GMAT Ninja 13-Week Study Plan (2024-25 ed.) Week 5

Question

GMAT Ninja’s 13-Week Study Plan  
  Week 5 (~15 hours)  
 Subscribe via E-mail  |  Join Study Plan Chat Group

Welcome back for Week 5 of the study plan! If you have no idea what’s going on here, then you’ll want to start with  Week 1  instead.

Vinayak’s journey from a 610 to a 730 , featuring SIX attempts in two years.

There’s some great wisdom in this one:

In other words, you can't just bash your face off the wall, trying to learn every concept imaginable. Pick your battles wisely, friends – but keep fighting.  
   
 Goals for the Week 5 quant homework :

1. Improve your skills on work/rate problems – and by extension, word problems in general. But the quant topics are becoming less crucial now. You won’t see all that many work/rate problems on your actual exam – they’re worth studying, but they aren’t worth THAT much time.
2. Continue to add flexibility to your quant toolset.
3. Pick battles wisely on practice tests.
4. By now, the  score-killing  silly errors are GONE... right?

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 5 quant homework 
Friendly reminder: pick your battles wisely. If you need extra reps on quant (but not verbal), great – tackle extra sets from items #5-7, or possibly extra videos. If you’re doing relatively well on quant, spend extra time on verbal instead.

1. (Optional) Watch one (not both!) of these, skipping ahead as needed to preserve your time and sanity:

- Option A, 2022 video series:  Rates & Conversions I  (~1 hr.) +  Funkier Rate Problems (~1 hr.)  
- Option B, older live video:  Rate Problems, Age Problems, & Beyond  (~1 hr.)

2. GMAT Quant Guide (skinny little book) PS #51-75
3. GMAT OG PS #101-125
4. Quant section only from the GMAT Club tests or another NON-official source (save the mba.com exams for later)
5. Do 15 rates PS questions.  Sub-555 level  |  Mixed difficulty 
6. (Optional) Do 15 word problems PS questions.  Sub-555 level  |  Mixed difficulty 
7. (Optional) Only if you’re CERTAIN that it’s worthwhile: do extra sets of topic-based questions as needed (algebra, exponents, geometry, word problems, percents, ratios, rates).

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 make careless errors or struggle on the content this week, these resources might help:

1. If you’re making careless errors,  this (probably very familiar) video on how to approach GMAT quant  is essential viewing.
2. If you’re feeling inefficient, the video on  developing a flexible quant mindset  is probably a good fit.
3. If you’re struggling with the fundamental content this week, check out (A) these videos on  rates & conversions ;  funkier rate problems ; or (B) Older live videos:  rate problems, age problems, & other word problems ; or  word translations in general . 
4. If quant topics from previous weeks are giving you trouble, whatever you need is probably in  this playlist .
5.  GMAT Club Math Book 
6. Heroic quant threads from  Bunuel :  Ultimate GMAT Quant Megathread  |  Signature Question Collection  |  All You Need for Quant

We’re getting to the end of the RC video lessons now. We’ll give you one more video this week on the hardest RC passages, and then it’s just practice from here.

Also, LSAT RC sets will be optional after this week, and you’ll see more GMAT RC sets instead. But whenever you feel unsure about your progress on RC, please do an LSAT set, and compare it to your results from Weeks 1-3. That data is frequently an invaluable reality-check or confidence-booster.

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 5 RC homework 
 
1. (Optional) Watch  one last video on really hard GMAT RC passages   or   this older video on how to go from good (V40?) to GREAT (V45?) on RC ... but it won’t be fun to watch both. 
2. One full LSAT RC set
3. Do the second 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 fewer than 25 questions so that you don’t stop partway into a passage.) Again, these will feel MUCH easier than the LSAT.
4. (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?

If you struggled with your RC homework sets this week, here are some resources that might help:

A full, 6-episode 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

This week, we’ll offer some resources on paradox/discrepancy questions. But don’t force it -- if your general process on CR is rock-solid, you don’t really need to drill specific question types at all.

Similarly, if CR is going well for you already, feel free to do just one of the full CR sets. Just make sure that your decision is rooted in performance data, and not just how you feel when you do the questions.

