Today we're going to give everyone a study plan. It's not going to be super technical and super robust because first of all, that's not necessary when you're studying for the GMAT® and it's impossible to make perfect general recommendations because different people's situations are going to be different but there are some general recommendations that we can give and this is just a question that we see so frequently.

The first step is you want to take a diagnostic test and a lot of people fear that and there's a lot of good reason to fear that diagnostic test because it usually doesn't go that great. So let us just take all the stress out of it for you. It's probably not going to be very good. In fact, it's probably going to be horrible so just accept that it's probably not going to be that good but still try your best on it otherwise it's not a valuable data point.

Now how do you diagnose your skills? Well first, some people are like well shouldn't I learn some of the basics of the exam and honestly that's totally fine. If you want to spend one week maybe two weeks depending on how much study time you have working through some of the foundational content that is completely fine. But I wouldn't wait more than one or two weeks otherwise you're going to inflate your diagnostic score and that's going to make everything else a lot more difficult.

What should you use to diagnose? Don't use the diagnostic test in the front of the official guide. It's completely different than the way the actual GMAT® works. Instead you're going to want to go to MBA.com and register for an account and they're going to give you two free practice tests and you're going to take the first one as your diagnostic. That's going to use the real scoring algorithm. It's going to use real GMAT® questions and you'll have a very, very good idea of how big of an issue timing is for you, how many questions you missed that you knew how to do, what the content areas are that you need to work on and where your score is.

Once you get that diagnostic out of the way, just know it doesn't really matter where you start. People ask all the time is there some theoretical upper limit to my GMAT® score and the honest answer is no. I think if you were to really focus on the GMAT® for like three years or five years, basically anyone could learn to get a perfect score. Now there's definitely a point of diminishing returns because most people aren't taking the GMAT® just because they want to do something awesome. They're taking the GMAT® because they want to go to business school. So remember, it's just a means to an end. You're just trying to get a high enough score in most cases and you should plan accordingly.

So what do you do after you take your diagnostic? Well, there's a couple things that you want to think about. First is how hard was the pacing of the exam for you? And that is really the most important question to ask. Never take your diagnostic tests untimed. That is a complete waste of time and a complete waste of the diagnostic test. The time constraint of the GMAT® is an unbelievably big factor in the way your score is calculated.

Now just note how difficult the pacing was. You're also going to want to count up how many questions you actually knew how to do, but missed anyway because of something like a scratch work error. And then take note of some of the content areas that are tough for you and some that are a little easier.

Next comes creating your plan. It's basically impossible to create an intelligent plan unless you have some type of goal. Check out the schools that you want to go to and see what are the median scores. How far from that goal are you? Once you figure out how far you are from that goal, you're probably going to need study time to close that gap, and you should plan accordingly.

From here, you're going to want to start to double down on some content knowledge. Take a look at where your math sub score is and where your verbal sub score is. Figure out what kind of math score and what kind of verbal score you need in order to get the overall score that you're targeting.

If you're going through the books, you probably want about a week on each content area. You're aiming for just about 70% comprehension and retention of the material, because you're going to see all that stuff later when you get into the practice test phase. As you're going through practice problems, you want to make sure that you're focusing on good habits, which really just comes down to very, very clear scratch work.

As you're going through each segment, make some study sheets, some summary sheets for each topic. Every time you sit down to study, make sure the first segment of your study is focused on review, testing yourself on stuff that you've learned recently.

A lot of study plans out there recommend taking practice tests intermittently through this content building phase. In my opinion, I don't think you need to take practice tests during that phase. You're probably burning a valuable resource and about four hours that you could have been using building your content knowledge.

Once you've come through the content building phase, your second practice test after the knowledge building phase is probably not going to be amazing either. A lot of people's second tests actually go down. Some people's tests don't change that much. The purpose of your second practice test is to reassess: what did you gain from the content building phase and what do you still need to do?

Here's how you stay efficient between practice tests. Go through every single question and track what areas are going well and what areas are going poorly. Pick one to three areas to focus on between tests. If you pick more than that, usually you're going to spread yourself too thin. Go back to the material, re-study, and find every official guide question you can on those areas.

Keep adding to your questions to redo list. Every single time you sit down to study, redo those regularly.

If timing is a big issue, do time sets. Pick five or ten sequential questions in the official guide and give yourself two minutes per question. Have a focus area for that time set. What are you trying to work on? Speed? Scratch work technique? A new habit? You want to have a goal for each time set.

After you've worked on your focused areas and improved them, repeat the process. Take a new practice test, review every question right or wrong, do your analysis, choose one to three areas, work on those areas, and take the next practice test.

Your initial practice tests are probably going to be one to four weeks apart, depending on how much time you need. Don't force yourself into a practice test per week routine. This plan is flexible based on your timeline.

As you get closer to the actual exam, you'll want to take at least two to three practice tests in closer succession, about one week apart, to build stamina. You should do all sections. As you get closer to your test, use the official MBA.com exams. Save some for after your first test just in case you need to retake — most people are going to need to take the GMAT® two or three times.

Once it comes time for test day, create a game plan: one to two pre-made decisions in each section, something you can focus on executing.