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Last Updated on November 13, 2024
Studying for the GMAT is a long and winding journey with many ups and downs. So, it is absolutely essential to have a solid GMAT study plan in place to keep you from getting lost. The fact is, the more comprehensive, well-thought-out, and realistic your GMAT study plan is, the more likely you are to reach your score goal — and stay on deadline.
In this article, we’ll go step by step through exactly what to do in each of the two major phases of GMAT preparation in a thorough and effective GMAT study plan. The tips and advice we’ll cover will allow you to fully prepare for each of the GMAT sections. In addition, you’ll learn how to hone your time-management and test-taking strategies for the big day.
Get ready for a crash course on how to make a GMAT study plan!
Here are the topics we’ll cover:
- How to Make a GMAT Study Plan: A Tale of Two Phases
- Establish Your Baseline and Target Scores
- Use a Topic-by-Topic Framework
- Alternate Quant and Verbal Study
- Take Notes as You Learn
- Study Strategically with Flashcards
- Revisit What You’ve Learned
- Review Your Error Log
- Take Full-Length Practice Tests
- Key Takeaways
- What’s Next?
First, let’s discuss what the two phases of proper GMAT preparation are and why it’s important that you complete them in order.
How to Make a GMAT Study Plan: A Tale of Two Phases
We’ve been asked the same question by GMAT students time and time again: what is the best study plan for the GMAT?
Our answer is always the same. Any truly comprehensive and effective GMAT study plan should include two distinct phases.
The first of those phases is the learning phase, in which you master GMAT content and develop your GMAT skills.
The second phase is the practice-test phase. Here, you perfect the application of all your new knowledge and skills under realistic testing conditions.
Some of the most common errors GMAT students make are mixing these two phases, jumping into the second phase too early, or skipping the first phase altogether. Unfortunately, 99.9 times out of 100, these students have to go back to the drawing board after earning disappointing scores on test day.
There is only one case in which not completing both phases in order may be OK: if you’re already within a few points of your Quantitative Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, and Data Insights score goals when you start your prep.
In any other case (which is most cases), you mustn’t rely on quizzes and practice tests for your GMAT studies. If you do, you’re likely to see little change in your GMAT performance beyond a certain point and be left with numerous gaps in your knowledge.
Practice tests are a means of refining your skills, not developing them from scratch. So, if you want to knock the GMAT out of the park on test day, you need a GMAT study plan in which you learn the content first and then refine your skills with ample practice.
So, let’s discuss how to structure phase 1 of your GMAT prep.
TTP PRO TIP:
Practice tests can’t teach you the GMAT!
Establish Your Baseline and Target Scores
One of the basic keys to creating an effective GMAT study plan is knowing exactly what you want to achieve.
So, if you’re wondering, “How do I start preparing for the GMAT?”, step #1 is to establish both the score you’re starting with and the score you’re shooting for.
To start, research your desired schools to see what the average GMAT scores are of admitted students. Use that information to figure out your target score.
Then, take one of the free, full-length official practice tests on mba.com to establish your baseline GMAT score. Make sure to take this test under realistic test-day conditions, following the rules you must follow for the actual GMAT. Following test-day conditions will allow you to get as accurate a picture as possible of your current GMAT abilities.
With the results of that test, you’ll be able to see how far you are from your score goal. This information will also help you determine how long you should study for the GMAT.
(Check out our guide to how to start studying for the GMAT for further details.)
TTP PRO TIP:
Establish your starting score and your target score before you embark on your GMAT studies.
Use a Topic-by-Topic Framework
Starting the GMAT study process can be overwhelming for many students because there is just so much content to learn. The range of Quantitative Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, and Data Insights concepts that GMAT questions cover is massive. There is no way to know exactly which concepts any one GMAT exam will be tested.
So, simply diving into learning random GMAT concepts, with no order or logical progression to what you’re studying, is not a productive or efficient study method.
For your GMAT study plan to be effective, it must be structured so that you:
- learn each GMAT topic thoroughly
- don’t waste time trying to master advanced topics before you’ve solidified your foundational knowledge
The best way to accomplish these two tasks is to take a linear, topic-by-topic approach to your GMAT prep. In other words, learn one topic at a time, and then do numerous practice questions on just that topic. Furthermore, start with basic concepts and work your way up to more advanced ones.
TTP PRO TIP:
To make your GMAT prep more organized, efficient, and effective, use a linear, topic-by-topic framework for your study plan.
