Here is the most common GMAT study plans used by GMAT Club Members:

If you study best with books, get the full collection of the MGMAT Guides or Veritas Prep
Guides + OG 13. The book bundles come with everything you need and both are fully all-inclusive in
terms of what you need. My only other suggestion is to get the MGMAT Roadmapwhich serves a
collection of study-related tips. This is a reliable/proven approach with good results. The cost will
be $150-300.

If you prefer an online study option, use the Magoosh, GMAT Pill, or eGMAT (verbal only) online
courses. Like books, they come with everything you need, including practice tests and quizzes. In
addition, online courses provide constant feedback and instructor support and you also get GMAT
Club tests free of charge with GMAT Pill and eGMAT. These Courses offer a free trial and a score
improvement guarantee. E-GMAT in particular is very popular with non-natives. Your cost may even
be less than with books ($99 - 300)

Month 1

Start with Math section first and focus just on math alone (you can do both math
and verbal but I suggest you put all attention into one). Both MGMAT and Veritas
Prep have numbered books, so all you have to do is open Book1 or Book0 and just
follow along. Plan to spend 4 weeks on it.
Start using an Error Log - keep track of your mistakes and guesses -this will
become your study guide in Month 3.
Optional Step: If you are feeling the load is too heavy and you are really weak in
Math - get MGMAT Math Foundations book; it is great in providing a more general
overview of math concepts.
At the same time, start reading GMAT Fiction (see below for details on what it is
for)
Get involved with the Math Forum - you will learn a lot esp. when you try to teach
someone or explain something
After you are done with the math section - start taking the math portion of the
tests you have.
Evaluate results and decided if you need to spend more time in Math and patch
up certain weak areas or move on to Verbal. This decision will be based on your
target GMAT score. If you are looking for high 600's and 700's, I would not move past
Quant unless I was able to score around Q44 and possibly higher. Quant scores have
been inflated recently with Q51 (highest possible quant score clocking a mere 97th
percentile and Q49 is 81st), so make sure you are up there. Do not leave a chapter
or a section unless you were able to solve 90% of the questions correctly in the
allotted time. Dont run away from your mistakes sooner or later they will catch up;
the better strategy is to address them right there and then and make sure you never
see them again.
If you need additional help in Quant - refer to the Math Resources on GMAT
Club or the GMAT Math Books section. Another book you may consider is the PR
1012 - it contains targeted GMAT practice questions, which could be helpful in
honing one's skills.
Though may seem attractive, Advanced Quant book from MGMAT has received
mixed reviews from the users - many feel it is really too hard and is not
representative of the GMAT's difficulty. We did attempt to go through it and even for
yours truly, it proved discouraging and painful. Unless you are really bored, it may be
a book better left for another time.
If you are comfortable with Quant but want to get to Q50+, use the GMAT Club
Tests - they contain only hard questions and were designed as practice for high-level
math scorers. You can purchase them, earn a free subscription by earning 25 Kudos,
or sign up with a partner course (almost all come with GMAT Club tests as a bonus)
Another worthwhile resource for you may be this quant-focused discussion: how to
get from Q44 to Q50
Sidebar
At this time you will probably be wondering about questions such as how many can I get wrong and
still get a Q50? and other questions which really do not have answers. If you find yourself
wondering about these things at night, head over to the following discussions:

GMAT algorithm how does it work?

What-If analysis of the GMAT Prep
How are GMAT scores calculated and what is a raw score?
Has anyone scored an 800? Yes, he has.

