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![[OLD] GMAT Ninja 13-Week Study Plan Week 1 [GMAT Classic]](/forum/styles/gmatclub_light/imageset/icon_post_target_unread.svg "[OLD] GMAT Ninja 13-Week Study Plan Week 1 [GMAT Classic]"){kind=icon}
GMAT Ninja’s 13-Week Study Plan
Subscribe via E-mail | Study Plan Chat Group | More Study Plans
Please use the new GMAT Focus plan here:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-ninja-1 ... 37774.html
Full Study Plan Schedule:
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!
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, we’d strongly recommend using older editions, such as OG 12 and the 2nd edition of the quant and verbal guides. 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 have an Enhanced Score Report from an actual GMAT exam, please make sure that you understand what it’s telling you.
3. Figure out how many points you’d like to gain on the quant and verbal 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.).2. If you’re unhappy with your quant 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 question, and if those fundamentals are shaky, you’ll be in trouble.
I know: not sexy. You probably won’t enjoy this. But if you do 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.
By design, these sets are mostly short, and they should FEEL easy. So you shouldn’t make any mistakes at all, right? Um... right?
1. (Optional, but recommended) Do 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 1.5 mins on average), keep doing sets of 10 until you can ace them.2. (Optional) 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. 3. Official Guide (any edition) Problem Solving #1-254. 1st 25 Data Sufficiency questions from the Official Guide. (The DS question numbers will vary depending on which edition you’re using.)5. A set of 20 sub-600 algebra & arithmetic problem solving questions, available here6. A set of 20 sub-600 algebra & arithmetic data sufficiency questions, available here7. A set of 15 sub-600 coordinate geometry PS questions, available here8. A set of 15 sub-600 coordinate geometry DS questions, available here9. (Very, very optional) Quant section only from the GMAT Club tests or another NON-official source (save the 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 algebra video describes a process for approaching ALL quant questions, starting at the 1:01 mark.2. If you’re struggling with the fundamental content this week, check out this GMAT arithmetic video, this algebra video, or this coordinate geometry video.3. GMAT Club Math Book: full pdf | algebra section | coordinate geometry section4. 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 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 the fundamentals of 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 SC for you this week!
We know: ignoring SC just doesn’t feel quite right. But RC and CR generally take MUCH longer to improve than SC, and there’s a limited supply of worthwhile SC practice questions. So you’re better off saving those SC questions for later, so that you can hit your peak at the right time on verbal.
Don’t worry: by the time you finish the 13-week study plan, you’ll have completed every official SC question in the most recent OG and Verbal Guide, along with a fistful of videos and well over 100 additional, official SC questions from practice tests and old OG editions.
In other words, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to suffer. Er, practice.
You’ll get tired of reading this, but IR and AWA are always optional in this study plan. Why? They don’t play a huge role in admissions yet. Spend your time elsewhere, please.
Read this debrief by a charming Aussie who studied for more than 2,272 hours, or watch this YouTube interview with the same dude.
_________________
Subscribe via E-mail | Study Plan Chat Group | More Study Plans
Please use the new GMAT Focus plan here:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-ninja-1 ... 37774.html
Full Study Plan Schedule:
- Study Plan Week 1 (this post - you are here)
- Study Plan Week 2
- Study Plan Week 3
- Study Plan Week 4
- Study Plan Week 5
- Study Plan Week 6
- Study Plan Week 7
- Study Plan Week 8
- Study Plan Week 9
- Study Plan Week 10
- Study Plan Week 11
- Study Plan Week 12
- Study Plan 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 500s or 600s, with aspirations of a 700+ and weaknesses on both quant and verbal. 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, Verbal Guide, and Quant Guide (the links are to the 2022 editions, but other editions are fine).
- 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. Here are some options, here’s an ambitious reimagining of the error log, and here’s a simplified version of the tracker we use with our private tutoring students at GMAT Ninja (to get an editable version, click File --> Make a copy). Use whichever 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, 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 for your practice exams
If you’ve already exhausted the official guides, we’d strongly recommend using older editions, such as OG 12 and the 2nd edition of the quant and verbal guides. 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 have an Enhanced Score Report from an actual GMAT exam, please make sure that you understand what it’s telling you.
- This 4-minute video will help you analyze your GMAT ESR if you have one.
- If you’ve never taken the GMAT -- or you don’t have an ESR -- 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 and verbal sections.
- If you need to gain FAR more points on one section than the other, use that information to guide your studies. If you’re weaker at verbal, please do less quant homework, and spend more time on “optional” verbal assignments and videos. If you’re weaker in quant, you’ll want to do exactly the opposite.
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.).2. If you’re unhappy with your quant 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 question, and if those fundamentals are shaky, you’ll be in trouble.
I know: not sexy. You probably won’t enjoy this. But if you do 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.
