How should my study plan be structured? So many paths get me confused

Question

Hi guys! Thanks for all the helpful content you deliver!

I'd be glad if you guys could help me =). I'm working at a consulting company (MBB) and want to do my MBA in 2021. Therefore, I have this whole year to do my GMAT.

I recently studied a lot of Quant section and Critical reasoning to be approved in the selection process of the company I work for. Also, I was really good at math at school/ Uni. So that's why my starting point is high.

I did a first GMAT at gmatofficialprep.mba and scored 700 with those stats:
- 50 Quant
 ----- Got 92% of DS questions right
 ----- 84% of PS
- 35 Verbal
 ----- 85% of Reading Comprehension
 ----- 78% of Critical Reasoning
 ----- 43% of Sentence Correction

My goal is to score a 750+ (hopefully 770) by studying 1 hour/ day and 4h/ weekend day for as long as I can (I might ask for 2 or 3-week vacation in the end to really give it all to the GMAT).

I don't know much about how to efficiently study for the GMAT and I have been reading about people's preparation in the past days, but every preparation is so different!

What do you guys recommend to me as a study plan? Or what do you recommend me to do in order to figure-out the best plan for me?

Also, do you guys think I should hire a private instructor or go to GMAT classes or study by my own?

Best!

eabhgoy · Answer

Hello,

So from my experience, I would say if you are comfortable studying on your own then you should probably start out by studying yourself. In my case, I had completed my graduation almost 10 years back so I needed someone to push me every day to study and I chose one of the online courses with a tutor. This helped me get in the groove and also clear my basics after which I started preparing myself. You can refer to the following resources:

1) MGMAT books for Quant/SC
2) Powerscore for CR - Though I feel practice is your best guide for CR.

Read as many posts on gmatclub as possible, they are quite helpful. Follow  GMATNinja  for all verbal posts and  brunel  for quant.  GMATNinja  also has an amazing set of video on the gmatclub youtube page that you can see.

Once you feel confident with regards to the basics you can decide whether you need additional tutoring or not. I have heard very good things about Target test prep for quant and e-GMAT for verbal. You could try them as well.

Once that is done, its time to focus only on the official GMAT questions from the OGs. My suggestion would be to only do official questions in the last 4-6 weeks. You can tune your mind the GMAT way.

Hopefully, this helps, do keep us posted on how you fare on the final GMAT and also share your experiences!

All the best!

kiran120680 · Answer

Congrats on your GMAT score. However, you are looking for a 750+ score. based on your ESR, you have scope to improve in SC. for SC I suggest you go with eGMAT.

mangamma · Answer

Congrats on your great score. Its dream for lot GMAT aspirants. If you want to imrove SC accuracy level try with eGMAT.

sweetlyimproved · Answer

Hmm, thank you so much for the input on the preparation process! I think e-gmat will definitely be able to help me on SC.

A question I have is that for CR and RC that my score is already good (not great), how do I guarantee that the material I'm reading is adjusted to my level (and I'm not wasting time on things too basic for me)?

Also, do you guys find e-gmat better than the Manhattan Prep Books (or Manhattan Sentence Correction) and GMAT Official books?

Best!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi sweetlyimproved,

I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. First off, great job with the 700! Since you have plenty of time to prepare, as long as you work hard and study smart, you probably can achieve your 750+ score goal. Regarding how to study, although I can’t provide you with an exact study plan, I can give you some advice on how to improve your GMAT quant and verbal skills. Ideally, you want to follow a study plan that allows you to learn and practice each GMAT quant and verbal topic individually, so you can ensure that no stone is left unturned. Specifically, you want to go through GMAT quant and (especially) verbal methodically to find your exact weaknesses, fill gaps in your knowledge, and strengthen your skills. The overall process will be to learn all about how to answer question types with which you currently aren't very comfortable and do dozens of practice questions category by category, basically driving up your score point by point. When you do dozens of questions of the same type one after the other, you learn just what it takes to get questions of that type correct consistently. If you aren't getting close to 90 percent of questions of a certain type correct, go back and seek to better understand how that type of question works, and then do more questions of that type until you get to around at least 90 percent accuracy in your training. If you get 100 percent of some sets correct, even better.

For example, let’s say you are reviewing Critical Reasoning. Be sure that you practice a large number of Critical Reasoning questions: Strengthen and Weaken the Argument, Resolve the Paradox, find the conclusion, must be true, etc. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you go through the questions, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get correct. If you missed a weaken question, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize what the question was asking? Did you skip over a key detail in an answer choice? Getting GMAT verbal questions right is a matter of what you know, what you see, and what you do. So, any time that you don't get one right, you can seek to identify what, if anything, you would have needed to know in order to get the right answer, what you had to see that you didn't see, and what you could have done differently to arrive at the correct answer. Follow this process for all verbal topics. I understand that you are looking to improve Critical Reasoning in particular, but to get to a 730, you should improve in all aspects of GMAT verbal.