Let’s use the Target Test Prep study plan to illustrate how this highly effective study method works.
Example: The Target Test Prep Study Plan
The Target Test Prep GMAT study plan starts with a chapter on essential Quantitative Reasoning skills. It includes multiplying and dividing fractions, simplifying calculations, reciprocals, and other foundational concepts.
Each of those essential concepts is thoroughly explained in an individual lesson that then features a handful of questions on just that concept. So, students solidify each concept as they go.
Only after students finish all of the lessons in the Essential Skills chapter do they take a series of chapter tests featuring a mixture of realistic practice questions covering all of the lessons from that chapter and separated by difficulty level. So, they complete all of the easy-level chapter tests first, then medium-level tests, and finally hard-level tests.
Along the way, TTP’s built-in error tracker logs a student’s incorrect answers. As a result, students can return to the appropriate lesson to refresh their understanding of the concepts they missed before they move on to more difficult tests.
Only after they’ve reached their desired accuracy level on the tests associated with the Essential Skills chapter do they move on to the next chapter, Linear and Quadratic Equations.
So, by the time TTP students get to GMAT topics such as Coordinate Geometry or Functions and Sequences, they are already well-schooled in all the other concepts they may need to tackle questions on those topics. The same goes for Verbal and DI.
Putting in the Time Saves Time
A topic-by-topic approach process may seem painstaking. The truth is that using this structure for your GMAT study plan will save you time in the long run.
For one, with a linear study plan that goes topic by topic, concept by concept, you’ll always know exactly what you’ve already studied and what is left to study.
Furthermore, your GMAT practice becomes a tool for both honing your skills and confirming that you’ve actually learned all of the concepts you studied. Then, targeting your strengths and weaknesses in each topic becomes a much more manageable task.
Remember, if your foundational knowledge is already fairly strong, you’ll probably move through more basic GMAT topics relatively quickly. Just don’t make the mistake of completely skipping
over “easier” topics (for example, Strengthen questions in Critical Reasoning). The GMAT can come up with pretty tricky ways to employ basic concepts. So, even if you need only a quick review of some of the more basic topics, that review could still be quite valuable for test day.
So, now that you have a basic framework for your study plan, let’s discuss some strategies for learning each GMAT topic.
Alternate Quant and Verbal Study
While some separation of Quant and Verbal study in your GMAT prep is a good idea (for the reasons we just discussed), I do not recommend studying GMAT sections in completely different stages of your preparation timeline.
For instance, I would never recommend that a test-taker study all of Quantitative Reasoning for the first 2 months of her GMAT prep, and then study all of Verbal Reasoning for the next 2 months.
For one, by month 4, when perhaps this test-taker who studies every section separately would be starting some dedicated study of Data Insights, many of the Quant concepts the test-taker learned in month 1 and even month 2 would be forgotten. In fact, many of those Quant concepts would be necessary to successfully tackle Data Insights questions. (Toward the end of your GMAT preparation, you’ll want to start incorporating Data Insights practice into your studies, and you’ll need solid skills in both Quant and Verbal to master DI questions.)
Furthermore, imagine if being a math major in college meant attending nothing but math classes for an entire semester. That might get pretty draining, right? Even if you love math, studying math and only math for hours every day, for weeks at a time, can be a recipe for boredom, restlessness, and waning motivation. Moreover, your brain may start to feel overwhelmed by the flood of information.
So, within your study plan framework of learning one topic at a time, it’s smart to alternate Quant and Verbal topics.
Let’s use the TTP study plan as an example of how to do this.
Example: The Target Test Prep Study Plan
Let’s say a student using the TTP course spent 7 to 12 days working through our Quant chapter on Roots and Exponents — all of the lessons and chapter tests. At that point, his study plan would direct him to the Verbal chapter on Resolve the Paradox questions. After spending, say, 4 to 6 days working through the Paradox lessons and chapter tests, he would then move on to the Quant chapter on Inequalities and Absolute Values. He would continue along this path, alternating between Quant and Verbal and taking the various amounts of time he needed to complete the different chapters until he mastered all GMAT content.
By learning in this way, TTP students have sufficient time and space to process what they’ve learned while keeping their GMAT prep moving at a steady clip. Furthermore, they are more likely to stay engaged in what they’re learning because the study process doesn’t get stale. After all, when a process becomes monotonous, we tend to zone out, and new information washes over us rather than sticking in our brains.