Week 1 quant homework
By design, these sets are mostly short, and they should FEEL easy. So you shouldn’t make any mistakes at all, right? Um... right?
1. (Optional, but recommended) Do 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 1.5 mins on average), keep doing sets of 10 until you can ace them.2. (Optional) 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. 3. Official Guide (any edition) Problem Solving #1-254. 1st 25 Data Sufficiency questions from the Official Guide. (The DS question numbers will vary depending on which edition you’re using.)5. A set of 20 sub-600 algebra & arithmetic problem solving questions, available here6. A set of 20 sub-600 algebra & arithmetic data sufficiency questions, available here7. A set of 15 sub-600 coordinate geometry PS questions, available here8. A set of 15 sub-600 coordinate geometry DS questions, available here9. (Very, very optional) Quant section only from the GMAT Club tests or another NON-official source (save the 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 algebra video describes a process for approaching ALL quant questions, starting at the 1:01 mark.2. If you’re struggling with the fundamental content this week, check out this GMAT arithmetic video, this algebra video, or this coordinate geometry video.3. GMAT Club Math Book: full pdf | algebra section | coordinate geometry section4. 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 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, 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 the fundamentals of 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) Sentence Correction (0 hrs.)+
No SC for you this week!
We know: ignoring SC just doesn’t feel quite right. But RC and CR generally take MUCH longer to improve than SC, and there’s a limited supply of worthwhile SC practice questions. So you’re better off saving those SC questions for later, so that you can hit your peak at the right time on verbal.
Don’t worry: by the time you finish the 13-week study plan, you’ll have completed every official SC question in the most recent OG and Verbal Guide, along with a fistful of videos and well over 100 additional, official SC questions from practice tests and old OG editions.
In other words, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to suffer. Er, practice.
(F) IR & AWA (0 hrs.)+
You’ll get tired of reading this, but IR and AWA are always optional in this study plan. Why? They don’t play a huge role in admissions yet. Spend your time elsewhere, please.
(G) 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.
_________________
GMAT/GRE/EA tutors @ www.gmatninja.com | YouTube | Articles | IG
Beginners' Guides: RC | CR | Complete Resource Compilations: RC | CR
YouTube LIVE webinars: all videos by topic + 24-hour marathon for Ukraine
Question Explanation Collections: RC | CR | SC
Beginners' Guides: RC | CR | Complete Resource Compilations: RC | CR
YouTube LIVE webinars: all videos by topic + 24-hour marathon for Ukraine
Question Explanation Collections: RC | CR | SC
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. Generally speaking, 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 and verbal. Why? Well, if, for example, you’re 15 points from your target score on verbal but 3 points away on quant, 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 split should be the single biggest factor in those choices.
- Do a quick check of your verbal performance by question type (RC, CR, SC). If you performed MUCH worse on one or two question types, 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.
- 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 high 40s, 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 about 5 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 (#1 & #2 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 (#3-4 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 (#5-8 on the list): 85-90% correct is good on the sub-600 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’re probably going to miss 20-50% of the quant questions on the GMAT, regardless of your 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 high 40s on quant, you’re going to miss a TON of questions – that’s just how the GMAT works.
Also, 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.
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.
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 #1-2): 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 (items #3-4): don’t panic. Ask yourself WHY you struggled. If you’re at, say, 70-80% 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 (items #5-8): 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 high-40s score – 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 40V or above, 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 accept 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 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 30V or a 35V, our benchmarks are too aggressive – so 60% or below on your LSAT sets might not be too bad. But if you have ambitious goals (40V+) 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.
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Thanks bb
Just wanted to thanks GMATNinja and all for this study plan.
Thanks for replying to my anxiety issues on YouTube.
#gmatninja : please help me overcome this test anxiety.
Am just spending months studying and fearing that I will not get good score.
If you’ve some strategies to overcome this, please share.
Will really appreciate
This anxiety is just for this test when I am doing great at all other spaces of my life, personally and professionally.😔
Ps: am Not sure if Charles from #gmatninja was tagged or not
Thanks much,
Rini
Posted from my mobile device
Just wanted to thanks GMATNinja and all for this study plan.
Thanks for replying to my anxiety issues on YouTube.
#gmatninja : please help me overcome this test anxiety.
Am just spending months studying and fearing that I will not get good score.
If you’ve some strategies to overcome this, please share.
Will really appreciate
This anxiety is just for this test when I am doing great at all other spaces of my life, personally and professionally.😔
Ps: am Not sure if Charles from #gmatninja was tagged or not
Thanks much,
Rini
Posted from my mobile device
GMATNinja Charles, I wish to check the Plan for the next weeks too.
Can you please share the complete 13 weeks schedule right away for benefit to candidates having the GMAT test scheduled sooner than 13 weeks?
