{"id":1276,"date":"2012-03-26T12:00:04","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T19:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/?p=1276"},"modified":"2020-01-15T10:50:49","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T18:50:49","slug":"gmat-study-approaches-systematic-vs-random","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-study-approaches-systematic-vs-random\/","title":{"rendered":"GMAT Study Approaches: Systematic vs. Random"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consider these two extreme approaches to studying for the GMAT<\/a>:<\/p>\n

1) Focus on one topic\/concept.\u00a0 Practice that same kind of problem exhaustively until you master it.\u00a0 Then move on to the next topic\/concept.\u00a0 Repeat.<\/p>\n

2) Practice a wide mix of problems every time you sit down to practice.<\/p>\n

If those were the only two possibilities, zero diversity vs. 100% diversity in problems, then I would have to recommend option #2, only because that’s exactly what the experience of the real GMAT will be!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When Beginning . . .<\/h2>\n

Fortunately, between obsessive-compulsive approach #1 and manic approach #2, we can find a little more balance.\u00a0 Let’s say, when you are first learning a topic, or first relearning or reviewing a topic after not having seen it for years, then of course, some focused practice in just that skill will be very helpful.\u00a0 Of course, at the very beginning of your GMAT preparation, when everything is either brand new or seen for the first time in over a decade, you may be doing a good deal of focused practice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shifting the Balance<\/h2>\n

Even at the beginning, even in your first week of practicing, it’s important to do some diverse-problem practice.\u00a0 It’s good to see problems even though you haven’t reviewed that topic yet — it’s a good way to test how much you remember cold, and it’s also a good practice for intelligent guessing<\/a>, which you may have to do once or twice even on the real GMAT.<\/p>\n

As you start to feel comfortable with a greater and greater portion of the content, you practice should shift correspondingly to fewer focused-practice problems and more diverse-practice problems.\u00a0 Whatever your projected prep time for the GMAT is, let’s say that by the end of the first 10% of that time (that would be, a little after the first week in a 3-month study plan<\/a>), you should be doing mostly diverse-problem practice, with short focus-practice sets just on what you are learning or have just recently learned.\u00a0 If, after several weeks, you are aware that in your diverse-problem practice, you have not seen a lot of such-and-such type of problem, and would like more practice to check your competency in that, then that would be an appropriate use of focused-practice in later stages of preparation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Danger of Too Much Focused-Practice<\/h2>\n

Focused-practice is useful as a learning tool in the beginning stages, when something really is quite new to you, but after that, too much focus-practice holds the danger that you will be able to solve that problem kind only when you in the “mode” of solving that particular problem<\/a>.\u00a0 That’s not how it will work on the real GMAT.\u00a0 On the real GMAT, you will submit your answer to question #23 about, say, geometry<\/a>, and then question #24 about, say, percent increase<\/a>, will pop up.\u00a0 BAM.\u00a0 Without any previous warm-up in thinking about percent increase, right there, you are going to have to do that problem.\u00a0\u00a0 That’s why it’s critically important that the majority of your practice —- close to 100% in the days leading up to the test —- be diverse-problem practice, so you simply get used to handling topics out-of-the-blue, however they show up in the random mix of problems.<\/p>\n

To get a sense of the rapid gear-shifting you will need to do on test day, take the Magoosh GMAT Diagnostic Test<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here are three completely different math problems, out-of the-blue, for a little diverse practice right now.<\/p>\n

1) http:\/\/gmat.magoosh.com\/questions\/105<\/a><\/p>\n

2) http:\/\/gmat.magoosh.com\/questions\/839<\/a><\/p>\n

3) http:\/\/gmat.magoosh.com\/questions\/28<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Consider these two extreme approaches to studying for the GMAT: 1) Focus on one topic\/concept.\u00a0 Practice that same kind of problem exhaustively until you master it.\u00a0 Then move on to the next topic\/concept.\u00a0 Repeat. 2) Practice a wide mix of problems every time you sit down to practice. If those were the only two possibilities, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13209],"class_list":["post-1276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGMAT Study Approaches: Systematic vs. Random - Magoosh Blog \u2014 GMAT\u00ae Exam<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-study-approaches-systematic-vs-random\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GMAT Study Approaches: Systematic vs. Random\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Consider these two extreme approaches to studying for the GMAT: 1) Focus on one topic\/concept.\u00a0 Practice that same kind of problem exhaustively until you master it.\u00a0 Then move on to the next topic\/concept.\u00a0 Repeat. 2) Practice a wide mix of problems every time you sit down to practice. 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Beyond standardized testing, Mike has over 20 years of both private and public high school teaching experience specializing in math and physics. In his free time, Mike likes smashing foosballs into orbit, and despite having no obvious cranial deficiency, he insists on rooting for the NY Mets. Learn more about the GMAT through Mike's Youtube video explanations.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/MagooshGMATChannel\/featured"],"award":["Magna cum laude from Harvard"],"knowsAbout":["GMAT"],"knowsLanguage":["English"],"jobTitle":"Content Creator","worksFor":"Magoosh","url":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/author\/mikemcgarry\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":13209,"user_id":26,"is_guest":0,"slug":"mikemcgarry","display_name":"Mike M\u1d9cGarry","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6b06de81592cd77bb46aa560cc59aee179cba4d042835c3529221ea1b344cce0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"M\u1d9cGarry","first_name":"Mike","description":"Mike served as a GMAT Expert at Magoosh, helping create hundreds of lesson videos and practice questions to help guide GMAT students to success. He was also featured as \"member of the month\" for over two years at <a href=\"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/mike-mcgarrys-gmat-experience\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">GMAT Club<\/a>. Mike holds an A.B. in Physics (graduating <em>magna cum laude<\/em>) and an M.T.S. in Religions of the World, both from Harvard. Beyond standardized testing, Mike has over 20 years of both private and public high school teaching experience specializing in math and physics. In his free time, Mike likes smashing foosballs into orbit, and despite having no obvious cranial deficiency, he insists on rooting for the NY Mets. Learn more about the GMAT through Mike's <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/MagooshGMATChannel\/featured\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Youtube <\/a>video explanations and resources like <a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/whats-a-good-gmat-score\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">What is a Good GMAT Score?<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-diagnostic-test\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">GMAT Diagnostic Test<\/a>."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1276"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}