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 5 CR homework 
 
1. (Optional) If you want extra reps with CR paradox/discrepancy questions, do a set of 5-10 from the LSAT or older editions of the OGs; you can find some from OG 12 and the Verbal 2nd edition  here  or from the LSAT  here .
2. Do the second set of ~25 questions from a recent edition of the Verbal Guide (skinny little book, and the question numbers will vary depending on which edition you’re using). Again, these will feel MUCH easier than the LSAT.
3. One full LSAT CR set
4. (Very optional) One additional 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:

If paradox/discrepancy questions are giving you trouble, they’re briefly discussed in  this video , particularly the 1st and 5th questions. 
  Beginners’ guide to CR  
  LIVE YouTube video on how to approach CR  or  a not-so-live video on how to approach CR  
  All GMAT Ninja CR resources on GMAT Club  
  More full CR explanations than anybody should ever read  
  A whole lot more LIVE YouTube videos on a wide variety of topics  
 CR “pitfalls” videos:  Missing the Heart of a CR Passage  |  Paraphrasing on CR  |  Obsessing over CR Question Types  |  Anticipating Correct CR Answers... Incorrectly  |  Falling in Love With Answer Choices  |  Irrelevant & Out of Scope Answers  |  CR Word-Matching  |  Rejecting Imperfect Answer Choice    
    
By now, you’ve spent some quality time with Data Sufficiency (DS) and Graphical Interpretation (GI) questions. This week, we’ll add in some Table Analysis (TA) questions – so now you’ll enjoy a hot time with 3 of the 5 DI question types.

The usual disclaimer: you might be itchy to do more DI questions, and you might not be thrilled with the dainty 15-question practice set this week. But please keep in mind that there’s a very limited supply of official DI questions, and we’ll carefully assign the official stuff to maximize its value.

In other words, please don’t race ahead -- we’ll get to everything in time, including every significant DI question type, and pretty much every worthwhile, official practice question.

Week 5 DI assignments:

1. (Optional, but recommended) Watch  this video on how to approach Table Analysis questions 
3. A total of 15 Table Analysis and Graphical Interpretation questions from the GMAT Official Guide question bank on MBA.com. See below for setup instructions.
4. Do the second set of 20 Data Sufficiency questions from the Data Insights Review Guide.
5. Do 15 rates DS questions.  Sub-555 level  |  Mixed difficulty 
6. (Optional) Do 15 word problems DS questions.  Sub-555 level  |  Mixed difficulty 
7. (Optional) Do 15 graphs & tables questions.  Sub-555 level  |  Mixed difficulty

Instructions for DI practice sets on ( MBA.com )

Access the  GMAT Official Practice site at mba.com , and locate the "GMAT Official Guide 2024-2025" product (or whichever edition of the OG you’re using) 
 Click the "Study" button -> "Practice Questions" in the left navigation menu -> "Start New Session" button. 
 To start a session, select the "Choose the type, difficulty, and number of questions" radio button; click the checkbox to the left of the assigned question type(s) to select ALL remaining questions for that type. Keep the "Unlimited" radio button selected (under "Duration"), and select "Exam Mode" (under "Mode").  
  Week 5 assignment: select easy & medium GI & TA questions only.  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?

If you make careless errors or struggle on this week’s content, these resources might help:

1. If you’re making careless errors on quant or Data Sufficiency,  this (probably very familiar) video on how to approach quant and DS questions . For a deeper dive into Data Sufficiency, check out  this live video  or  this prerecorded one 
2. If you’re struggling with your approach to Table Analysis questions, you could check out  this video on how to approach TA questions  (also linked above) or  this one that says these questions are pretty much Excel .
3. If GI questions still give you trouble, check out  this live video on how to approach Graphical Interpretation questions , or try  this not-so-live GI intro video  and perhaps  its sequel on odd-looking graphs and charts .
4. If you’re worried about DI in general,  here’s an overview video on how to approach the Data Insights section .
5. If you’re struggling with quant-specific content (percents, ratios, etc.) on DI questions, please take a look at the resources list under the quant section of this week’s study plan.

