How To Create A GMAT Learning Diary

How To Create A GMAT Learning Diary pexels.com Here are some easy steps to follow to make your GMAT learning diary: 1. Acquire questions. Before you can begin a learning diary, you’re going to need something to learn from. Generally, the best and most accurate questions and content to study will come from the testing company themselves. The most useful information available to you will likely be practice questions. The highly valuable practice questions come from GMAC, the company behind GMAT. These questions are past questions from the test that have been officially released, meaning they’ll be accurate and useful when studying. Other test prep companies will have similar books and materials with practice tests, quizzes and overall concepts to look over. 2. Make a sheet/spreadsheet. To make the most out of your studying experience, you’re going to need to be consistently motivated and organized. To start, designate a place to keep track of all your studying materials, habits, times, and other things. This could be a spreadsheet if spreadsheets are your thing, or just a grid on a piece of paper that is sectioned out how you want it. It’s likely that this initial sheet won’t be the final piece of learning diary you use, but just a rough draft for getting all your thoughts together to make the most out of studying. Make sure it is large enough to hold a good amount of data that you know about now and sections that may come up in the future. 3. Rank reviews. Once you’ve acquired some test materials, you’re going to want to keep track of what you’re studying so you can fill in the blank spaces in your mind. If you come across a concept, or even a specific question, that you don’t completely understand and finish quickly and easily, write it down on your spreadsheet. Often, it is helpful to review these things multiple times, rather than just look over them once and forget again. Because your amount of knowledge varies, rank your questions and concepts on a 1-5 scale of how much work needs to be done. If you know nothing about the concept, rank it a 5 and promise to yourself that you’ll study that concept five times before test day. This system makes sure that you’re spending time on things it needs to be spent on and not on things you already know. 4. Time yourself. Another thing many GMAT takers run into is the constant running out of time. Time is a huge obstacle for many people taking any form of standardized test. Because of this, reviewing your material so it pops into your head as quickly and efficiently as possible is of the utmost importance. With the help of your ranking system, the amount of times you re-try a problem or concept is happening multiple times. It will be in your best interest to time yourself each time to see if your processes are getting any faster, and if they’re not, how fast you will need to speed yourself up. Taking entire practice tests in a timed environment is also helpful for learning to work at a nonstop rapid pace. Training your brain to work this way will result in a much smoother time taking the GMAT. 5. Cluster, schedule, organize. So once you have a rough outline of the concepts, times and ranks, you can start on creating a better and easier to look at learning diary. If you notice you wrote down the same questions of similar form, it may be wise to organize them into clusters so you can study similar concepts on the same or different days. Knowing your ranks and how often you plan to study questions, you can then allot yourself an amount of problems to study each day. This means dividing your schedule out so you don’t end up doing too little too late. Also schedule in extra time for yourself to review things that may not be learned as quickly as you planned. However your organization works best, whether color-coded or computer operated, organizing this data will make keeping track of your studying a breeze. A learning diary like this makes it easy to access most of your information in one helpful, organized way. While the rest of your life may be a mess, your studying doesn’t have to be! Learn more about Kaplan’s test prep options and start building the confidence you need for Test Day.