Can you please share the complete 13 weeks schedule right away for benefit to candidates having the GMAT test scheduled sooner than 13 weeks?
AdiM07
Thank you for your question.
Charles is working on it but it is not quite as fast as it may seem. These posts are a lot of work - take a look at how comprehensive they are.
The plan will be released one week at a time over the next 13 weeks. If you are one of those folks who has to have the latest and lines up at the Apple store for the latest iPhone, I guess you can line up for the Study plan. Next week will come out next week
_________________
bb
Thank you, bb!
I'll also add that it's NOT a good idea to try to compress a 13-week study plan into a shorter period of time. This plan isn't designed for somebody who has a test in 4 weeks or 6 weeks or 10 weeks. So for your own good, please don't try to use it that way -- it's unlikely to give you the results you're looking for.
I hope that helps a bit!
_________________
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Question Explanation Collections: RC | CR | SC
rinigahunia
Thank you, Rini! I think it's absolutely wonderful that you're so self-aware and open about the anxiety issues. Anxiety is incredibly common, but in most cultures (including here in the U.S.), we don't talk about it enough -- and that makes it worse for everybody. About 40% of all adults suffer from test anxiety, and I have reason to think that the percentage is even higher among MBA applicants of the current generation.
So you're definitely not alone -- you're just the first person cool enough to post on this thread.
There are no magic bullets for test anxiety, and different solutions (or combinations of solutions) work for different people. But here are a few starting points to get you thinking about ways to work on it:
- A short YouTube playlist on test anxiety & performance
- A bunch of articles on test anxiety & performance
- A 10-minute quiz to help you explore the factors that contribute to test anxiety
All of these same resources will appear in the study plan eventually, but it's even better to get started early if you can.
I hope that helps a bit, and please keep me posted on your progress, Rini! Thank you again for bringing it up today.
_________________
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GMATNinja thank you for the Plan
Posts: 3
Sorry! but I am new to the GMAT club forum, is this study plan only presently scheduled for week 1, or all week's plans is listed somewhere I haven't checked?
GMATNinja - quick question for you that was brought up in the Study Plan chatgroup
The LSAT question book does not seem to contain explanations
Do you know if the official $99 LSAT package has explanations? https://www.lsac.org/lsat/prep
_________________
The LSAT question book does not seem to contain explanations
Do you know if the official $99 LSAT package has explanations? https://www.lsac.org/lsat/prep
_________________
bb
Ooh, good question. I'm pretty sure that the $99 LSAT online package (LSAC's LawHub) does NOT include explanations -- just piles and piles of LSAT tests in an online format. I just noticed that they expanded the free offering to five full LSAT tests (they used to have just one free test), so that's cool. But no explanations.
The only LSAT books that have official explanations are LSAT SuperPrep and LSAT SuperPrep II, but the trouble is that there's only three tests in each book. If you don't mind the small number of tests, those might be the best bet if you feel like you really need explanations.
My one word of caution is that it's easy to burn a TON of time reviewing individual explanations for LSAT questions, and I'm not convinced that it's an efficient use of study time. It just depends on the individual student and his or her situation. So it might actually be a good thing to buy LSAT books WITHOUT explanations -- explanations are very tempting, but they can burn hours and hours of your time, and may or may not be worth it.
_________________
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Hi GMATNinja. Question from a user in the chat:
Hi, thanks so much for setting this up! Will you let us know when should we review the RC questions on the HW we got wrong? Or should I review it the day after?
I would also be very interested in the strategy behind this approach. What does this do? What is the purpose? Is it to stretch out the questions or does it help to learn? What does it have to do with comprehension? I have never fold such an approach.
Posted from my mobile device
_________________
Hi, thanks so much for setting this up! Will you let us know when should we review the RC questions on the HW we got wrong? Or should I review it the day after?
I would also be very interested in the strategy behind this approach. What does this do? What is the purpose? Is it to stretch out the questions or does it help to learn? What does it have to do with comprehension? I have never fold such an approach.
Posted from my mobile device
_________________
Posts: 5
Hi Charles!! I have been following your YouTube videos for a while now and I must say that your videos are hands down the best free materials for a GMAT aspirant to improve Verbal. I appreciate the effort you guys have put to curate this 13-week plan. However, I have a hard deadline to take the test in the 3rd week of December this year in order to apply for the Round 2 of a few of the programs. It would be really helpful if you could create OR share a few trusted resources that provide aspirants like me with a solid plan for the next 8 weeks which could bring significant improvement in our performances.
Thanks in Advance!
Thanks in Advance!
bb
It's a great question, and it also came up quite a bit with the beta group: how much time should you spend reviewing RC questions? Or any other questions?
I'll repeat the general principle that I've written into the study plan: reviewing individual questions should be your absolute last resort. It's really really easy to spend 10-20 minutes reviewing a single question, and that simply isn't a very good use of your study time in most cases.
