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GMAT Ninja’s 13-Week Study Plan
Updated for the new GMAT in 2024
Subscribe via E-mail | Study Plan Chat Group
Week 1 (~15 hours)
Welcome to our “one-size-fits-most”, 13-week GMAT study plan, based on our decades of experience as GMAT tutors. (Yes, decades. Charles is old.)
Here’s what you’re getting yourself into:
We’ll repeat that last part: be ready to work HARD. If you're not dedicated to your GMAT studies, this isn't for you.
Ready to get started? Buckle up.
Here’s a video that explains what the study plan is and – more importantly – how best to use it. You’ll save a ton of time in the long run if you watch the video BEFORE getting started.
So please don’t skip this!
- What You’ll Need
Resources you’ll need before starting the study plan:
Here are additional practice resources you’ll eventually want to purchase, but they can wait until later in the process:
If you’ve already exhausted the official guides, you’re in a tough spot for Data Insights, unfortunately – pretty much every official DI question is already included in the study plan. However, you could use older editions for quant and verbal – OG 12 and the 2nd edition of the quant and verbal guides would be decent options, but you’ll want to skip the geometry. If you have questions, feel free to ask in the thread, and we’ll do our best to help.
1. If you have NOT taken the GMAT or any official practice tests: take mba.com test #1
2. If you’ve taken an actual GMAT exam, please make sure you understand what your score report is telling you.
If you’ve never taken the GMAT -- or you don’t have a detailed score report from an attempt at the old GMAT -- no problem. Just skip this task, and everything will be fine.
3. Figure out how many points you’d like to gain on the quant, verbal, and DI sections.
That’s it. If you’ve recently taken official practice (or actual) tests and you understand how far you are from your goals, that’s great – just move on to the homework.
You’re probably going to hate this.
We have only two goals on quant in Week 1:
1. Ensure that you NEVER make sloppy errors.
2. Check on your arithmetic and algebra foundations.
Here’s why:
1. On an adaptive test like the GMAT, careless errors can DESTROY your score. To learn why, check out this video on GMAT time management (6 mins.) or this one on score-killing errors (59 mins.). These videos were made for the old, pre-2024 version of the GMAT, but the punchlines are still spot-on.
2. If you’re unhappy with your quant (or DI) score, you’re probably making careless errors. And you probably don’t pay enough attention to them.
3. Arithmetic and/or algebra are embedded in nearly every quant (and quant-based DI) question, and if those fundamentals are shaky, you’ll be in trouble.
I know: this isn’t sexy. You probably won’t enjoy this. But if you perform well, the homework will get more interesting next week.
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. (We’ll say more below about how and when to redo the questions you missed.)
By design, these practice sets are mostly short, and they should FEEL easy. So you shouldn’t make any mistakes at all, right? Um... right?
1. Watch this video (34 minutes) on how to approach GMAT quant and data sufficiency.
2. (Optional, but recommended) Videos: how to get better at studying for GMAT quant (8 mins) | GMAT arithmetic (49 mins) | GMAT algebra (70+ mins)
3. (Optional, but recommended) Do a set of 10 general systems of linear equations, which you can generate here. If you’re not efficiently getting 100% of them right (in less than 15 minutes per set of 10), keep doing sets of 10 until you can ace them.
4. (Optional, but also highly recommended) If you’re rusty on quadratics factoring, solve this set of 10 basic quadratic equations. If you need more practice, you can generate more worksheets here; select as many "Quadratics --> simple factorable" exercises as you need.
5. A set of 25 sub-555 algebra problem-solving questions, available here. Yes, they’re easy. That’s exactly the point – please don’t make any sloppy mistakes!
6. Official Guide Problem Solving #1-25
7. A set of 25 sub-555 arithmetic PS questions, available here
8. (Very, very optional) Quant section only from the GMAT Club tests or another NON-official source (save the remaining mba.com exams for later!)
What to do AFTER completing a quant homework set
Need help with quant?
If you make careless errors or struggle on the content this week, these resources might help:
1. If you’re making careless errors, this video on how to approach GMAT quant (also in the Week 1 quant homework list) is essential viewing.
