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How long to study for?

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How long to study for?

by Kyle » Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:12 am
I'm trying to gauge how long I will need to study for the GMAT because application deadlines for '08 are approaching.

I've never been strong in Math, which is the area I will focus more of my attention. I haven't bought any books yet, but plan on buying the OG 11th edition and the Kaplan Math Review.

I plan to study about an hour a day and hope to have covered enough material to take the exam mid December. If my score is high enough, it'll give me enough time to ask people to write recommendation and get my applications out by mid-end January '08.

Does have experience with studing times frames? Will 3 months be adequate? Are those two books sufficient prep material? My goal is 680-700

Thank you.
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Re: How long to study for?

by aim-wsc » Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:35 am
Kyle wrote: Does have experience with studing times frames? Will 3 months be adequate? Are those two books sufficient prep material? My goal is 680-700

Thank you.
Yes! 100 days will be enough... I think it ultimately depends upon your agility.
still three months should be sufficient.
Make a time-table for 70 days & keep 30 days for safety ;)
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by Icemastr » Thu Sep 13, 2007 9:23 am
I would recommend taking a diagnostic, studying the problems you missed and reviewing material on the stupid mistakes you did and then take another diagnostic as soon as possible and then come up with a study plan. It may seem excessive but I have studied over 100 hours just on critical reasoning, reading comprehension, and sentence correction. When I first started studying I tried the 1 hour a day thing and I didn't get anywhere. Studying 2-3 hours a few days a week and doing a long study session one day on the weekend has helped me learn faster and retain what I have learned better.

For example when studying sentence correction it took me about one hour to review a topic area and then about another hour practicing questions involving that topic. If I had only done one hour per day by the time I practice the concepts I would not have remembered most of what I had read the previous day. I am not saying you need to study like I did, but you should definitely gauge where you are at and study for 5-10 hours before coming up with a study plan. You don't want to get close to taking the GMAT and realize you are still far away from your goal.

Also I recommend taking the GMAT at least 2-3 months before your application deadlines. If you plan to apply 3rd round then you could take the test in December or maybe January, but if you want to apply 2nd rounds you better take it in October. This way if you score below your expectations you have time to retake the test and there is time for the scores to get to schools before their deadline. In addition it will be good to know what you got on your GMAT before doing any interviews etc. Good luck on your studying and it is better to overestimate how much you need to study than underestimate.
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by Stacey Koprince » Fri Sep 21, 2007 2:12 pm
Most people find 3 months to be enough time - unless you are looking for a larger-than-average score improvement or you have a history of underperforming on standardized tests. Then you might need more time.

Be aware that applications often take a LOT longer than people think. It can take 6 to 8 weeks to get your requested recommenders to submit their recommendations. And it will typically take people about 2 months to put together a great application - you can do it in a few days, but the quality won't be as good. Ideally, you budget in at least 2 review periods during which you put the whole thing away for a week and then come back and look at it with fresh eyes.
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by bates88 » Fri Sep 21, 2007 7:20 pm
I would do more than an hour of practice questions a night if you can. Try one question type at a time for at least a half hour or so, depending on how you're doing on weak areas.

You also need to get some practice tests in there. Have you downloaded the official ones yet? There are two free ones on www.mba.com. They're called GMATPrep. You MUST do these tests.

I would do the Princeton Review tests over the Kaplan ones. They're much closer to the real thing than Kaplan.
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