did you know that a well-designed study plan is the most important step when starting your gmat
preparation why we analyzed the data of 15 000 gmat test takers and found that students who
leveraged a personalized study plan were four times more likely to achieve their target gmat
score today we'd love to share three key questions your study plan should answer and teach you how to
make one in just three steps hey guys welcome back to our channel a well-designed study plan
needs to answer three key questions they are first what sub-sectional scores should you aim for
second how much time do you need to invest to achieve that score and third what do you need
to do to study to achieve your target score but before we walk you through the how behind
these three questions let us look at what will happen if your study plan does not answer them
here are two students abby and chase both come from an engineering background have very similar
starting abilities and are aiming for a gmat 740. abby started with a 580 and chase with a 6 10.
both javi and chase was struggling in the verbal section however despite starting at a lower score
abby achieved her target score in less than two months while chase
despite spending three months was stuck at 670. what is the reason behind this disparity
abby created and followed a personalized study plan that answered all the three questions
it enabled her to understand exactly what subsectional scores to aim for gave her a timeline
with traceable milestones and guided her to put more effort on her weak areas this personalized
study plan helped abby improve from a v21 to a v41 powering her to a gmat 7 40. chase on the other
hand followed a generic three-month study plan downloaded from a free gmat prep website since the
study plan did not consider his starting abilities it failed to answer the three key questions and
he ended up allocating equal amount of time for each of the five subsections as a result chase
was only able to improve his verbal score from a v25 to a v32 and hence was stuck at a 670.
this is why a well-designed study plan should answer the three questions based on your starting
abilities now let us see how you can create your personalized study plan in just three steps
your gmat score out of 800 is composed of two sectional scores which in turn
are composed of five sub-sectional scores you need to assess which sections you're good at
furthermore you also need to understand your subsectional abilities and define which
sub-sections will play a key role in your journey to achieve your target score how can you do this
if you have taken the gmat recently the best way to assess your starting abilities will be to get
an esr or an enhanced core report which costs 30 dollars the second and an easier way is to take
rsigma x mark sigma x mock gives you deep insights into your strengths and weaknesses is the only
mock that gives you subsectional ability scores enabling you to define a precise starting point
and empowering you to create a personalized study plan you can click on the link available
in the description to register for a free trial that gives you access to one sigma x mock test
once you know your strengths and weaknesses only then you can define the path to your target score
there are various combinations of subsectional scores that can lead to your target gmat score
for example there are about 25 ways to achieve a 730 you can excel in sccr and arithmetic while
making the difference up in rc and algebra or you can perform consistently in all subsections both
these ways can help you get to a 7 30. this opens up multiple parts you can take and deciding which
part to take along with what milestones to define can be extremely difficult and time consuming
most students who do it well work with a private tutor which can get very expensive
so what's the alternative you can use eg mats personalized study planner
an ai driven tool which pulls data from fifty thousand each math students and suggests the
best part to get to your target score moreover it sets milestones and gives you a tentative date
which is suitable for you it even provides you with a day-to-day plan precise milestones can
easily multiply your chances of success on the gmat while a day-to-day plan can save you up to
60 hours of prep time what's more if you have a busy schedule you can input your time commitments
in the study plan and the planner will auto adjust the milestones to work around your schedule
this smart planner helps you ace the gmat while balancing your work and family commitments
eg math students have unlimited access to this planner on their dashboard
if you're not an eg math student and would like access to the smart planner
take a sigma x mock and then write to us and we'll be happy to help you with it
once you've determined your target subsectional milestones and how much time you need to achieve
those milestones the final step is to create a structure so that you're not skipping steps
and rushing your gmat preparation you want to structure your plan such that your focus
is on building concepts in the first phase of your study plan here you should work on your
weaknesses that you identified in step one and work on to build solid fundamentals take as much
as 60 of your total prep time to build these fundamentals do not skip this space getting
constant feedback at this stage is paramount as it ensures that you build a strong foundation in the
next phase of your study plan you will switch focus and start practicing gmat like problems
in the early stages of this phase your goal is to achieve high accuracy in medium and hard questions
early on as you're cementing your methods you may take longer to solve each question
you might take as much as twice as long this additional time is acceptable early on as you're
still learning the process once you've mastered the process you will see this time go down
significantly in the event that you're still taking slightly longer you may need to spend a
week or so to identify and reduce the time taken in the next and final phase of your study you
will focus on becoming test ready this involves practicing timing and test taking strategies in
test test-like conditions such as a mock test if you find yourself falling short of your target
score in the marks you should dive deep into the test analytics to find your weak areas and work
on them before taking your next mock test so there you have it your very own personalized study plan
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