GMATNinja · Answer

How to Interpret Your Week 5 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. Obviously, some of this advice will be similar from week to week. But plenty of things will change, too. So if you’re panicking about a homework result – or if you’re tempted to spend a half-billion hours reviewing individual questions – please take a deep breath, and read through this post first. Benchmarks for the non-official quant test : Quant section score : I don’t care, and you shouldn’t either. Non-official tests aren’t necessarily very accurate. Instead, focus on the next two metrics... Careless error rate : < 3%. If you made one silly error, that’s (arguably) OK. More than that? Grrrrrr... Questions that took you 3+ minutes : < 3%. Didn’t you hear our guy Mike telling you to “bail when you flail” ? What to do about your Week 5 practice test results : Don’t overreact to non-official test scores! It's nearly impossible for practice tests to mimic the actual scoring of the GMAT, so the score itself doesn't matter much. 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 : This is an issue of discipline and mindset. Learn to let go! Remember: the test is designed to make you miss 30-50% of the questions, and most of you will do exactly that – even if you get a GREAT quant score. So dump the perfectionism, and learn to let questions go. Again: don’t spend a ton of time reviewing your mistakes. Reviewing individual questions 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. So please don’t obsess over individual questions – especially non-official ones. Benchmarks for Your Week 5 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 high 40s, here are the metrics I’d like you to hit in Week 5: Careless error rate : < 2%. You’ve heard this for more than a month now: the careless errors need to be gone, or almost gone. OG & Quant Guide sets (#2-3 on the list) : 80-90% correct is excellent, 70-80% is still fine, since these are getting harder. Just remember that WHAT you miss is more important on the GMAT than how many you missed. Careless errors are apocalyptic, but if you missed OG questions on topics that you haven't studied, that's totally cool -- you'll have time to learn those things. Rates questions (#5 on the list) : 80-90% correct is great 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. The quality and difficulty of rates questions can vary enormously, so don’t overreact to your results. Other randomized batches of questions (#6-7 on the list) : same as above: 80-90% is good on sub-600 questions, but take the results of mixed-difficulty sets with a HUGE grain of salt. 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 skills are shaky, or that you're not choosing efficient paths forward. What Should You Do About Your Quant Weaknesses in Week 5? 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 : that’s bad. Do whatever you need to do to fix this. Do it now. Pause the study plan if you need to. Just fix the careless errors. If you struggled on the OG or Quant Guide sets (items #2-3) : as usual, ask yourself WHY you struggled. If you’re at, say, 70% accuracy, that’s not ideal, but context matters: if nearly all of those errors are on topics that you’ve never really studied, you’re in great shape, since you have plenty of time to study those over the next month or two. If you struggled on the rates sets (items #5) : concentrate on putting your errors into context, and look for broad patterns. Rates questions can be weird: if you missed really hard ones or oddball questions, please don’t waste your time reviewing them. If you got CRUSHED on easier rates questions, you might want to revisit the videos in the study list, but don’t overreact – rates questions are less than 5% of the total, and not worth THAT much time. If you struggled on other topic-based sets (items #6-7) : again, concentrate on putting your errors into context, and look for broad patterns. If you make similar errors on several questions, then it’s time to buckle down and figure out what needs to be fixed in your approach. But if you missed hard or strange questions, who cares? If you got CRUSHED by ALL of the quant homework : if you’re nowhere close to the benchmarks on quant – and if your long-term goal is a score in the 80s – then maybe you need to back away from the study plan, and invest some time in rebuilding your basic quant skills. If that’s the case for you, tag us in the thread, give us as much detail as you can about your situation, and we’ll try to help. How much time should you spend reviewing individual quant questions? Not much, please! Because it can take SOOOOOOO much time to review a question, it should be your absolute last resort. That’s why we want you to redo questions first – sometimes, you’ll see your mistake right away, and that’s the best way to learn. If you miss a question a second time, then maybe it’s a sign of an underlying issue. No, really: resist the temptation to obsess over individual questions . Instead, look for patterns in your errors – an error on one question might be a fluke (or a weird, hard, or badly written question), but if you miss several related questions, you have an opportunity to get a good ROI on your study time by addressing a general weakness via a video or articles or books. Our usual disclaimer: LSAT sets are HARD. If you’re not in pain, you’re probably not doing it right.

Improving on RC and CR is usually a slow, agonizing process. Be proud when your results tick upwards a little bit, and keep fighting. Benchmarks for Your Week 5 RC & CR Results Accuracy on LSAT CR & RC sets : 80% is the goal if you’re shooting for a 90th percentile score or above on verbal. It’s OK if you’re not quite there in Week 5, as long as you’re getting closer. Please adjust accordingly if you’d be happy with a lower verbal score – for example, 70% on the LSAT is probably fine if you’re shooting for an 80V on the GMAT. Efficiency on LSAT CR & RC sets : 60 minutes or less is your long-run goal. Again, it’s OK if you’re not quite there in Week 5, but you should be close by now. 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. Random sets of paradox/discrepancy questions from the older OGs : sorry, we can’t really give you a benchmark for these, since randomness plays a role. Maybe you saw tougher questions, and maybe not.

