
8. (Optional) Do 15 Graphs & Tables questions.  Sub-655 level  |  Mixed difficulty

Instructions for DI practice sets on ( MBA.com )

Friendly warning : the MBA.com software doesn’t always work nicely with Multi-Source Reasoning questions. On the actual GMAT, you’ll always see three questions for each set of MSR tabs. But when you set up these practice sets, you might get only one question for each set of tabs, or you might get the full set of three questions.

Access the  GMAT Official Practice site at mba.com , and locate the "GMAT Official Guide 2024-25" or “GMAT Official Guide Data Insights Review 2024-25” – or whichever editions 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 8 OG assignment : select easy & medium DI, GI, MSR, and TA questions only (no DS, please). And please stop after you’ve completed a total of 15 questions – we’ll save the rest for later. 
  Week 8 Data Insights Review assignment : select easy & medium DI, GI, MSR, and TA questions only (no DS, please). And please stop after you’ve completed a total of 15 questions – we’ll save the rest for later. 
 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 .

Need help with Data Insights?

1. If you’re struggling with DI, everything you need is probably in  this series of five DI videos (filmed LIVE) , or  this playlist of 10 delicious DI videos 
2. If you need help with specific quant topics, check out the quant section of the homework list for more resources.

GMATNinja · Answer

How to Interpret Your Week 8 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. 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. At this stage, it can be particularly hard to make sense of your practice tests. So we strongly recommend reading through at least the first section below. How to interpret your mba.com test #1: How far are you from your target score overall? In theory, you’re about 5 weeks from your actual exam, so you shouldn’t be TOO far from your goal. As a very very rough guideline, I’m worried if you still need to gain more than 50 points – but it depends on what, exactly, went wrong. Omitted questions can DESTROY your GMAT score. Check to see if you left any questions unanswered. The current version of the GMAT penalizes you severely for omitted questions, so please answer absolutely everything, even if you’re guessing blindly at the end of a section. Remember that in the GMAT scoring system, 3 = 20. If you gain 3 “section points” – on any individual section or combination of sections – your total GMAT score will increase by 20 points. More on that in this short video , or here’s a nifty score calculator . How far are you from your target score on the quant, verbal, and DI sections? If you’re 5+ points away from your target score on any individual section, you’re at risk of running out of time, and you might want to pause the study plan to work on your underlying skills. Just keep in mind that DI scores are 3-5 points lower than verbal and quant scores, on average – so make sure that you keep that in mind as you set your score targets. How many careless errors did you make on quant and DI? If you made more than one silly error on quant or DI, then your main problem might be sloppiness – not necessarily a lack of skill. Even a small handful of silly mistakes can cost you 5+ points on quant or DI. So if this is a problem, fix it NOW. Do you notice any patterns in your quant errors? Are you disproportionately missing word translation questions? Annoying algebraic questions with very few words in them? Something else? One or two errors might mean nothing – for example, if you missed two hard, weird rate/work questions (but usually nail the easy ones), that’s cool, and you don’t have anything to worry about. But if you’re missing the same sort of thing repeatedly – especially if the questions seem to be on the easier side – then you’ll want to consider pausing the plan to focus on your weaknesses. Count the number of errors you made on each verbal question type . If you see a dramatic imbalance, then you know exactly what to focus on. If your verbal errors are relatively balanced between CR and RC, that might take more time to fix. Do you notice any patterns in your DI errors? Are you disproportionately missing verbal-based DI questions? Getting freaked out by the mountain of information on MSR questions? Paralyzing when you see particularly weird graphs ? Or do you see some other pattern? To be fair, DI is so multifaceted that it can be hard to spot patterns in your mistakes, but if you’re unhappy with your DI score, try to look beyond the question type, and figure out if anything tends to trigger most of your mistakes. Look for signs of stubbornness . If you’re spending more than 3 minutes on individual questions, you’ll need to learn to let go. Time is a scarce resource on the GMAT, and spending 3+ minutes isn’t efficient, other than on the first question of an RC passage or a Multi-Source Reasoning set. Is nervousness a factor? Is your mind going blank under the pressure of a practice test? Are you struggling to sleep the night before a practice test? If so, check out this beginner’s guide to test anxiety , this test anxiety quiz , or this YouTube playlist . Remember that the experience is totally different if you’re seeing repeated questions . You might not consciously recognize many questions, but I 100% promise that you’ll be faster and more accurate on questions you’ve seen before – and you’re MUCH less likely to struggle with time management as a result. We can’t know whether your score was inflated by 10 points or 50 points or 100 points, but tests with repeated questions are always at least somewhat inflated – and you’ll struggle more with timing on a brand-new test than you did on a familiar one. What to do about your Week 8 practice test results : Feel free to take the mba.com test score (somewhat) seriously . Yes, it might be inflated if you saw familiar questions, so don’t celebrate TOO hard just yet. But if the official test tries to tell you that you need to work on something, you’ll definitely want to listen. Pause the study plan if necessary. If you’re making careless errors : As always, job #1 is to stamp them out. Check out the resource list in the study plan for help. If you spent 3+ minutes on too many questions (or maybe 3:30 for non-DS DI questions) : This is a question of discipline and mindset. Learn to let go! Remember: the test is designed to make you miss 25-50% of the questions, and most of you will do exactly that – even if you get a great score. So dump the perfectionism, and learn to let questions go. Again: don’t spend a ton of time reviewing individual questions. They can drain too much of your precious study time. If a question was hard or weird, then it isn’t the biggest threat to your GMAT goals. Benchmarks for Your Week 8 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 8: Careless error rate : < 2%. You’ve heard this before: the careless errors need to be gone, or almost gone. OG & Quant Guide sets (item #2) : 80%+ correct is great, 70-80% is good. The questions are getting harder now, so your accuracy might be dropping a bit. Number properties questions (items #3-5) : 70% or above is probably excellent, but take the results with a grain of salt! These sets are random, and non-official questions on these topics tend to be particularly bizarre. If you happened to see oddball questions, 50-60% correct might be pretty good. The important thing: don’t overreact to your results, as long as you’ve mastered the very basics. 