2. If you’re struggling with the fundamental content this week, check out this GMAT arithmetic video or this algebra video.
3. GMAT Club Math Book: full pdf | algebra section
4. Heroic quant threads from Bunuel: Ultimate GMAT Quant Megathread | Signature Question Collection | All You Need for Quant
In Week 1, your goal is to develop a consistent, repeatable approach to GMAT RC questions. We’ll start with a video and article to help you understand how to approach RC passages, and then give you some nice long, hard RC sets so that you can put our advice into practice.
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.
1. Watch this video on the fundamentals of RC or read this beginner’s guide to RC, which covers the same principles. (~ 1 hr.)
2. Do a full LSAT RC set (~25 questions, ~ 1 hr). Click here to learn why we assign LSAT sets for GMAT students.
3. (Optional, but recommended) One more LSAT RC set
4. (Optional) Do 3-4 RC passages from older editions of the OGs; you can find some from OG 12 and the Verbal 2nd edition here.
What to do AFTER completing an RC homework set
Need help with RC?
If you struggled with your RC homework sets this week, here are some resources that might help:
If you read the RC section above, this is going to sound very, very familiar.
In Week 1, your goal is to develop a consistent, repeatable approach to GMAT CR questions. We’ll start with a video and article, and follow that with some HARD practice. Enjoy!
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.
1. Watch this video on how to approach CR or read this beginner’s guide to CR, which covers the same ideas. (~ 1 hr.)
2. Do a full LSAT CR set (~25 questions, ~ 1 hr). Click here to learn why we assign LSAT sets for GMAT students.
3. (Optional, but recommended) One additional LSAT CR set (~25 questions, ~ 1 hr)
4. (Very optional) Do 15-20 CR from older editions of the OGs; you can find some from OG 12 and the Verbal 2nd edition here.
What to do AFTER completing a CR homework set
Need help with CR?
If you struggled with your CR homework sets this week, here are some resources that might help:
No DI for you this week!
We know: ignoring DI just doesn’t feel quite right. But there’s a very limited supply of worthwhile DI practice questions. So you’re better off saving those DI questions for later, so that you can hit your peak at the right time.
Don’t worry: by the time you finish the 13-week study plan, you’ll have completed every official DI question in the most recent OG and DI Guide, along with a fistful of videos and well over 100 additional, official DI questions from practice tests.
In other words, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to suffer. Er, practice.
Read this debrief by a charming Aussie who studied for more than 2,272 hours, or watch this YouTube interview with the same dude.
Updated for the new GMAT in 2024
Subscribe via E-mail | Study Plan Chat Group
Study Plan Schedule:
Week 1 (you are here!) | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12 | Week 13
Week 1 (you are here!) | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12 | Week 13
Week 1 (~15 hours)
Welcome to our “one-size-fits-most”, 13-week GMAT study plan, based on our decades of experience as GMAT tutors. (Yes, decades. Charles is old.)
Here’s what you’re getting yourself into:
- Bad news: no study plan fits everybody perfectly. We’ve designed this one with a reasonably typical GMAT Club member in mind: a test-taker scoring somewhere in the high 400s or 500s, with aspirations of a 600+ and weaknesses on quant, verbal, and DI. If you’re in a different situation, you’ll need to alter the plan to suit your needs.
- We expect you to spend approximately 15 hours per week studying for the GMAT: roughly 2 hours per weekday, and maybe a bit more on the weekends.
- Our goal is to help you beat the odds. The average GMAT student improves by less than 30 points when re-taking the exam, according to GMAC data. So be prepared for some serious work.
We’ll repeat that last part: be ready to work HARD. If you're not dedicated to your GMAT studies, this isn't for you.
Ready to get started? Buckle up.
Watch this video first!
Here’s a video that explains what the study plan is and – more importantly – how best to use it. You’ll save a ton of time in the long run if you watch the video BEFORE getting started.
So please don’t skip this!
- What You’ll Need
Resources you’ll need before starting the study plan:
- GMAT Official Guide 2024-2025 bundle.
- An official LSAT book. (Here’s why.) This one would be a good choice, but any of the LSAT books with 10 full, official LSAT tests is OK. You could also buy an online subscription to the LSAT library here.