When practicing Reading Comprehension, you need to develop a reading strategy that is both efficient and thorough. Reading too fast and not understanding what you have read are equally as harmful as reading too slow and using up too much time. When attacking Reading Comprehension passages, you must have one clear goal in mind: to understand the context of what you are reading. However, you must do so efficiently, so you need to avoid getting bogged down in the details of each paragraph and instead focus on understanding the main point of each paragraph. That being said, do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can just read the intro and the conclusion and thereby comprehend the main idea of a paragraph. As you read a paragraph, consider how the context of the paragraph relates to previous paragraphs, so you can continue developing your overall understanding of the passage. Furthermore, as you practice, focus on the exact types of questions with which you struggle: Find the Main Idea, Inference, Author’s Tone, etc. As with Critical Reasoning, analyze your incorrect Reading Comprehension answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses.You can perfect your reading strategy with a lot of practice, but keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be stimulating. So, to better prepare yourself to tackle such bland passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as the Economist, Scientific American, and Smithsonian.

Sentence Correction is a bit of a different animal compared to Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions: what you know, such as grammar rules, what you see, such as violations of grammar rules and the logic of sentence structure, and what you do, such as carefully considering each answer choice in the context of the non-underlined portion of the sentence. To drive up your Sentence Correction score, you likely will have to work on all three of those aspects.

Regarding what you know, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not just a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning grammar rules is so that you can determine what sentences convey and whether sentences are well-constructed. In fact, in many cases, incorrect answers to Sentence Correction questions are grammatically flawless. Thus, often your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine which answer choice creates the most logical sentence meaning and structure.

This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and logical is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending under two minutes per question. For a while, anyway, you have to spend time with each question, maybe even ten or fifteen minutes on one question sometimes, analyzing every answer choice until you see the details that you have to see in order to choose the correct answer. As you go through the answer choices, consider the meaning conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does the meaning make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does the version really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do all pronouns clearly refer to nouns? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer to a Sentence Correction question is correct.

There is only one correct answer to any Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and those reasons are not that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct version often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answer were always the one that sounded right, then most people most of the time would get Sentence Correction questions correct, without really knowing why the wrong answers were wrong and the correct answers were correct. So, you have to go beyond choosing what "sounds right" and learn to clearly see the logical reasons why one choice is better than all of the others.

As for the third aspect of getting Sentence Correction questions correct, what you do, the main thing you have to do is be very careful. You have to make sure that you are truly considering the structures of sentences and the meanings conveyed rather than allowing yourself to be tricked into choosing trap answers that sound right but don't convey logical meanings. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question may take bouncing from choice to choice repeatedly until you start to see the differences between the choices that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to be determined to see the differences and figure out the precise reasons that one choice is correct.

To improve what you do when you answer Sentence Correction questions, seek to become aware of how you are going about answering them. Are you being careful and looking for logic and details, or are you quickly eliminating choices that sound a little off and then choosing the best of the rest? If you choose an incorrect answer, consider what you did that resulted in your arriving at that answer and what you could do differently in order to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Furthermore, see how many questions you can get correct in a row as you practice. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could have done differently to extend your streak.

As with your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension regimens, after learning a particular Sentence Correction topic, engage in focused practice with 30 questions or more that involve that topic. As your skills improve, you will then want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple Sentence Correction topics.

Although your quant is stronger, you can follow a similar process for that section. For example, if you are reviewing Number Properties, be sure that you practice 50 or more questions just from Number Properties: LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, remainders, etc. When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you do such practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant skills. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

Each time you strengthen your understanding of a topic and your skill in answering questions of a particular type, you increase your odds of hitting your score goal. You know that there are types of questions that you are happy to see and types that you would rather not see, and types of questions that you take a long time to answer correctly. Learn to more effectively answer the types of questions that you would rather not see, and make them into your favorite types. Learn to correctly answer in two minutes or less questions that you currently take five minutes to answer. By finding, say, a dozen weaker quant areas and turning them into strong areas, you will make great progress toward hitting your quant score goal. If a dozen areas turn out not to be enough, strengthen some more areas.