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 8? 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. Better: do it yesterday. Pause the study plan if you need to. Just fix the careless errors. If you struggled on the OG or Quant Guide sets (item #2) : as usual, ask yourself WHY you struggled. If you’re at, say, 70% accuracy, that’s not ideal, but context matters: I really don’t mind if you got beat up by hard or unusual questions. If you missed a cluster of similar questions – especially if they don’t appear to be terribly difficult – then invest time in those topics if necessary. But don’t overreact to individual questions, please. If you struggled on the number properties sets (items #3-5) : 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 absolutely DESTROYED by ALL of the quant homework : it’s probably time to pause the study plan, invest some time in rebuilding your basic quant skills, and come back to the plan later. 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. Benchmarks for Your Week 8 RC & CR Results OG & Verbal Guide RC & CR sets : if your goal is a 90th percentile score on GMAT verbal, 80% correct in under 2 minutes per question is in the right ballpark, and 90% is outstanding. These are getting hard now, so if you’re squirming, that’s cool. Accuracy on (optional) 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 if you want 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 8? 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... and you might want to do so ASAP, because time is becoming scarce. Pause the study plan if you need to. If you’re better at CR than RC : same as above. If you haven’t already addressed this, it’s probably time to do so. Pause the study plan if you need to. If you’re slow ( > 60 mins per LSAT set, > 2 minutes per OG or Verbal Guide question) : by now, you should have standardized your approach to RC and CR questions; if you haven’t, then you probably need to do so ASAP. If your process is spot-on already, maybe you’re slow because of “non-academic” issues: fatigue, distraction, anxiety, the time of day that you’re doing sets, barking dogs outside your window, low blood sugar, a lack of sleep, or a lack of intensity. It’s also possible that you’re a slow reader, and that’s always 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 : If you’re hitting our benchmarks, you’re doing GREAT, and you’re ready to get something close to an 84V. If you’re not quite hitting the CR/RC benchmarks yet, are you at least seeing some improvement? If so, you’re on track – keep at it! You can always pause the study plan if you need to. If you’re getting CRUSHED on CR & RC : well, I’m very impressed that you’re still reading this in Week 8, but if you’re getting demolished, you’ll want to check out this video about the factors that can lead to GMAT verbal struggles . (It references an older version of the GMAT, but the punchlines are still very, very relevant.) If fundamental reading skills are an issue, this article and this one will give you some ideas for how to improve over time. Benchmarks for Your Week 8 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 on DI, here are the metrics I’d like you to hit in Week 8: Careless error rate : < 2%. You’ve heard this before: the careless errors need to be gone, or almost gone. Official DS set (#2 on the list) : these are getting harder as you move through the books, so I’d be happy with 80% accuracy here. As always, context matters: if you struggled with a few weird questions – or with any quant topics that you haven’t studied yet – that’s not a big deal. Mixed mba.com sets (GI, TA, TPA, MSR – #3-4 on the list) : Even if you’re doing just easy and medium questions, the difficulty can vary more than you might think, and sometimes the percentage correct doesn’t tell the full story. So take the results with a small grain of salt, but I’d be happy to see something like 80% correct at this stage; if you’re already approaching 90% correct, you definitely deserve a cookie. Randomized batches of forum questions (#5-8 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 – especially since non-official GI, TA, TPA, and number properties questions vary enormously in quality. 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. If this is still a problem, you might want to consider honing your DS technique, maybe with some help from the videos that appear in the resources lists. Speed for Multi-Source Reasoning : On DI, you’ll have an average of 2:15 per question. It’s OK if you’re a bit slower on MSR on test day, but you don’t want to be TOO much slower. So in the long run, you’ll want to average somewhere around 7-9 minutes per set of 3 MSR questions, and ideally on the lower end of that range. Of course, you may or may not see 3 questions per MSR “tab set” on mba.com practice sets, so adjust your expectations accordingly – something like 3-5 minutes on the first question is probably OK, and ideally 2 minutes per less on any subsequent questions. If you’re close to these speeds right now, that’s great. Speed for GI, TA, & TPA questions : You're in good shape if you’re 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. If that’s still a problem, you might consider spending some extra time with the videos in the resources list to see if those help at all. What Should You Do About Your Data Insights Weaknesses in Week 8? 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 with Data Sufficiency : hm, that’s not great at this stage, since you’ve had plenty of DS practice. Ask yourself: is quant the underlying problem, or are you still struggling with the DS question format? Either way, the usual video playlists ( quant , DI ) might help a bit here. If you struggled with the Multi-Source Reasoning questions : These might still feel slow and painful, and that’s still OK. The key is learning how to find the right information for each question, without obsessing over every little thing – and that takes time and practice. So please don’t panic if you’re slow or inaccurate. As long as you’re making some progress, that’s OK for now, but feel free to check out the resources list if you’d like some extra help with these. If you struggled on specific quant topics, such as statistics : don’t panic , please. 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 with official GI, TA, or TPA questions : again, ask yourself WHY you struggled. If you’re struggling to hit 70% accuracy on these three question types, that’s not ideal at this stage. But context matters: careless errors are the apocalypse, obviously. If you’re struggling with your underlying quant or verbal skills, it might be time to address those head-on. And if you’re doing far worse on these three DI question types than on quant or verbal, it might be a sign that your approach to them is flawed – if that’s the case, extra time with the videos might be a good investment. If you got CRUSHED by ALL of the DI 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.