- Set up an error log of some sort. Use the built in Error Log at GMAT Club, here are some options, and click here to download a version of the minimalist tracker we use with our private tutoring students at GMAT Ninja (click on File --> Make a copy, please). Use anything you’d like. But use something.
Here are additional practice resources you’ll eventually want to purchase, but they can wait until later in the process:
- Official mba.com practice exams. There are 6 (4 paid, 2 free), and you’ll eventually want all of them.
- Official mba.com practice questions
- GMAT Club tests (or other non-official practice tests for quant only)
- Optional: Forum Quiz for targeted practice of some topics
- Optional, but recommended: GMAT simulation pad if you’re planning to take the GMAT in a test center; If you’re planning to take the GMAT online, you might want to buy a whiteboard that fits the requirements for the online GMAT exam, such as this one.
If you’ve already exhausted the official guides, you’re in a tough spot for Data Insights, unfortunately – pretty much every official DI question is already included in the study plan. However, you could use older editions for quant and verbal – OG 12 and the 2nd edition of the quant and verbal guides would be decent options, but you’ll want to skip the geometry. If you have questions, feel free to ask in the thread, and we’ll do our best to help.
(A) Where Do You Stand? (0-4 hrs.)+
1. If you have NOT taken the GMAT or any official practice tests: take mba.com test #1
- The goal: establish a baseline score so that you know how far you are from your target.
- When you’re finished, please don’t review or redo individual questions, since you might want to retake this exam in a month or two, and it’s best if you don’t remember the questions well.
- It is, however, OK to take a broad look at your struggles. Did you miss far more questions of one type than another? Are you significantly farther from your score goal on one section than the other?
- For more, please read the 2nd post in this thread.
2. If you’ve taken an actual GMAT exam, please make sure you understand what your score report is telling you.
- Check out this article to help you analyze your GMAT score report. Or, watch us analyze a GMAC executive's actual score report in this video.
If you’ve never taken the GMAT -- or you don’t have a detailed score report from an attempt at the old GMAT -- no problem. Just skip this task, and everything will be fine.
3. Figure out how many points you’d like to gain on the quant, verbal, and DI sections.
- If you need to gain FAR more points on one section than the others, use that information to guide your studies. If you’re weaker at verbal, please do less quant and DI homework, and spend more time on “optional” verbal assignments and videos. If you’re weaker in quant or DI, you’ll want to focus on those sections.
- Keep in mind that all three sections are weighted equally in determining your composite GMAT score. For more details, check out this one-minute video on why 3 = 20 in the GMAT scoring system.
That’s it. If you’ve recently taken official practice (or actual) tests and you understand how far you are from your goals, that’s great – just move on to the homework.
(B) Quant (~3-6 hrs.)+
You’re probably going to hate this.
We have only two goals on quant in Week 1:
1. Ensure that you NEVER make sloppy errors.
2. Check on your arithmetic and algebra foundations.
Here’s why:
1. On an adaptive test like the GMAT, careless errors can DESTROY your score. To learn why, check out this video on GMAT time management (6 mins.) or this one on score-killing errors (59 mins.). These videos were made for the old, pre-2024 version of the GMAT, but the punchlines are still spot-on.
2. If you’re unhappy with your quant (or DI) score, you’re probably making careless errors. And you probably don’t pay enough attention to them.
3. Arithmetic and/or algebra are embedded in nearly every quant (and quant-based DI) question, and if those fundamentals are shaky, you’ll be in trouble.
I know: this isn’t sexy. You probably won’t enjoy this. But if you perform well, the homework will get more interesting next week.
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. (We’ll say more below about how and when to redo the questions you missed.)
Week 1 quant homework
By design, these practice sets are mostly short, and they should FEEL easy. So you shouldn’t make any mistakes at all, right? Um... right?
1. Watch this video (34 minutes) on how to approach GMAT quant and data sufficiency.
2. (Optional, but recommended) Videos: how to get better at studying for GMAT quant (8 mins) | GMAT arithmetic (49 mins) | GMAT algebra (70+ mins)
3. (Optional, but recommended) Do a set of 10 general systems of linear equations, which you can generate here. If you’re not efficiently getting 100% of them right (in less than 15 minutes per set of 10), keep doing sets of 10 until you can ace them.