You could memorize the steps that an expert has written for, say, a quant or SC question. But what does it really accomplish for you? You'll never see that exact question again. Sure, maybe that expert's way of thinking eventually helps you improve your skills in general -- but why not just improve your underlying skills directly (by, say, watching a video or studying a chapter on a specific topic), instead of trying to get there indirectly by reading explanations for individual questions?
That's even more true for RC. Why spend a ton of time reviewing your mistakes? You might spend 20 minutes developing a deeper understanding of a specific RC passage by reviewing it... and then you'll never see that passage again. So I don't think the return on your time is very high.
Instead, I would strongly encourage you to look for patterns in your mistakes, and to try to address the underlying issues. Are you struggling disproportionately with certain types of passages? Or certain question types? Or are you just lost in general as you read, and maybe you need a different approach? Or maybe your underlying reading skills aren't great? Or maybe you're doing RC practice when you're exhausted after work, and you need to rearrange your study schedule?
That's a very long-winded way of saying that it can be hard to improve on RC, partly because it takes some serious work to figure out the underlying causes of your struggles. But spending a ton of time reviewing individual questions is an inefficient tool for improvement -- so use it sparingly, please.
I hope that helps a bit!
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itsnotoveryet08
Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm glad to hear that our videos have helped so far.
Unfortunately, I don't recommend trying to cram the 13-week study plan into just 8 weeks, and we don't have any plans to create different variants of the study plans for different timelines -- this one has been enough work by itself.
The only thing I can really offer is the video playlists, which cover pretty much everything. All of our live videos can be found here, and if you want playlists of pre-recorded quant and verbal videos, we have a fleet of them here. I'm guessing that you've already run across all of those collections, but if not, hopefully they'll help a bit.
Sorry that we don't have anything more specific for your situation, and have fun studying!
_________________
GMAT/GRE/EA tutors @ www.gmatninja.com | YouTube | Articles | IG
Beginners' Guides: RC | CR | Complete Resource Compilations: RC | CR
YouTube LIVE webinars: all videos by topic + 24-hour marathon for Ukraine
Question Explanation Collections: RC | CR | SC
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YouTube LIVE webinars: all videos by topic + 24-hour marathon for Ukraine
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Elite097
Joined: 20 Apr 2022
Last visit: 07 May 2026
Posts: 731
Location: India
Schools: Sloan '25 Columbia '27 Haas '27
GPA: 3.64
Schools: Sloan '25 Columbia '27 Haas '27
Posts: 731
Elite097
I'm not quite sure what you mean by the question about LSAT "versions." Every official LSAT is broadly the same, and includes three different section types: reading comprehension (very similar to GMAT RC, but generally harder), logical reasoning (nearly identical to GMAT CR), and a thing called analytical reasoning that you can ignore, since it's irrelevant to the GMAT.
The problem with reviewing individual explanations is that it's extremely time-consuming, and not always very productive or efficient. I've done my best to explain why here and here, and also in the study plan intro video.
I know: that seems counterintuitive (especially coming from a guy who has posted thousands of explanations for verbal questions). But think of it this way: does reading somebody else's simplified summary of, say, an RC passage really help you figure out how YOU misread or misinterpreted the passage? Does it make you a better reader? Does somebody else's explanation show you the patterns in your mistakes, or the flawed thinking or reading that you've employed? Sure, it can help a bit to see somebody else's way of thinking, presented in clearer language than the passage itself. But other people's explanations will never tell you anything about YOU -- and that's the thing that really matters.
Yes, it's hard to figure out how to spot patterns in your own results, and it's hard to be introspective about why you're making mistakes. But it's really the only way to improve. Written explanations can maybe play a small role in helping you get there, but if they're a cornerstone of your studies, I can promise that you'll waste quite a bit of time.
We see lovely folks on GMAT Club every day who have asked 100 questions about 100 different RC/CR passages -- and it's clear that they're not getting better, because they're not learning anything about themselves by reading 100 expert answers to their questions. They're just learning more about the specifics of 100 different passages... none of which will appear on their actual exam.
Instead, please embrace the GMAT journey of self-discovery. And just be careful about how you use other people's explanations, especially on verbal. Small amounts can help. Large amounts are probably a waste of your time.
I hope that helps a bit!
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Posts: 43
This may be a really silly question, but I don't remember much of co-ordinate geometry, so should I go through the basics and then solve the 30 questions (15 PS and 15 DS)??
and for the LSAT Questions, has everyone bought the book that GMATNinja suggested, or have they found a workaround?
Thanks
and for the LSAT Questions, has everyone bought the book that GMATNinja suggested, or have they found a workaround?
Thanks
sanyasanha
Hi. Yes, totally fine to use the older guide or review guides.
There is only 20-30 question difference and it is not worth getting the 2022 edition.
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