bhavyagmat · Answer

GMAT Club Math book
Unable to annotate..( as passoword protected)

Please suggest what needs to be done to access annotation

GMATNinja · Answer

I have no idea, but Bunuel knows everything, and might be able to help. Also, he once challenged a lighting bolt to a duel, and it was a draw.

abhiram1245 · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja ,

In RC verbal I am able to get around 70 percent accuracy for less than 2 min per question. I have 2 queries 
1. Should I stop at this week till I reach 80% accuracy as you suggested or continue with plan and improve while finishing schedule.
 2. In RC I observed I don't have problem with question types or passage type but when I don't felt like I grasped that piece of passage then I am getting the error, Should I have to improve my reading skills for it? and It is happening more for history and literature passages.

GMATNinja · Answer

Great question, and I'm a little bit surprised that more test-takers haven't asked something similar.

I don't have a one-size-fits-all answer, but here are a few thoughts and questions:

Are you performing better on CR than on RC, particularly on the LSAT sets (which don't vary much in difficulty from set to set)? If so, that's a sign that something is funky in your approach to RC. For example, if you can get to 80% accuracy on LSAT CR sets, you're absolutely capable of the same results on RC -- and there's something in your process or mindset that's holding you back. And in theory, that should be fixable if you can figure out what you're doing wrong. 
 How happy are you with your overall verbal results? Depending on how strong your CR is, it's possible that you can still score in the 80s on verbal, even if RC is a little bit shaky. And maybe that's good enough, given your goals?  
 It's harder for me to answer the question about whether it's a good idea to pause the plan and work on RC, just because it depends on your answers to my previous couple of questions. If you're crushing CR, maybe it's worth investing a week or two into RC to see if you can figure out how, exactly, your process is going awry. On the other hand, if you're happy with your overall scores, then it's definitely silly to pause your studies.  
 Related: the big question is whether you're struggling to grasp passages (or pieces of them) because the language is fundamentally too hard for you, or if you're struggling for some other reason. Maybe you're not focused enough on the big picture, or you're obsessing over details, or reading too slowly, or reading too quickly, or you're getting intimidated by certain topics (history/literature) and reading those passages differently. If the language is simply too hard for you -- and that issue drives basically all of your errors -- then it's likely to take a long time to improve your fundamental reading skills. But if it's one of those other factors, then they're potentially fixable, as long as you can figure out what, exactly, the problem is. And that's admittedly hard to figure out at times, but that's a very different task than becoming a stronger reader in general.

Does that help at all? I realize that I'm giving you more questions than answers, but does any of this spark anything for you?

Keep us posted, please!

ChristosXiro · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja  ,

I have a similar question to the above mentioned comment. I am about to start Week 8 and I noticed that you recommended this period as a good time to stop the study plan if our metrics aren’t consistent with the benchmarks.