4. (Optional, but also highly recommended) If you’re rusty on quadratics factoring, solve this set of 10 basic quadratic equations. If you need more practice, you can generate more worksheets here; select as many "Quadratics --> simple factorable" exercises as you need.
5. A set of 25 sub-555 algebra problem-solving questions, available here. Yes, they’re easy. That’s exactly the point – please don’t make any sloppy mistakes!
6. Official Guide Problem Solving #1-25
7. A set of 25 sub-555 arithmetic PS questions, available here
8. (Very, very optional) Quant section only from the GMAT Club tests or another NON-official source (save the remaining mba.com exams for later!)
What to do AFTER completing a quant 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: you’re probably making careless errors, and fixing them needs to be your #1 area of focus. 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 make careless errors or struggle on the content this week, these resources might help:
1. If you’re making careless errors, this video on how to approach GMAT quant (also in the Week 1 quant homework list) is essential viewing.
2. If you’re struggling with the fundamental content this week, check out this GMAT arithmetic video or this algebra video.
3. GMAT Club Math Book: full pdf | algebra section
4. Heroic quant threads from Bunuel: Ultimate GMAT Quant Megathread | Signature Question Collection | All You Need for Quant
(C) Reading Comprehension (~2 hrs.)+
In Week 1, your goal is to develop a consistent, repeatable approach to GMAT RC questions. We’ll start with a video and article to help you understand how to approach RC passages, and then give you some nice long, hard RC sets so that you can put our advice into practice.
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.
Week 1 RC homework
1. Watch this video on the fundamentals of RC or read this beginner’s guide to RC, which covers the same principles. (~ 1 hr.)
2. Do a full LSAT RC set (~25 questions, ~ 1 hr). Click here to learn why we assign LSAT sets for GMAT students.
3. (Optional, but recommended) One more LSAT RC set
4. (Optional) Do 3-4 RC passages from older editions of the OGs; you can find some from OG 12 and the Verbal 2nd edition here.
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 waste 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? 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 three or more questions on a particular passage, you might consider redoing the entire passage 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, check out the 2nd 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:
(D) Critical Reasoning (~2 hrs.)+
If you read the RC section above, this is going to sound very, very familiar.
In Week 1, your goal is to develop a consistent, repeatable approach to GMAT CR questions. We’ll start with a video and article, and follow that with some HARD practice. Enjoy!
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.
Week 1 CR homework
1. Watch this video on how to approach CR or read this beginner’s guide to CR, which covers the same ideas. (~ 1 hr.)
2. Do a full LSAT CR set (~25 questions, ~ 1 hr). Click here to learn why we assign LSAT sets for GMAT students.
3. (Optional, but recommended) One additional LSAT CR set (~25 questions, ~ 1 hr)
4. (Very optional) Do 15-20 CR from older editions of the OGs; you can find some from OG 12 and the Verbal 2nd edition here.
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 drains a TON of your study time – and it isn’t terribly 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 2nd 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:
(E) Data Insights (0 hrs.)+
No DI for you this week!
We know: ignoring DI just doesn’t feel quite right. But there’s a very limited supply of worthwhile DI practice questions. So you’re better off saving those DI questions for later, so that you can hit your peak at the right time.
Don’t worry: by the time you finish the 13-week study plan, you’ll have completed every official DI question in the most recent OG and DI Guide, along with a fistful of videos and well over 100 additional, official DI questions from practice tests.
In other words, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to suffer. Er, practice.
(F) Inspiration (optional)+
Read this debrief by a charming Aussie who studied for more than 2,272 hours, or watch this YouTube interview with the same dude.
11 Nov 2024, 08:32
Kudos
Bookmarks
How to Interpret Your Week 1 Homework Results
Please read this section each week if you’re serious about optimizing your study time.
Our goal is to help you understand how good (or bad) your results are, so that you can (A) choose your homework wisely, and (B) avoid wasting time reviewing questions that don’t really matter.