Month 2

Start working on the Verbal section. You can start with any question type, but my
suggestion would be to tackle Sentence Correction first as it is usually the most
straightforward
Error Log!
Sentence Correction Optional Step: If you are not a native speaker, you will need
a good grammar book or a verbal-intensive course such as the SC course by
eGMAT that focuses on concepts for non-native speakers. Several grammar books
are recommended on the Forum (best-gmat-grammar-book-for-international-
students-79934.html). We have created a book specifically for this need -Ultimate
GMAT Grammar (it covers all of the tested grammar topics on the GMAT, plus a bit
more concepts that international students seem to struggle the most (articles, etc).
The best thing of all is that it is Free ). Other books to consider are Kaplan Verbal
Foundations and MGMAT Verbal Foundations. This is for you to decide how much help
you need or how much time you have. Also, take a look at GMAT Club's Verbal
Resources for many copies of study notes.
If you are short on time and cant cover the MGMATs SC book, you can use
the Kaplan Verbal Workbook - it has good strategies and I have personally used it to
prepare, so it does work, though it is not as complete as the MGMAT or Vertas Prep
books.
Critical Reasoning Optional Step: If you need additional help with Critical
Reasoning - Do not get both PowerScore CR and Manhattan GMAT CR - the books are
virtually identical (not really but kind of). Instead, you can get an inexpensive online
course such as SC eGMAT or GMAT Pill's CR Pill. You can also use the PR 1012 book
for targeted practice with Assumption or Conclusion questions or you can go very
heavy weight and use LSAT books, but that's a tad too hardcore and usually
unnecessary. See BMs review of the LSAT resources.
Reading Comprehension is often the hardest area to conquer. Unless you strongly
feel that Reading is your forte, I would recommend you pick up a reading habit for
the time being. I have written a large post on what I call GMAT Fiction and its
benefits - take a look. I felt that reading books was a big contributor to my SC and RC
abilities and gave me a 96th percentile in Verbal (not too shabby for a person who
spoke zero English until 12). There are no downsides to this really - worst thing
possible is that you would have read some great books. And yes - make sure you
read them during your low productivity time (at night, during transit, etc).
Verbal forum should be your hobby by now and we have a great feature GMAT
Club Forum Timer. Use it! If you have not discovered it yet, you should the timer
will keep track of all your practice and even more it will suggest you questions
(every day Monday through Friday) that are at your level, and after about 10
questions in SC and CR, it will even give you a daily estimated GMAT score.
Verbal Advantage you may have seen badges and posts about it make sure
you use this initiative. Every year for about 3 months, GMAT club teams up with the
best verbal prep companies to bring you the best experts, articles, and questions.
You can use these resources at any time and benefit from the previous years of
work. Verbal Advantage 2013 and also the first season Verbal Advantage 2012
 Take the verbal-only portion of the tests to evaluate your progress (compare to
how you did in the diagnostic test).
Another worthwhile resource for you may be this quant-focused discussion: how to
get from V30 to V40

Month 3

This month should be spent on 2 things: taking full length tests (polishing your
test taking techniques, timing, stamina) and Reviewing your error log (going through
your weaknesses, making sure you understand why you keep making mistakes and
how to solve every problem you encountered). You can start using Error log earlier
than this by the way - the earlier the better.
You can also use this time to prolong your prep (we assume most will run about 4
weeks late and will need this time) or you can use it to spend on digging deeper in
some areas.
Schedule your test if you have not done so already.
Start taking full length tests (including AWA and IR ) - this is important for your
test stamina. Plan to spend a Saturday on this and then subsequent test review.
Spend a few weeks taking tests and drilling down into your areas of weakness.
Create a "black list of questions" that you continue to struggle with and find a way to
solve them with minimal mental effort.
For IR, there is always the big question of, how important is IR really, and the
answer, clearly, is nobody knows. We expect that it will be more definite in
2015/2016 years when the first IR test-takers have graduated and GMAC can trace
patterns. Meanwhile, go here for IR resources and practice.

The BIG Day and Final Thoughts

Make sure you take a look at these before you take the GMAT:

What to do 30-14-7-1 days before the GMAT?

What to expect at the test center and 8 things not to do
Analysis of Patterns among those who scored 750+ and what they did
The best of GMAT Clubs debriefs get inspired!

