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3 Month Study Plan?

by intelligenthuman171 » Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:58 pm
Hey guys, I'm looking for a 3 month study plan. I will not taken any diagnostic exam or started studying for the GMAT. I do not have no clue about it other than I need to take it. I plan to start studying on January 1st 2019 and take it at the end of March or early April.

Schedule during spring: two accounting classes, and some religious self-study courses.

Here are the resources I currently have and I am not looking to buy anymore:
1. All Manhattan Prep books; even the advanced ones.
2. All the current official GMAT books (3 of them).
3. Have purchased all possible practice exams from GMAC.
4. Kaplan's GMAT 800 9th edition.

Here is the thing: I am planning to study 3 months and take it in March, but then, I wouldn't mind studying again for another 3 months and taking it again in June 2019.
Is there any GMAT study plan for something like this? If not, would it be odd to re-use a 3 month study plan twice?

Anyways ,if you could point me to some free 3 month study plans which are solid; or at least come with the programs that I have already purchased, please let me know.

Happy studying :)
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by [email protected] » Thu Nov 29, 2018 2:15 pm
Hi intelligenthuman171,

Since it sounds like you're just beginning your studies, then it would be a good idea to take a FULL-LENGTH practice CAT Test; you can take 2 for free at www.mba.com (and they come with some additional practice materials). If you want to do a little studying first, so that you can familiarize yourself with the basic content and question types, then that's okay - but you shouldn't wait too long to take that initial CAT. That score will give us a good sense of your natural strengths and weaknesses and will help provide a basis for comparison as you continue to study. A FULL CAT takes about 3.5 hours to complete, so make sure that you've set aside enough time to take it in one sitting. Once you have those scores, you should report back here and we can discuss how you might proceed with your studies.

Many Test Takers who use a 'book heavy' study approach end up getting 'stuck' at a particular score level - and your list of study materials is primarily book-based, so there might be a limit to how much you could improve by studying in that way. Before I can offer you any additional advice, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on your goals:

1) What is your goal score?
2) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
3) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
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by intelligenthuman171 » Thu Nov 29, 2018 5:36 pm
[email protected] wrote:Hi intelligenthuman171,

Since it sounds like you're just beginning your studies, then it would be a good idea to take a FULL-LENGTH practice CAT Test; you can take 2 for free at www.mba.com (and they come with some additional practice materials). If you want to do a little studying first, so that you can familiarize yourself with the basic content and question types, then that's okay - but you shouldn't wait too long to take that initial CAT. That score will give us a good sense of your natural strengths and weaknesses and will help provide a basis for comparison as you continue to study. A FULL CAT takes about 3.5 hours to complete, so make sure that you've set aside enough time to take it in one sitting. Once you have those scores, you should report back here and we can discuss how you might proceed with your studies.

Many Test Takers who use a 'book heavy' study approach end up getting 'stuck' at a particular score level - and your list of study materials is primarily book-based, so there might be a limit to how much you could improve by studying in that way. Before I can offer you any additional advice, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on your goals:

1) What is your goal score?
2) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
3) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Thank you for your reply Rich.
I'll be sure to take the full CAT as soon as possible and will report back here. I purchased all of the GMAC practice exams, which I believe are from www.mba.com; would one of those be fine to get an initial assessment?
As far as my goal score, I am aiming for >700, I'm applying for the fall 2019 semester, and I'm applying to UT Austin, Texas A&M San Antonio, Texas A&M College Station, UT Dallas, UT San Antonio, and UT Rio Grande Valley.
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by Scott@TargetTestPrep » Fri Nov 30, 2018 5:21 pm
To be honest, it's quite difficult for anyone to give you an exact study plan, since all students are unique and need different timelines to prepare for the GRE. That being said, if you are just starting out, you should take an official GMAT practice exam to determine your baseline score and see how far you are from your score goal. Incidentally, what is your GMAT score goal?

If after taking your exam you'd like further advice regarding your study plan, please report back here, and I can provide some general advice on how to prepare for your GMAT. You also may find it helpful to read the following articles about how long to study for the GMAT and [url=https://blog.targettestprep.com/how-to-score-a-700-on-gmat/] how to score a 700+ on the GMAT .

Feel free to reach out with further questions.

Good luck!

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
Founder and CEO
[email protected]

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by ceilidh.erickson » Sat Dec 01, 2018 5:43 pm
intelligenthuman171 wrote: Anyways ,if you could point me to some free 3 month study plans which are solid; or at least come with the programs that I have already purchased, please let me know.

Happy studying :)
You have more than enough material to study! Here's what you need to do:

Here's what you should do:

1. Take an adaptive Practice Exam (CAT). If you bought the Mprep books, you'll have access to our entire suite of practice exams. Don't prep first - just dive in and take the test, accurately timed.

2. Analyze the practice test you've taken in a lot of depth. Which areas were you weakest? Strongest? Fastest? Slowest? Decide which topics and question types need more of your time and attention. Be very aware of timing issues as well.

3. Study topic-by-topic, going chapter by chapter in the Mprep guides, then practice each topic with OG problems. For example, read the chapter on SC subject/verb agreement, then go do a set of 8-10 problems in the OGs that relate to that subject. You can find problems by topic using GMAT Navigator: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/stor ... navigator/
Do this for each chapter in the Quant and Verbal strategy guides. Aim to do this in 8-10 weeks.

4. Make sure you are tracking all of the OG questions you do, and timing yourself while you practice. Hold yourself to strict 2-min time limits per question! (I highly recommend using Navigator to track your OG problems)

5. Alternate between Quant and Verbal. Don't just focus all on quant! A lot of students make this mistake. You can't get a top score by only focusing on quant. You might think your quant score from the 1st CAT is lower based on percentiles, but this is probably a misinterpretation: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/

6. Keep a detailed record of the mistakes you make in addition to just tracking right and wrong answers, so you can locate patterns in your errors: https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -studying/

7. Take a practice test after 4 weeks, then every 2 weeks after that. Increase to a test every week for the last 2 weeks before your real exam.

8. Practice your skills with random timed sets out of the OGs once you've covered all of the content in the strategy guides . Set the timer for 20 minutes, for example, and do questions 1-10. The OG problems generally get harder as the question # increases (within a given question type), so questions 1-10 will be easier on average than 101-110. Start in the middle of the section if you want more challenging questions.

9. Analyze your data from the random sets and practice tests, and go back to any topics that need extra work.

10. Take GMATPrep CATs. Download the software from mba.com and take these tests as the last few before the real test. They won't have answer explanations or metrics, so we recommend using Mprep CATs for most of your study time, and saving these for last. (They're less helpful for analysis, but arguably most predictive of your real score, since they're written by the actual test-makers).

[spoiler]I am planning to study 3 months and take it in March, but then, I wouldn't mind studying again for another 3 months and taking it again in June 2019. [/spoiler]

This part doesn't make sense to me. Since you're starting in January, you won't have pressing deadlines. So study continuously until you're close to your target score - whether that takes 3 months or 7 months. Your 3 month + 3 month timeline seems a bit arbitrary to me. If you're nowhere close after 3 months, just keep studying! If you hit your target sooner than that, just go take it.

Then if you don't hit your target the 1st time, take it again:
- if you're 10-20 points from your target, sign up to take it again as soon as possible - the minimum is 16 days.
- if you're 30 or more points away, budget 1 week for every 10 points you want to gain.

Good luck!
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
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