Did you at least feel confident and systematic in your approach? If so, you’re probably fine. Verbal Guide RC & CR sets : if your goal is 90th percentile on the GMAT verbal section, we’d like to see you at 80-90% accuracy in no more than 2 minutes per question, since these are still relatively easy sets. These Verbal Guide and OG sets will get harder in the coming weeks, so don’t be alarmed if your results are somewhat flat over time. What Should You Do About Your CR & RC Weaknesses in Week 5? Look at Week 1 for signs of progress . Are you seeing ANY improvement in your average accuracy and times from Week 1 until now? If you’ve reduced your LSAT CR and RC errors by 5-10%, that’s legitimately a great achievement, and you’re very much on track. Look for “careless” errors . As with everything on the GMAT, pay close attention to anything that seems to be an “unforced error.” Did you miss a ton of questions that felt easy to you, especially in the OG and Verbal Guide? If so, you might want to revisit the techniques in the videos and articles in the assignment lists. This is MUCH more important than getting better at harder questions. If your results are significantly better on RC than on CR : you might want to invest time in some extra CR sets or videos – we’ll provide some recommendations each week. If you’re better at CR than RC : When this happens, the most common reasons are that you’re obsessing over details when you read RC (and missing the “big picture” by doing so), or you’re struggling to stay focused through a long passage. Maybe you’ll want to err on the side of getting a bit of extra practice on RC in the coming weeks, and we’ll keep feeding you videos that might help, too. If you’re slow ( > 60 mins per LSAT set, > 2 minutes per OG or Verbal Guide question) : sadly, there are a ton of different reasons why your times might be high. At this stage, maybe you’re still learning new approaches, so you’re still figuring out how to integrate them into your process – if that’s the case, your times will come down. Maybe you’re not doing each set with test-like intensity. Maybe you need more coffee or more sleep. Maybe you’d be sharper at a different time of day. Maybe there’s inefficiency in your process – and if that’s the case, it’s likely that you’re still struggling to fully incorporate the techniques that you’ll see in the videos. It’s also possible that you’re a slow reader, and that’s a hard thing to fix. I wish I could tell you which of these things is happening – but you’ll have to figure that part out for yourself, unfortunately.

If you’re getting impatient with your results : hey, it’s still only Week 5. If you’re hitting our benchmarks, you’re doing GREAT. If you’re not quite hitting the marks yet, are you at least seeing some improvement? If so, you’re on track – keep at it! And remember that you can always pause the study plan if you need to. If you’re getting CRUSHED on CR & RC : that’s a terrible feeling, but context really matters here. If your goal is something like a 80V, 60-70% on your LSAT sets might be OK at this stage – even if you feel terrible as you suffer through those sets. But if you have ambitious goals (84V+) and you’re truly struggling to understand the passages – particularly the easier passages from the GMAT books – 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. This might sound familiar: we’re still getting warmed up on DI, and you’ll spend TONS of time building your fundamental DI skills in the next month or two. So please don’t obsess over individual questions yet – it’s an inefficient way to spend your time right now. That said, if you struggled badly on the Table Analysis and Graphics Interpretation questions, that’s a sign that you’ll want to invest more time in DI in the next month or two. If you can afford to cut back on other topics, great. If not, you can always pause the study plan, and spend a bit of extra time with DI content in the next month or so. Benchmarks for Your Week 5 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 5: Careless error rate : < 3%. You’ve heard this before: the careless errors need to be gone, or almost gone. This is the first week you’ve done any Table Analysis questions, so you might see one or two careless errors slip through, but do everything you can to get rid of them as soon as possible. OG & Data Insights Guide sets (#3-4 on the list) : if your long-term goal is an 80+ on DI, I’d like to see you get at least 80% correct at this stage on TA/GI, and ideally a bit higher on DS right 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 DS questions on quant 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. Speed for Data Sufficiency : On the OG and topic-based sets, you're in good shape if you’re reasonably close to 2 minutes per question. If you're slower than, say, 2:30 per question on average, it might be a sign that your basic skills are rusty, or that you're not choosing efficient paths forward -- and you'll be able to improve those things over time. Speed for the other Data Insights question types (TA, GI) : On the OG-based sets, you're in good shape if you’re reasonably close to 2:30 minutes per question. If you're slower than, say, 3:00 minutes per question on average, it might be a sign that your basic skills are rusty, or that you’re misreading, or failing to choose efficient paths forward -- and you'll be able to improve those things over time, too. What Should You Do About Your Data Insights Weaknesses in Week 5? 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, without ruining your score one bit. Embrace the pain. In other words: don’t ever 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. This might look familiar by now: if you struggled with the overall process for answering a Data Sufficiency question : check out this LIVE video on the DS process or this (not-so-live) DS video . If you struggled with the Graphical Interpretation questions : check out this live video on how to approach Graphical Interpretation questions or this one that tells you to just read the bleeping graph If you struggled with the Table Analysis questions : check out this video on how to approach Table Analysis questions or this one telling you that Table Analysis is pretty much Excel. ! If you struggled with specific quant topics : (rates, conversions, word problems, etc.), don’t panic . It’s far too easy to overreact to a few errors, and study these topics (or individual questions) until you develop a horrific case of cranial arthritis. Instead, try to put your struggles in context: did you miss particularly hard or strange versions of these questions? Were your errors careless? If so, you probably don’t need to do much studying, exactly. But if you missed basic questions because your foundations are shaky, then you might need to do some remedial studying, and it might even make sense to “pause” the study plan to do so – but don’t assume that you need to do this unless the data is very, very clear about your weaknesses. If you struggled on the OG or Data Insights Guide sets : don’t panic. Again: ask yourself WHY you struggled. If you’re at, say, 70% accuracy, that’s not ideal right now. But context matters: if most of those errors are on topics you’ve never really studied, you’re in great shape, since you have plenty of time to learn those in the next month or two. If you got CRUSHED by ALL of the homework : if you’re nowhere close to the benchmarks on Data Insights – 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.