So, work on accuracy and generally finding correct answers, work on specific weaker areas one by one to make them strong areas, and when you take a practice GMAT or the real thing, take all the time per question available to do your absolute best to get right answers consistently. The GMAT is essentially a game of seeing how many right answers you can get in the time allotted. Approach the test with that conception in mind, and focus intently on the question in front of you with one goal in mind: getting a CORRECT answer.

Regarding resources, since you already have a great foundation, you may consider using an online self-study course. To see what is available, take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the best quant and verbal courses.

You also may find my article with more information regarding
how to score a 700+ on the GMAT helpful.

Feel free to reach out with any further questions. Good luck!

https://gmatclub.com/forum/3-attempts-c ... l#p2245828

https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-prepare ... -one-month

You ask a really good question, but despite getting a plethora of answers, you quite frankly may find that one month is not a lot of time to achieve your GMAT score goal. That said, since I do not know your GMAT score goal, I’ll provide some general advice on how long and how to study for the GMAT. I’ve actually previously answered both of those questions: how long to study for the GMAT and how to prepare for the GMAT. Regardless, I’m happy to provide some key points here as well.

First and foremost, to see whether you can effectively prepare for the GMAT in one month, you should take an official GMAC practice exam. The results of that exam will give you a clear picture of how far you are from your score goal and whether one month is a realistic timeline for you to achieve your score goal. For example, let’s say your score goal is 700. If you score 500 on your initial practice exam, then there is a slim chance that you’ll be ready to take the GMAT in just one month. However, if you score 680 on your initial practice exam, then improving your score by 20 points in just one month is quite possible.

Whatever your baseline score, two keys to improving your GMAT score are studying hard and studying smart. How does one study hard? Well, you need to ensure that GMAT prep becomes a top priority in your life. I’ve spoken to so many students who can’t find a way to “get on the GMAT train” because they are too worried about skipping a workout, losing sleep, or missing out on social events. That said, you don’t have to shut down every other aspect of your life to find time to study for the GMAT. Rather, when you begin your prep, sit down and make a study schedule. If you are the type of person who needs to go to the gym after work 4 days a week, then on those 4 days, get up early and put in a few hours of studying before you get to the office, or go to the office early to study there before you begin your work day. I understand that nobody wants to spend 2 hours studying before work; however, you must know that your competition is doing just that. So, take the mentality that you want to outwork your competition. You’ll thank me on test day

.

As for how to study smart, the key is to follow a structured and linear study plan that keeps your prep straightforward and organized. In other words, each time you sit down to study, you don’t want to have to spend extra time thinking about what exactly you should be doing. Rather, you want a detailed study plan that tells you exactly what to do at all times, so you have a clear picture of what it will take to get to the finish line. Rather than trying to design your own study plan, you may consider using an online self-study course, which typically provides a detailed study plan for you to follow. You’ll notice that there are many options, including numerous courses, for GMAT prep, so do your research. Sites such as GMAT Club, Beat the GMAT, and MBA Insight all have verified reviews of prep materials.

These are just a few points regarding how to effectively prepare for the GMAT, so you may find it helpful to read the following articles about how to score a 700 on the GMAT and the phases of preparing for the GMAT.

Good luck!

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. As for how to study smart, the key is to follow a structured and linear study plan that keeps your prep straightforward and organized. In other words, each time you sit down to study, you don’t want to have to spend extra time thinking about what exactly you should be doing. Rather, you want a detailed study plan that tells you exactly what to do at all times, so you have a clear picture of what it will take to get to the finish line. Rather than trying to design your own study plan, you may consider using an online self-study course, which typically provides a detailed study plan for you to follow. You’ll notice that there are many options, including numerous courses, for GMAT prep, so do your research. Sites such as GMAT Club, Beat the GMAT, and MBA Insight all have verified reviews of prep materials. These are just a few points regarding how to effectively prepare for the GMAT, so you may find it helpful to read the following articles about how to score a 700 on the GMAT and the phases of preparing for the GMAT. Good luck!

eabhgoy · Answer

Well most of the stuff out there has been developed over years and i am sure all of us can learn from it. I think its a very individual experience for all of us!

Egmat is better because of the number of questions u can practice under each section or topic!

Posted from my mobile device

mangamma · Answer

which materials you used for RC?

DavidTutorexamPAL · Answer

Hey  sweetlyimproved ,

Just to add on to what others have said, SC is one of those sections where 'knowing how to identify traps' works wonders. In other words, take the time to really get to know what types of mistakes all the wrong answer make. Note that all GMAT OG questions are freely available on GMATclub  here  and these questions (along with their answers) provide a great resource for self-study.

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How should my study plan be structured? So many paths get me confused

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