Common Mistakes with GMAT preparation

!
1: Rushing to take tests before learning anything - waste of tests
2: Starting with the Official Guide - waste of official GMAT questions
3: Giving GMAT the worst time of the day - studying after a long day
4: Skipping basics and rushing to advanced topics
5: Moving through material too fast or too slow
6: Starting to prepare with poor English proficiency

How long should you prep really?

The study plan above suggests 3 months, and that's probably 10-15 hours per week (2 hrs/work day
and 5 hours on the weekend).
Over 3 months, that's about 120 - 180 hours, which includes reading some books, so the true study
time is probably 80 - 120 hrs.
What if you study 2x or 3x of that and take 9 months instead of 3, can you triple your improvement?
No, actually, your performance will be MUCH worse if you spread out your prep over a time period
great than 5 months. Long study stretches are demotivating, hard to keep fresh, and ultimately
ineffective as after 6 months, you start forgetting material faster than you can learn it and the
time you will have to spend 75% of your time on refresh. It is much more effective to spend 3-4
months, and thats what I would encourage you to do.

How do you Measure Improvement and what if you are not

seeing any?
Many test-takers waste a lot of tests and precious time by taking un-needed CATs. As a matter of
fact, you should be able to get away by taking no more than 10 CATs during your GMAT love affair.
The question you may ask then is how do I measure improvement and keep track of my score?
A number of ways actually:

Make sure you are hitting a certain percentage of the questions in each
topic/subject. Set a goal such as 90% of questions have to be right in exercises, OG,
or wherever. E.g. if you just covered Geometry, there is no reason to take a whole
quant CAT since you will only hit 3-4 Geometry questions tops (perhaps as few as 1-
2) and it will be a minimal impact on the score, while you will waste a few hours,
waste a test, and more importantly, grow discouraged.
Use short quizzes and exercise. Lets say you covered that same Geometry
chapter in the book and only hit 50% on the quiz at the end of the chapter. Do 2
things: 1) Analyze your mistakes, read the explanations how to solve questions, and
make sure you can solve each one of them 2) Go back to the chapter and using the
mistakes you just made re-read/learn (make notes, create PPT, etc) of the areas you
are still lacking. Then you can use OG, GMAT Club tests, Kapan Quiz bank, or
whatever you want to do real short/quick checks to see if you have improved.
At this point in time, it does not matter what your overall Quant score is, it only
matters what percentage of the types of questions ALREADY covered is.
You can use the GMAT Club Forum timer. As long as you take about 10 questions
in PS and DS, you will get a quant raw score estimate and as soon as you do the
same in SC and CR, you will get a verbal score estimate (note that RC is not
evaluated). Learn more about the amazing and free GMAT Club Forum Timer and
Workbook here.
Finally, once you have covered ALL of the quant topics, it is time to take the Quant
CAT and similarly when you have finished the Verbal section, it is time to take the full
Verbal CAT. (This is the reason GMAT Club tests have split quant and verbal CATs
we dont think you really need to take a Full CAT until the very end when you are
working on improving your stamina and test-day strategy, and at that point, you can
just Quant and Verbal CATs with an 8 minute break).
What if No improvement? My suggestion would be to understand why, what
needs to change, and how. You need to answer this yourself. If you cant, post it on
the forum, though I have to warn you, it is a hard one to answer from afar. A much
better option is to get a tutor for an hour or two (thats all you should need) to get
you back on track. Any decent tutor can spot most of the issues after one session
and you can use the second session to answer any questions and draft a
personalized plan for the rest of your prep. You can also take a course thats
become an especially popular and cheap alternative with the online offerings
from EGMAT,Magoosh, and GMAT Pill, many of which have courses for less than the
cost of books (as long as $59). Many of the courses are interactive and adapt to your
needs. Online adaptive courses often are much more effective than books since they
are audio visual, provide constant feedback, and provide instructor support.

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Founder of GMAT Club