Crafting Your Personalized GMAT Study Plan: A Step-by-Step Guide

Did you know that a well-designed study plan is the most important step when starting your GMAT preparation? 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.

Why a Personalized Study Plan Matters

A well-designed study plan needs to answer three key questions:

1. What sub-sectional scores should you aim for?
2. How much time do you need to invest to achieve that score?
3. 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’s look at what will happen if your study plan does not answer them.

Case Study: Abby vs. Chase

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 610. Both Abby and Chase were 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 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 into her weak areas. This personalized study plan helped Abby improve from a V21 to a V41, powering her to a GMAT 740.

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 amounts 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.

Creating Your Personalized Study Plan in Three Steps

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.

Step 1: Assess Your Starting Abilities

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.

If you have taken the GMAT recently, the best way to assess your starting abilities will be to get an Enhanced Score Report (ESR), which costs $30. The second and easier way is to take a Sigma X mock test. Sigma X gives you deep insights into your strengths and weaknesses and is the only mock that provides you with subsectional ability scores, enabling you to define a precise starting point and empowering you to create a personalized study plan.

Once you know your strengths and weaknesses, only then can you 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 SC, CR, 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 730.

Step 2: Define Your Path and Milestones

This opens up multiple paths you can take, and deciding which path 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 GMAT Sprint’s personalized study planner.

GMAT Sprint is an AI-driven tool that pulls data from 50,000 GMAT students and suggests the best path to get to your target score. Moreover, it sets milestones and gives you a tentative date that 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 into 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. GMAT Sprint students have unlimited access to this planner on their dashboard. If you’re not a GMAT Sprint 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.

Step 3: Structure Your Study Plan

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 building solid fundamentals. Take as much as 60% of your total prep time to build these fundamentals. Do not skip this phase! 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-like conditions, such as a mock test. If you find yourself falling short of your target score in the mocks, you should dive deep into the test analytics to find your weak areas and work on them before taking your next mock test.

Your Personalized Study Plan Awaits!

So there you have it: your very own personalized study plan! If you like this article, please share it with fellow test takers. If you have questions, feel free to write to us in the comment section. And don’t forget to subscribe to our blog to get notified about our next article. Stay safe and happy learning!