That’s a tough roadblock, and I'm sorry you're hitting. It's totally understandable. My first suggestion is to
take a short break — maybe 1-2 weeks. Trust me, you won’t lose everything you’ve learned in that period of time! Use the time to rest, focus on important parts of your life that have been de-prioritized, and do what refreshes you.
Towards the end of that time,
take a day or two to reflect on how you’ve been studying. If you’ve reached the point of burnout, that suggests
it’s worth considering your study schedule, as well as how you’re approaching studying.First, your study schedule. Learning science shows that
our brains retain information best when we have short, frequent study sessions. If you happen to be devoting eight hours a day to prep, that may actually be both leading to burnout and hurting the effectiveness of your studying. We generally recommend
10-15 hours a week, spread out into smaller chunks, always with a day off. The process of forgetting information is actually key to embedding it in your long-term memory — when you have to retrieve it again, it should feel a little hard, and that’s how you know it’s working (not unlike exercise!). So
you need breaks for your brain to rest and process.In addition,
consider how you’re studying. First, the emotional side.
Do you have supports built in — a study group, or just caring people that you can talk to about the ups and downs? Do you give yourself reasonable breaks and offer yourself built-in rewards just for studying? Do you give yourself props for making this time to study, or do you evaluate yourself just based on whether your meeting your goals? Try to think about how you can
make studying a psychologically positive (or at least supported) experience that you don’t dread.Second,
consider the effectiveness of your previous study process. A good study methodology includes
a cycle of learning new material, practicing it, and doing a deep dive with review. It should be structured so that you’re not trying to study everything all at once, but so that you are getting your hands on each section – Verbal, DI, Quant — on a weekly basis.
One thing that can lead to burnout fast is doing too many practice problems without enough deep review and opportunity to learn. I’m guessing that you’re not seeing the progress you’d like, since you’re feeling so exhausted, and that means it’s time to embrace the possibility that there might be a different way to do this that will work better for you.
Depending on how you’ve been studying,
you may find it helpful to look for a little more guidance or structure. Perhaps that means investing in a set of study books, or setting up a one-time appointment with a tutor or coach to help you reset. Our
Free GMAT Starter Kit can help you set up a reasonable study schedule and offers guidance on best practices for studying.
Best of luck,