In Week 1, we strongly recommend reading through this in detail, partly to deepen your understanding of what REALLY matters when you study for the GMAT. If you’re panicking about a result – or if you’re tempted to spend a half-billion hours reviewing individual questions – then you’ll definitely want to take a deep breath, and read through this first.
Practice Tests+
Most of you probably didn't do a practice test this week, and that's great. In many cases, your time is best spent elsewhere right now.
If you took a full mba.com test in Week 1:
- Don’t spend time reviewing the questions! You’ll probably want to retake this same practice test in a month or two, and you’ll get more from the experience if you don’t remember much.
- Track how far you are from your goals on quant, verbal, and DI. Why? Well, if, for example, you’re 15 points from your target score on verbal but 3 points away on quant and DI, then you’ll need to spend more time on verbal right from the start. In each week of the study plan, you’ll need to make decisions about how to allocate your study time – and your quant/verbal/DI split should be the single biggest factor in those choices.
- Do a quick check of your verbal performance by question type (RC, CR). If you performed MUCH worse on one question type, just take note of it for now. We’ll give you plenty of optional resources and homework over time, and you’ll want to spend more of that “optional” time in your weak areas – and skip it for your strong areas.
- Do a quick check of your Data Insights performance by question type (MSR, TPA, TA, GI, DS). If you performed MUCH worse on one or two question types, just take note of it for now. We’ll offer some optional resources and homework over time for DI too, and you’ll want to spend more of that “optional” time in your weak areas – and skip it for your strong areas.
- Count your careless errors on quant. No, really: please count them. In the long run, you’ll need to completely eliminate those careless errors on quant – and very little matters on quant until you do.
- Most importantly: don’t overreact. It’s Week 1. You have plenty of time to improve.
Quant+
Benchmarks for Your Week 1 Quant 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 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 1:
- Careless error rate: < 5%. If you make careless errors on 5% of questions now, you’re going to make far more under the pressure of the actual exam – maybe three times as many, which means that you’d make 3-4 goofy errors on your actual test. And that will destroy your score. So let’s get this careless error rate down to 1-2% at most.
- Basic algebra drills (#3 & #4 on the list): 100% accuracy, please, ideally in under 90 seconds per question on average. If you're not quite there, keep practicing.
- OG & Quant Guide sets (#6 on the list): 85-90% correct is excellent, 80% is probably good for now. Just remember that WHAT you miss is more important on the GMAT than how many you missed: careless errors are apocalyptic. If you missed OG questions on topics that you haven't studied, that's totally cool -- you'll have time to learn those things.
- Randomized batches of forum questions (#5 & #7 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 – the quality of questions often varies considerably.
- Speed: 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.
What Should You Do About Your Quant Weaknesses in Week 1?
First, a public service announcement: you can miss 20-50% of the quant questions on the GMAT and still get an excellent score. The goal of an adaptive exam is to find the level of question at which you get roughly 40-50% of the questions wrong. So even if you score in the 80s on quant, you might miss a TON of questions – that’s just how the GMAT works. What matters is WHAT you miss – not just how many you miss.
Related: if you make careless mistakes on easier questions, the GMAT will eat you for breakfast. You might already know that from watching this short video on time management. It was produced for an older version of the GMAT, but the messages are definitely still relevant for the current version of the GMAT.
The punchline: when you study, you’ll need to pick your battles wisely. If you’re painstakingly reviewing every single question you missed, you’re probably missing the point. Yes, you’ll want to look for signs that your foundations are shaky, and you’ll also need to stamp out careless errors.
But if you’re getting beat up by harder or more obscure questions? That’s cool. Don’t waste too much of your precious study time on that stuff, particularly in the first few weeks of the study plan.
Here’s what to do after you’ve analyzed your results:
- If your careless error rate is too high: you need to address this problem ASAP. Nothing else matters on quant until you do. Check out the resource list in the study plan for help.
- If you struggled on the basic algebra sets (items #3-4): these are boring sets, but basic algebra underpins a whole lot of quant questions. If you need to spend extra time on your fundamental algebra skills, do it – it’ll be worth it in the long run.
- If you struggled on the OG sets (item #6): don’t panic. Ask yourself WHY you struggled. If you’re at, say, 70% accuracy, that’s not ideal right now. 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 couple of months.