Personally, I am most of the times within the recommended accuracy rates. The thing is that I have slightly more careless errors (but I am quite strict with myself on what I consider a careless errors). In addition, I have a timing issue in the middle difficulty questions, since in all three sections most sections take me between 2.5 and 3 minutes in practice sets. And there are some of them that even take me around 5 minutes in extreme cases. I don't know if it’s just an excuse, but I have always been among the people finishing last in exams (but always with very good scores).

My goal is quite modest since I want to do masters in European Universities and I have put my target around 555-605. How should I proceed? Should I stop the study plan and insist in fixing timing and sloppiness, or taking into consideration my target, I should just continue since the effort I have already put in gmat should be enough to get me the desired results?

Also any advice on how to fix my timing issues is highly accepted!! (Because I had this problem in my consulting job as well, so it is something that’s bothering me)

GMATNinja · Answer

Thank you for this,  ChristosXiro ! It's an interesting situation, and I probably have more questions than answers for you.

The biggest question: why do you think speed is such an issue for you? Are you too much of a perfectionist, and refuse to stop at "good enough"? Are you indecisive, and struggle to settle on a final answer (on both exams and during consulting tasks)? Are you fundamentally a slow reader? Do you get distracted in the middle of a task, which might be a sign of ADHD or something similar?

You might not know the answer -- this is a complicated thing. For the GMAT, the tricky thing is that I'd recommend very different things depending on the underlying cause of your timing issues.

I can say a few generic things that might help a bit, though. For starters, make sure that you do everything with test-like intensity. Maybe you're already doing that, but if not, it's crucial. We want to be sure that your times aren't a product of "taking your foot off the gas" when you study.

My second thought is that it couldn't hurt to start letting go of questions when you're overmatched. If you don't see a clear path forward, guess, flag the question, and move on -- even when you're just doing a practice set. That way, you'll get out of the habit of spending 5 minutes on questions, since that's a habit you can't afford on test day. When you're just doing practice, you can always come back to those questions later, and see if there might be value in spending more time on the question.

Have you taken a full practice test recently? Since your goals are modest, it might not be a bad idea to focus on eliminating those careless errors and letting go of hard questions -- and then go take an mba.com test to see where you stand. I wouldn't be shocked if you're already close to where you need to be. And if that's the case, there's obviously no need to pause the study plan or change course at all.

I hope that helps a bit, and please keep us posted on your progress!

ChristosXiro · Answer

Thanks for the comprehensive answer  GMATNinja  ! I really appreciate your inputs to this community!

To answer your questions, I believe that the issue of timing is a combination of factors in my case. First of all, it’s true that I am a perfectionist and for that I sometimes push myself to the limits to achieve my goals and that in gmat translates in pushing questions that I can answer but it takes some time. That was my strategy so far at least for the training, because I didn’t want to set an artificial time limit and I wanted to reduce my careless errors, so I have been double checking if I felt the need.

Secondly, most of the times I am not that indecisive. This happens only to some Verbal questions, but it is rather the exception than the norm. In general, Verbal is my strongest section so far.

Now when it comes to slow reading I don’t know if it is just an excuse but it have been always taking me more time to read long questions in school than the other kids. I can’t say I was way too slow, but it is true that it was generally taking me some time. Also another thing is that because gmat is not my full time engagement, I sometimes get tired in the middle of a set and it takes me a few seconds (sometimes even 10-15 seconds) to coordinate my mind and actively read. I would say that this is because of tiredness rather than test-like intensity because I feel that in every set I try to be consistent and push it to the limit. On the other hand I am not doing more than 2 sets a day so I cannot really reduce the sets I do each day.

Now to reply to your general suggestions, I think that setting a time limit per question even in the training might indeed help from now on so my scores become more realistic considering the time.

As for the practice tests, I have taken an official practice test as a diagnostic test when I started Week 1 (495- Q:75 V:79 DI:70). Then I took 2 GMAT club tests (485- Q:77 V:82 DI: 63) (545- Q:77 V:82 DI: 71) and two sector gmat club test (the most recent ones), one Quant:78 and a DI:70. I believe that now that I will take again an official practice test I will be quite close to my goals since after these tests I have trained in some quant topics that I wasn’t that familiar and confident before. But in general I feel that speed is affecting my score a lot especially in DI where I usually just guess 4-5 questions because I simply don’t have the time. In Quant and Verbal I have a better timing strategy. Maybe also it will help to get better in letting go, which I plan to practice even more in the following weeks.

Again thanks for your time! I hope you didn’t get tired of my long message, but I tried to be as honest and analytical as possible so we can help not only me but also the other community members that may be facing familiar problems. I am really looking forward to your analysis!

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GMAT Ninja 13-Week Study Plan (2024-25 ed.) Week 8

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