Study plan ยท 8 weeks
The 8-week plan: the standard build
Eight weeks at roughly 10 hours per week is the sweet spot for most test-takers: long enough to rebuild foundations and learn strategy, short enough to hold motivation. The plan works for either exam; swap in the section names that apply to yours.
This plan is the backbone of the study system at GMAT GRE Prep. Every task links to a guide or drill on this site, plus the official free practice tests from GMAC and ETS.
Week by week
| Week | Focus | Key tasks |
|---|---|---|
| W1 | Baseline and setup | Take one official practice test cold (mba.com or ETS POWERPREP). Record section scores. Read the exam guide for your test (GMAT orGRE). Build an error log spreadsheet. |
| W2 | Quant foundations | Arithmetic and algebra review with the formula sheet. Ten untimed practice questions daily, every solution read. Milestone: 80% accuracy on easy and medium quant, untimed. |
| W3 | Verbal foundations | Read the verbal guide. GRE students: start 20 minutes of daily vocabulary. GMAT students: one critical reasoning set daily. Keep the quant error log warm with 5 questions a day. |
| W4 | Weak-spot repair | Sort your error log by topic and attack the two biggest buckets. GMAT students addData Insights sets; GRE students write twopractice essays. Milestone: second official practice test. Target: halfway from baseline to goal. |
| W5 | Timed sets | Move to timed practice: 10-question sets at exam pace (2 minutes per question). Review every question the same day. One full section under test conditions. |
| W6 | Full practice tests | Third official practice test, full dress rehearsal: timed, one sitting, test-day start hour. Review over two days. Milestone: within 30 points (GMAT) or 6 points per section (GRE) of your goal. |
| W7 | Polish and pacing | Fourth practice test midweek. Drill only what the last two tests flagged. Practice guessing strategy: when to cut losses at the 3-minute mark. |
| W8 | Taper and test day | Light review only: error log, formula sheet, vocabulary. No new material after Wednesday. Day before the test: nothing. Sleep, logistics, documents ready. |
Rules that make the plan work
- The error log is the plan. Every missed question gets a line: topic, why you missed it, what you will do differently. Review it weekly.
- Official material for tests, this site for drills. GMAC and ETS practice tests are the only reliable score predictors. Use them at the milestone weeks, not randomly.
- Never skip the review. Ten questions reviewed deeply beat thirty questions checked for right or wrong.
- Miss a day, do not double up. Slide the schedule; cramming two sessions into one just hides fatigue errors.
Checkpoint
If your week 4 score is not at least halfway from baseline to goal, do not push harder; reschedule the test by two weeks. A postponed test is a fee. A wasted attempt is a fee plus a score on your record.