Stop DATING Your Study Materials and Pick One

By EMPOWERgmat on February 14, 2017

Monday it's the prep book. Wednesday it's the new app. Friday it's a forum thread at 1 a.m. Sunday it's a video series your coworker swore by. By the end of the month you've met four study programs, and you can't name ONE tactic any of them actually taught you.

Happy Valentine's Day. You're DATING your study materials.

I watch people do this every single week, and here's my blunt verdict: THAT is a terrible plan. It's also a very fixable one. So let's fix it.

Why hopping feels like progress (and isn't)

Every new program starts the same way. It opens with the basics. Number properties. Subject and verb. Easy stuff. You fly through it, you feel smart, and you think you're moving.

Then the material gets hard. And right THERE, at the exact spot where the real learning starts, you get bored or frustrated and go find something shiny and new. Which starts with the basics again.

Stop and think about that for a second. If you switch every time a program gets tough, what part of the material are you studying over and over? The easy part. The part you already know. You're not building skill. You're rereading chapter one in five different fonts.

A person stands on a path that keeps looping back to the same starting point, while a single straight path beside them leads up a hill to a summit. — Switching programs keeps you circling the start line.

What the GMAT actually rewards

Look at what you're training for. On Test Day you face a Quant section with 37 questions in 75 minutes and a Verbal section with 41 questions in 75 minutes. You can check the full layout on the official GMAT format page. The test is adaptive, which means it picks your next question based on how you did on the last one. And you can NOT go back to change an answer.

So what wins? A process that runs automatically. You see a question, you know what to write down, you know which tactic to reach for, and you go. No debating. No "which book said what."

That kind of automatic process only comes from repetition with ONE system. Think about tennis. If you take lessons from five coaches who each teach a different grip, you don't end up with five grips. You end up with zero. Your hand never learns any of them.

Here's the question I want you to sit with: what's more powerful, being an acquaintance of 5,000 questions, or being the commander of 1,000 questions? You already know the answer.

Same tactic, every time

Here's a Problem Solving question. That's the regular kind of math question with five answer choices, as opposed to Data Sufficiency, where you decide whether you have enough information to answer. Do it before you look at the solution. Take notes on paper.

Try it

On Valentine's Day, a florist sold only roses and tulips. Each rose cost $3 and each tulip cost $2. She sold 40 flowers in total and took in $102. How many roses did she sell?

Show the answer

Step 1: Notes first. Write down: Roses $3, Tulips $2, Total flowers = 40, Total money = $102, Question = ROSES. Circle that last word. You'll see why.

Step 2: TEST THE ANSWERS. The answers are numbers, so you can plug them in instead of building equations. Start with (D) 24, because it's a middle-ish choice and the result tells you which way to go.

24 roses means 40 minus 24 = 16 tulips. Money: 24 x 3 = 72, and 16 x 2 = 32. Total = 72 + 32 = $104. That's $2 too much.

Step 3: Read the miss. Every time you swap one rose for one tulip, the total drops by $1 (you lose $3 and gain $2). You're $2 over, so you need 2 fewer roses. That's 22.

Step 4: Check it. 22 roses means 18 tulips. 22 x 3 = 66, and 18 x 2 = 36. 66 + 36 = $102. Correct.

The answer is (C) 22.

The trap: 18 is sitting right there as choice (A). That's the number of TULIPS. If you did the algebra in your head and lost track of which letter stood for which flower, you'd pick 18 and feel great about it. That's why you circled ROSES in your notes.

Now the point. That tactic, testing the answers and reading which way the miss goes, works the same way on hundreds of questions. Mixtures. Ages. Prices. Coins. A good program drills it until you reach for it without thinking. A program hopper sees it once in book two, once with a different name in app three, and never owns it.

5 mistakes of the serial study dater

Switching when the chapter gets hard. The tough chapter feels like proof the material is bad. It isn't. It's proof you've reached the part you don't know yet.
INSTEAD: Stay. Redo the questions you missed in that chapter two days later, from scratch, on paper. If you still can't do them, that's your study list.
Buying something new after a bad practice test. A CAT (a full practice test that adapts like the real one) is a measuring device. A bad score tells you WHERE you're weak. It doesn't tell you to change books.
INSTEAD: Go through the test question by question and name WHY you missed each one. Silly mistake? Didn't know the rule? Ran out of time? You're not allowed to have 'no idea.'
Treating the forums as the main course. Forums are great for a question you've already fought with. As a study plan, they're a pile of random questions explained ten different ways by strangers.
INSTEAD: Only go to a forum with a specific question you've already worked, and come back to your plan right after.
Counting questions instead of mastering them. "I did 300 questions this week" sounds impressive. How many could you redo correctly right now?
INSTEAD: Redo. It's not about the right answer or the wrong answer. It's about WHAT YOU'RE DOING to answer the question.
Mixing systems that fight each other. One book says to write the five answer choices one way, another says something else, an app says do it in your head. Now you hesitate on every question.
INSTEAD: One note-taking system, used on every question, until it's boring. Boring means automatic. Automatic means fast.

If these sound familiar, read about how efficient test-taking comes from efficient studies. It's the same idea from the other direction.

"But what if my material is actually bad?"

Fair question. Sometimes it is. But you have to decide what you want MORE: a high GMAT score, or the little thrill of starting something new. If it's the score, then you judge your material with a test, not a mood.

Ask four things:

Does it teach tactics, or just show you the math a teacher would use?
Does it explain WHY a wrong answer is wrong, not just which one is right?
Do its questions look and feel like real GMAT questions? Compare them to GMAC's official practice materials.
Does it include realistic full-length practice tests in the real section order?

If your material passes, the problem isn't the material. It's the switching. If it fails, make ONE switch, on purpose, and commit to the new plan the way you should have committed to the old one. And if you can't tell which is which, don't spend another month guessing. Ask for help, and do it in a timely fashion.

One thick book with worn edges, bent corners and many paper tabs sits on a desk, next to a stack of shiny books that have never been opened. — One plan, used hard, beats a shelf of plans used lightly.

Commitment is a choice

This is a predictable, standardized test. That's good news. It means you can train for it, and the GMAT will give you the score that you EARN. But training means repetition, and repetition means one plan. You can't get strong at a gym you visit once and then cancel.

The choices you make now shape the rest of your year. If you want more on that, read how the choices you make in 2017 can cement your future.

So here's your challenge for today. Not this weekend. TODAY. Write down the one program you're going to use. Put every other book in a box and put the box in a closet. Delete the extra apps from your phone. Then open your one program to the hardest chapter you've been avoiding, pick three questions you got wrong, and redo them on paper from scratch.

Pick one. Then stay.