How to Study on Your Own
Youve been thinking for a while now about going back to business school. Youll go sometime in the future but you havent started to do much about it yet.
Well, break out your pencils* and get ready to take advantage of your new membership in the GMAT Exercise Club! Were going to set up a custom program for you to get the score you need by summers endand then you can decide whether to apply this fall or to wait a year or two.
*Okay, okay, you dont use pencils for this test anymore, nor is there an actual GMAT Exercise Club, and I cant really give each and every one of you a completely customized, individual study program. But I can tell you what to start doing today to get yourself ready to take the GMAT by the end of the summer, as long as you make the commitment to get your brain in gear, do a little bit every day, and conquer Mount Everest er, the GMAT.
This article will assume that you plan to study on your own. If you are still deciding whether to study on your own, take a class, or work with a tutor, the following article discusses the pros and cons of each approach: How to Choose an Approach: Self-study, Class, or Tutor.
Heres how to develop a study plan thats appropriate for you.
Week 1: Take a CAT
Your first step is to take a practice CAT under official testing conditions (including all 4 sections: essay, IR, quant, verbal).
Its best to use a test-prep company CAT for this, not GMATPrep (the official practice test from the makers of the GMAT), as the purpose for taking this practice CAT is to gain insight into your strengths and weaknesses. While GMATPrep is the closest thing to the real test, it provides no data with which to evaluate your performance. Save GMATPrep for later in your study.
Right now, you might be protesting: but I havent studied anything yet! Thats okay. In fact, thats the point! You need to determine what you do already know or understand and what you dont so that you can set up an effective study plan for yourself. Dont stress about your first scoreuse it as a study tool.
It is smart, though, to make sure that you learn a little bit about one particular question type before you take that test. Unless youve studied for the GMAT before, you probably havent seen anything like Data Sufficiency, so review that question type before your first CAT.
If you take an MGMAT CAT, use this two-part article to analyze your results: Evaluating Your Practice Tests. (The link given here is to the first part of the article; you can find the link to the second part at the end of the first part.)
Week 1: Choose Your Materials or Program
Next, you need a study plan. To start, figure out what materials youll use to study. At the least, you will need two things:
(1) Material that teaches you how to take the test
(2) Material that allows you to practice your skills
The first category includes test preparation materialsbooks, flash cards, interactive lessonsbasically, materials that teach you strategies, facts, rules, and techniques for taking the GMAT.
The best source material for the second category includes official test questions that have been released by the test makers. There are three Official Guide (OG) books full of questions, the previously-mentioned GMATPrep software, GMAT Focus, and more. (You can find descriptions of all of these products at www.mba.com.)
I want to talk a little bit more about one item from category 1: interactive lessons. These kinds of lessons fall in between static books and live classes or tutoring (the price, the amount of material, the level of engagement, everything).
Many (if not most) companies are moving forward with pre-prepared lessons that are still customizable (to some extent) to an individual student. These types of lessons are typically more dynamic, incorporating video, audio, and interactive components, and theyre adaptive: as you work through a lesson, you may be offered something harder if youre breezing through or something easier if youre struggling with a concept.
These types of programs should offer some kind of structure: an order to the lessons, recommendations for what to do each week for some number of weeks, and so on. Do follow the structure in generalthe lessons and recommendations were made that way for a reasonbut customize to fit your particular strengths and weaknesses (as determined by your first CAT). More on this in the next section.
Weeks 2 through 10-ish: Study Smart
Now that youre ready to start studying, we have to discuss the next critical component: how to study in a way that gets you the most out of your hard work. Studying a great quantity of stuff doesnt necessarily accomplish that goal.
You will, of course, need to learn all of the facts and rules (quant and grammar) tested on the GMAT. Youll also need to learn the major strategies necessary for the six different question types (Integrated Reasoning, Problem Solving, Data Sufficiency, Sentence Correction, Reading Comprehension, and Critical Reasoning). All of this constitutes the first level of your GMAT learning.
But wait! There is a second level. Youll need to learn how the test writers put these (sometimes infuriating!) questions together and how you can translate GMAT-speak into normal language that you can tackle efficiently and effectively.
Luckily, Ive already got an entire article for you on the 2nd Level of GMAT Learning. Read it (including the other articles linked in ittheyre very important!) and start practicing what it preaches.
Next, customize your plan. If youre working from books, start with the most fundamental material that is giving you trouble (based on your CAT results) and work your way up from there.
If youre using interactive lessons, adjust the standard plan according to your strengths and weaknesses. For example, my companys interactive program (GMAT Interact) starts out in week 1 with an overview of GMAT scoring, and lessons on Data Sufficiency (DS) and Sentence Correction (SC). If, on your first practice test, you bombed DS but SC went pretty well, then youre going to adjust accordingly. Plan to take more time than the syllabus recommends for DS, and either take less time on SC or push yourself to work on some harder practice problems.
If you were pretty unfamiliar with DS, you might try just the first part of the interactive lesson (which explains the basics), then go practice those skills on some easy OG DS problems, and then come back and finish the main DS lesson.
Because the lessons are interactive, you can sometimes unlock harder material by doing well in the lesson. As a result, you might even return to the lesson in a few weeks to try it againyou might see some harder questions now that your skills have matured. (And, even if the lesson doesnt have harder questions available, youll still solidify the strategies and get some solid review under your belt.)
Do the above for approximately the first 6 weeks and then take another practice CAT. Analyze it againyour skills will have changed!and use those new priorities as you continue with your lessons.
Weeks 10-ish to 13+ish: Review
At some point, you will have worked your way through the main lessons of whatever program or books youre using. Then, youll start your review.
There are two broad scenarios:
(1) Your practice CATs are in your desired score range
(2) Your practice CATs are not in your desired score range
If your CATs are where you want them to be, plan to take the test within a few weeks, after doing a comprehensive review across the main content areas, question types, and strategies.
If your CATs are not where you want them to be, youre going to go back to your program material, but this time, dont just start from the beginning. Use your most recent CAT to figure out your priorities and selectively return to those lessons that are the most important for you to learn. When you feel that you have made significant progress in whatever those areas are, take another CAT and repeat the process until your scores get into the range that you want.
(Note: your analysis of one CAT should provide you with at least two weeks worth of study material. If youre tempted to take a CAT earlier than that, then youre in danger of falling into the trap of taking CATs too frequently because youre hoping your score has gone up. If you havent really put in the work, dont expect much to change on your next CAT.)
If your scores arent getting into the range that you want, then you may have to revisit either your goal score or your decision to study on your own (that is, you may need outside help in the form of a teacher / tutor). Lets hope that doesnt apply in your case but, if it does, take a look at the How to Choose an Approach article linked at the beginning of this post.
On Your Mark, Get Set
Take your first step today. Decide whether youre going to study on your own, take a class, or work with a tutor. Start researching the materials, programs, or tutors available and make a decision one week from today (put an actual deadline on your calendar!). Sign up / order / do what you need to do in order to get started.
Next, mark off study times on your calendar. Plan to study 5 or 6 days a week for 30 minutes to 3 hours a day. You can break sessions up into smaller chunks (in fact, I wouldnt recommend sitting down for more than about 1 to 1.5 hours at a stretch). If youre going to use an interactive learning program that lets you set your own class schedule, block off regular class times at the same time every week (even though youll be the only student in attendance).
Go!