So, make sure that your GMAT study plan allows you to alternate between learning Quant and Verbal topics. As a result, you’ll ensure that you’re building your knowledge and skills in both sections as you go.
TTP PRO TIP:
Alternate between learning a Quant topic and learning a Verbal topic, so that you build your knowledge and skills in both sections as you progress through your GMAT prep.
Take Notes as You Learn
Another study strategy that is crucial to the learning phase of your GMAT study plan is taking notes as you learn new content. Taking notes is a key way to make your studying more effective because you are forced to be a more active participant in your learning. The simple act of writing down a concept in your own words makes you think more about its meaning. And the more you have to think about what you are learning, the more effective your learning will be.
On the other hand, simply reading math formulas or watching videos on how to dissect an argument is too passive an activity for most students to reliably and completely absorb the information.
So, when reading a lesson or watching a video, engage your brain by taking meaningful notes on the key information. You can even color-code your notes by, for example, writing a particular formula in red, showing an example in blue, and noting any special cautions or issues in green. Make the notes your own.
In addition to helping you retain more knowledge, taking notes will give you something to review at a later date. As a result, you’ll create the opportunity for repetition of learning, another important strategy that we’ll discuss shortly.
For now, let’s discuss an important offshoot of note-taking: creating flashcards.
TTP PRO TIP:
Color-code or otherwise personalize your notes to make identifying different types of information easier and help the information stick more readily in your memory.
Study Strategically with Flashcards
Creating and strategically studying flashcards on important or difficult concepts is a great way to maximize your study plan efficiency. Pulling key concepts from your notes in order to create flashcards gives you another opportunity to think about the material you’ve learned and put the information in your own words, two actions that help knowledge retention.
Furthermore, you can study your flashcards just about anywhere, anytime. If you commute on public transportation, you can use that time to review your flashcards. If you’re standing in line at the supermarket, whip out your flashcards and give yourself a 2-minute quiz. You’ll find that there are many opportunities to fit in “quick-hit” study sessions with flashcards throughout your day. Trust me, they add up! Five minutes here, 10 minutes there—before you know it, you’ve added an extra 20 minutes to your daily study time. Over the course of a week, that would amount to 2 hours and 20 minutes of “extra” GMAT studying. Not bad, huh?
Some students use “old-fashioned” paper flashcards, while others prefer a digital version, such as the flashcards in the TTP course. Whichever format you choose, flip through your flashcards as often as you can. To create an added challenge for yourself, shuffle the deck before each use. Your brain will have to work a bit harder to recall the material, and your retention will increase. (If you’re using TTP, your flashcards automatically shuffle!)
Also, to help keep your flashcard study efficient, separate your cards into two piles: one pile for concepts you’ve mastered and another pile for concepts you haven’t mastered. Or, if you’re using TTP, you can relax, because the course will do this “sorting” for you. So, you’ll see the cards you still need to master most often.
Revisit What You’ve Learned
Since there is just so much material to learn for the GMAT, if you don’t periodically review past topics, you run the risk of losing some of that knowledge as you learn new things.
Think about learning a foreign language: even if you become fluent, if you don’t regularly hear that language and speak the language yourself, it doesn’t take very long to start forgetting words. The same concept applies to the GMAT. So, just as you wouldn’t want to study for the GMAT, and then wait 6 months to actually take the exam, it doesn’t make sense to study a topic just once and expect to remember everything about it during an exam weeks or months later.
Thus, in addition to fitting in flashcard reviews whenever you can to refresh and solidify key concepts, you should incorporate periodic quizzing and review of questions on previously learned topics into your GMAT study plan. By doing so, you can determine whether you have forgotten any vital information or developed any weaknesses as you’ve moved on to new topics, and you can fill those gaps.
TTP PRO TIP:
By revisiting previously learned GMAT topics at regular and strategic intervals, you help ensure you’ll remember that information on test day.
We can once again use the Target Test Prep study plan to illustrate how to revisit previous material.
Example: The Target Test Prep Study Plan
In the TTP course, before a student sees the next Quant or Verbal chapter in their study plan, they are presented with a review quiz featuring 10 questions related to previous chapters. These quizzes give students an opportunity to regularly refresh the concepts they’ve learned so far. Thus, those concepts are less likely to get lost as new knowledge is acquired. Furthermore, those concepts are then “at the top of their brains” as they’re learning more advanced concepts that build on their prior knowledge.