- If you struggled on the randomized, topic-based sets (item #5 & #7): again, don’t panic. It’s far too easy to overreact to a few errors, and study these problems until your eyeballs burst. Instead, put your struggles into context: did you miss 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 in these topics – but don’t assume that you need to do so unless the data is very, very clear about your weaknesses.
- If you got absolutely 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.
Verbal+
First, another public service announcement: LSAT sets are HARD. If you’re not in pain, you’re probably not doing it right.
Benchmarks for Your Week 1 Verbal Results
- Accuracy on LSAT CR & RC sets: if your goal is a 90th percentile score on verbal, we eventually want to see 80% accuracy on LSAT CR and RC. It’s OK if you’re not there in Week 1. It’s even OK if you’re not terribly close yet – there’s plenty of time to improve.
- Efficiency on LSAT CR & RC sets: if you can complete full LSAT sets in under 60 minutes, you’ll have a good shot at finishing the GMAT verbal section on time. If you’re in the 60-70 minute range right now, that’s still OK – you have time to become more efficient and energetic. If you’re slower than that, we might be worried. More on that below.
- 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 that’s not cool. You’ll certainly struggle more on some passages than others, but the results on the full sets of ~25 questions should be pretty stable.
- GMAT OG & Verbal Guide RC & CR questions: we can’t give you a benchmark, because it just depends on the difficulty level of the questions that you happened to do. All I can say is that you’ll want to look for HUGE patterns in your mistakes: are science passages freaking you out? Are you overwhelmingly missing a certain question type? If the patterns are CLEAR, they’re worth addressing, but don’t overreact to a question or two.
What Should You Do About Your Verbal Weaknesses in Week 1?
- Don’t panic. CR and RC progress often takes time, and if you’re far from the benchmarks, that might be totally fine. Learn as much as you can from the videos and articles in the study plan, and understand that improving on verbal is usually a marathon, not a sprint.
- Look for “careless” errors. As with everything on the GMAT, pay close attention to anything that seemed to be an “unforced error.” Did you miss questions that felt easy to you? If so, you might want to revisit the videos and articles in the assignment list.
- If your results are significantly better on RC than on CR: that’s not a bad thing! There’s no reason why you can’t bring your CR results to the level of your RC, but something is probably funky with your approach to 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: that’s not a bad thing, either! You’re 100% capable of bringing your RC up to the level of your CR. Maybe you’re obsessing over details when you read RC (missing the “big picture”), or maybe you’re struggling to stay focused on longer RC passages. Maybe you’ll want to err on the side of getting a bit of extra practice on RC in the coming weeks. We’ll keep feeding you videos that might help, too.
- If you’re slow ( > 60 mins per LSAT set): I wish that I could tell you exactly what’s happening, but there are a ton of different reasons why your times might be high. Maybe you’re still learning new approaches, and haven’t fully integrated them into your process yet – if that’s the case, your times will drop naturally. Maybe you’re not doing each set with test-like intensity. Maybe there’s inefficiency in your process – which means that you’re still struggling to fully incorporate the techniques taught 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 Week 1. Again, if you’re above 80% on your LSAT sets, you’re doing GREAT. If you’re in the 60-80% range, you still have time to improve.
- If you’re getting CRUSHED on CR & RC: my heart hurts for you, because that’s a terrible feeling. If your goal is something like a 80V or less, our benchmarks are too aggressive – so 60% accuracy (or below) on your LSAT sets might not be too bad at this stage. But if you have ambitious goals (84V+) and you’re truly struggling to understand the passages, it’s possible that you need to spend some time working on your fundamental reading skills before returning to GMAT-specific verbal prep. This article and this one will give you some ideas for how to improve your reading precision over time.
11 Nov 2024, 08:34
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Thank you Charles!
FYI everyone - the intro video is coming out in the next hour.
The email subscription will be activated in a few minutes, though I recommend waiting a bit until the video comes out.
Thank you!
BB
FYI everyone - the intro video is coming out in the next hour.
The email subscription will be activated in a few minutes, though I recommend waiting a bit until the video comes out.
Thank you!
BB
