Study plan ยท 4 weeks

The 4-week plan: a controlled sprint

Four weeks is enough when your baseline is already within striking distance of your goal, roughly 60 points on the GMAT scale or 8 points per section on the GRE. The plan assumes about 15 hours per week and cuts everything that does not move your score.

Time commitment: ~15 hours/weekBest for: strong baselines, tight deadlinesWeekly milestones

This sprint is the compressed sibling of the standard plans on GMAT GRE Prep. If you have eight weeks, use the 8-week planinstead; it produces bigger gains for the same total hours.

Read first

Be honest about your baseline. A diagnostic 100+ GMAT points below goal will not close in four weeks of any plan. Rescheduling is cheaper than a wasted attempt.

Week by week

4-week schedule, ~15 hours per week
WeekFocusKey tasks
W1Diagnose and targetDay 1: official practice test cold (GMAT orGRE logistics). Days 2 to 7: review every miss, build the error log, and drill your weakest section with thepractice bank, 15 questions a day. Milestone: a ranked list of your three weakest question types.
W2Repair the leaksAttack the three weak types directly: read the matching section guides (quant, verbal,Data Insights, orAWA) and drill 20 questions daily, untimed but annotated. GRE students add daily vocabulary. Milestone: 80% accuracy on your former weak types.
W3Speed under pressureTimed mixed sets every day: 10 questions at exam pace, reviewed same-day. Two full sections back to back on the weekend. Second official practice test at week's end. Milestone: within 30 points (GMAT) or 5 points per section (GRE) of goal.
W4Rehearse and taperThird official practice test early in the week, full dress rehearsal. Then taper: error log review, formula sheet, light drills only. Nothing new in the final 48 hours. Sleep on schedule.

What gets cut, and what never does

  • Cut: re-reading topics you already score well on, long video courses, making perfect notes.
  • Keep: the error log, same-day review of every timed set, and sleep. In a four-week window, consolidation is where the points come from.
  • One sitting per day maximum. Two-a-day sessions in week 3 feel productive and mostly produce fatigue errors you then misread as content gaps.

Session template for weeks 2 and 3

  1. Warm up: 5 questions from a topic you are good at (5 to 8 minutes).
  2. Main set: 10 to 15 questions on the day's target type, timed in week 3 (20 to 30 minutes).
  3. Review: every question gets a one-line takeaway in the error log (20 to 30 minutes).
  4. Close: 10 minutes of vocabulary (GRE) or mental arithmetic (GMAT).

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