Periodic review quizzes ensure that TTP students never go too long without seeing a past topic again. For example, if a student completes the Number Properties chapter on day 15 of her prep, she’s not going to wait until day 75 to encounter a Number Properties question again. Instead, she may encounter Number Properties again on day 20, day 24, day 35, and so on.
Furthermore, students don’t start the next Quant or Verbal chapter unless they hit a certain percentage on their review quiz. So, they can be sure that they’ve truly mastered each topic before they attempt to learn more advanced material.
And as they progress through the course, they complete these review quizzes under increasingly challenging time constraints. Thus, they methodically work up to answering questions at test pace rather than prematurely focusing on speed before they’ve honed their accuracy.
In addition to completing short review quizzes before each new chapter, as students get further into the course, they begin to take longer review tests that cover topics from the preceding few chapters, again with recommended per-question time constraints. Thus, students get both strategic review of previously learned topics and ample, realistic training for test day.
Review Your Error Log
As part of a comprehensive GMAT study plan, you must track the GMAT practice questions you answer incorrectly and the specific reasons why you answered those questions incorrectly. However, simply tracking your errors and looking over them randomly is not an effective way to prevent yourself from making the same mistakes again.
Instead, spend some time going through your error log once a week. Re-read the solutions to the questions you answered incorrectly. Then go back to your study materials or notes to review lessons covering the concepts that tripped you up.
A weekly review of your error log ensures that you correct mistakes and close knowledge gaps in a timely fashion. Thus, you can feel confident in your mastery of a topic before you move on to a new one. Moreover, bad habits won’t become ingrained.
Additionally, a weekly “check-in” with your error log ensures that you’re never faced with an unwieldy list of questions and concepts to revisit at any one time. Think about it: as you complete more and more practice questions, and your error log grows, the task might start to seem overwhelming, like something you shouldn’t even bother with …
So, make sure your GMAT study plan leaves time for error review every week.
TTP PRO TIP:
A weekly “check-in” with your error log ensures that bad habits don’t become ingrained. By so doing, you’ll never be faced with an unwieldy list of concepts to revisit at any one time.
So, you learned each GMAT topic fully, practiced each topic individually, reviewed past topics in mixed sets, and regularly reviewed and corrected your errors. The learning phase of your GMAT prep is complete! Now it’s time to start the second (and final) phase of a solid GMAT study plan: taking full-length practice tests.
Take Full-Length Practice Tests
In the final phase of your GMAT prep, you should take the remaining 5 full-length, official GMAT practice tests available at mba.com. I say 5 remaining because, as I mentioned earlier, before you even begin your GMAT prep, you should sit for a “diagnostic test” in order to determine your baseline GMAT score.
You will use these 5 remaining exams to:
- get comfortable with the test-taking experience
- build stamina
- put the finishing touches on your time-management and other test-taking strategies
- make sure you’re able to hit your score goal
- uncover any lingering weak areas.
Ideally, you should space out your practice tests so that you can take one per week. Be sure to complete them all by the week before your GMAT. That way, you’ll have time between each practice test to review and correct your mistakes, plus a couple of days to take it easy before your next test.
In the week leading up to your GMAT, instead of risking burnout by taking full-length tests right before your actual exam, stick to light review and practice, and do some relaxing, non-GMAT-related activities, so your mind is fresh on test day.
Also, if you find that you’re not hitting your score goal on your practice tests, consider whether you need more time to study for the GMAT.
TTP PRO TIP:
Space out your practice tests so you have time to correct your errors between each test. You can wind down GMAT prep in the final week before your actual exam.
Key Takeaways
Remember to separate your GMAT study plan into two phases: the learning phase and the practice-test phase.
In the learning phase:
- Establish your baseline and goal scores.
- Use a topic-by-topic framework.
- Alternate Quant and Verbal study, and incorporate DI study last.
- Take notes as you learn.
- Study strategically with flashcards.
- Revisit what you’ve already learned at strategic intervals.
- Review your error log to target and fix your GMAT weaknesses.
In the practice-test phase:
- Take the remaining 5 official full-length practice tests.
What’s Next?
If you’re wondering, “How many hours a day should I study for the GMAT?” and “Is 3 months enough time to study for the GMAT?”, this article answers those questions and more.
For a GMAT study plan for working professionals, check out our guide to studying for the GMAT with a busy, full-time job.