miguelmartnzf · Answer

Dear  GMATNinja  the links for the Quant homework are broken. Both rates PS questions and word problems PS questions. Can you please fix them? 
 bb  
Thanks in advance!!

agrawrim · Answer

Hi,

The plan has been really helpful so far  GMATNinja  !! Could you please fix the quant homework links as they don't seem to be working.

Thanks alot in advance!

mp_mogambo · Answer

5.  Work rate problem sub 555 || Mixed difficulty 
6. Word problems sub 555 || Mixed difficulty

GMATNinja · Answer

Sorry for the trouble, gang -- my quant links keep disappearing from most of these posts. They're fixed again now, but please tag me if you see any issues.

Thanks so much!

Clay20049 · Answer

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, but the quant links don't seem to be working for me. Thank you for everything you do!

GMATNinja · Answer

Thank you for the kind words, and thank you for catching this!

I fixed it yet again. And I think I figured out why the problem is happening -- the links were vanishing because of an unrelated formatting issue. The formatting looks a little uglier now, but it should be more stable.

It shouldn't happen again, but if it does, please let me know!

shmear · Answer

GMATNinja

First of all, really enjoying the guide, and all the videos you guys provide, thank you for the tremendous effort in putting it all up for us to use!

Quick question, I've been doing the LSAT's, but I am a bit confused by how I should be timing myself for them. I can see that LSAT sections are 35 mins for 27 questions for RC and 35 mins for 25 questions for CR. I've tried and failed terribly to meet these times, but from GMAT Focus POV what should I be looking for timing wise?

Any inputs would be very helpful!

GMATNinja · Answer

Thank you for the kind words,  shmear ! Glad to hear that the content has been helping a bit.

Throughout the study plan, the instructions for the LSAT sets are the same: track your times and do everything with test-like intensity, but ignore the LSAT's ridiculous 35-minute time limit. Generally speaking, if you can do those LSAT sets in under an hour, you're in good shape, as mentioned in the "interpreting your results" post, available  here for Week 5 .

I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

abhiram1245 · Answer

Dear  GMATNinja ,

Through these 5 weeks my accuracy on LSAT has improved on CR from 70 to 80's now. But for my RC, if I am understanding the passage I could get almost all questions right if I had trouble in understanding passage I am failing to answer most of them so getting accuracy as high as 90's to 60's It's fluctuating. How can I improve it?

And as you said from around 65 to 75 minutes a set, I am now able to finish in 50's now. Thanks for your plan. Really Appreciate it.

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GMAT Ninja 13-Week Study Plan (2024-25 ed.) Week 5

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