Get the Most Out of Your GMAT Study Group
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Recently, one of my fellow instructors, Jamie Nelson, got a great question from one of her students: What should I do to get the most out of my time with my GMAT study group? In the process of answering her student, Jamie checked with me to see whether we had anything on our blog that contained more formal recommendations or resources. We didn’t at the time, but now we do! Read on.
I’m already really busy. Is a GMAT study group worth the effort?
I really think so, yes. (And I’m saying this as an introvert who generally prefers to study home alone.) I also polled my fellow teachers and it turns out we all agree: If at all possible, get a GMAT study group going!
There are two primary benefits you can gain by studying regularly with at least one other person.
(1) You’ll keep yourself motivated. It’s harder to procrastinate when you know you need to be ready to meet with the group by a certain day.
(2) You will learn more than you can on your own. Other members of the group will be better at something than you are and can teach you. In addition, you will sometimes teach something to others—and teaching helps you to understand a concept much better than just learning it in the first place.
How do I set up the GMAT study group?
If friends of yours are also studying for the GMAT, then that part is relatively easy—though, ideally, you want at least one person in the group who is stronger at Quant and one who is stronger at Verbal. So if you and your friend are both Verbal whizzes, expand your search to find someone who is better at Quant.
If you are taking a class, go out on a limb and announce to the class that you want to set up a GMAT study group and ask who is interested. If you want to maintain a level of control over the group, then decide certain details in advance. “I’m looking for people who can meet on Saturdays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at XYZ library or on Zoom.” (And you can do a lot meeting online! You can take a photo of your scratch work on a math problem, for example, and then share screen to show the photo to the others.)
I do think it’s a good idea to have 3 or more people in the group, if possible. Circumstances change—your study buddy could get sick or decide to postpone her studies for some reason. People go on vacation for a week. Ideally, the group is large enough that it can weather the temporary or permanent absence of 1 or 2 people.
What do we actually do when we get together? (Reason #1)
All right, now we’re getting to the real heart of the matter! Let’s start with the first reason that study groups are so beneficial: You’re going to keep each other honest.
Scheduling
Set up a schedule with one or two steady appointments every week. (If your schedule needs to change from week to week, then have a set schedule about one month out.) For instance, you might meet Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings. (Or you might just meet once a week.)
You’re allowed to miss a study session—for good reason. You have a deadline at work…you’re sick or dealing with a challenging personal situation…you have a prior commitment to a family member or other important person in your life. When you absolutely do have to miss, you will give your GMAT study group as early notice as possible.
Here are some reasons you’re not allowed to miss the study session: “I’m tired / not feeling it.” “I didn’t get my homework done.” “I’d rather (have brunch with a friend/stay home and binge watch my favorite show/clean my bathroom).” Your team members are counting on you. Go.
Commitment
Next, you’re going to plan out your own private studies from now until that next meeting. Set certain goals. (“I’m going to do the Exponents and Roots chapters of the Algebra study unit. Then I’m going to do and review Official Guide (OG) problems in those areas. And I’m going to do the Comparisons chapter in Sentence Correction and also do OG problems to test myself there.”)
Now, tell your GMAT study group what your goals are.
Why did I center that text? To catch your attention. (Did it work? ) This is a really important step, one that I learned from my fellow instructor Noah Teitelbaum. If you make an advance commitment to your group, you are much more likely to stay motivated and do your work.
One more note: You all have to check in to make sure you’re actually sticking with your commitments—that’s where accountability comes in. When you start your study session, go around the group. Everyone reports what they did and whether they fulfilled their commitment. If you didn’t get to it all, then be prepared to make another commitment: When will you get to this stuff in the coming week?
Noah has also shared with me a website/app called StickK, a free resource that allows you to set commitments and share them with your selected GMAT study group. Consider using this together to keep track of your commitments.
What about Reason #2 (learning from each other)?
Your study group will help you learn more than you would learn on your own. Here’s how.
Have an Agenda/Plan for Your GMAT Study Group
Any productive meeting has a plan—you will accomplish more when you know specifically what you want to do. You can either have one person manage the group (and always establish the plan for each meeting) or you can rotate. Here are some things to include in your plan:
- Tasks for all members to accomplish in preparation for the meeting
- The length of the meeting (1 hour? 2?)
- Specific blocks of time during the meeting assigned to specific activities
For example, an agenda for a 2-hour meeting might look like this:
This agenda would require the group members to prepare certain things in advance. For “Review homework,” you would each need to have completed the same homework assignment in advance. Perhaps this is a specific set of Official Guide problems or certain chapters and problems from your Manhattan Prep books.
For “Teach a problem,” you would each come prepared to teach one problem to the others in the group—more on this below.
It’s a great idea to leave the last 15 to 30 minutes free for open questions—What has been driving you crazy? Are you struggling with something that your GMAT study group might help you to remedy?
Alternatively, if nobody has anything to discuss, you could use the time for quiet study—but with your study buddies available in case a question does come up while you work. This extra time also provides a buffer, in case one of your earlier activities takes more time than planned.
One last thing: Did somebody forget to put together an agenda? Were you all too busy this week to get to the homework or prepare problems to teach? Don’t cancel your meeting! Get together anyway. Study quietly for 30 minutes (or 60 minutes), then check in with each other. Did anyone get stuck on something? Can you help? Then study quietly for another length of time and repeat.
And, yes, even do this online! I know it sounds silly to all be in Zoom while quietly studying…but do it! You even have more flexibility online. For example, let’s say you have a question about something now, but everyone else is working and you don’t want to interrupt. Type your question in the chat. When someone else gets to a good stopping point, the two of you can discuss (jump to another room, if others are still studying quietly).
Okay, let’s talk a little more about each of the elements in the table above.
Review Homework
If you all do the same homework ahead of time, then you can compare notes when you get together. (And Noah suggests taking it one step further: If you know a certain problem is driving you crazy, let your GMAT study group know before you get together so they can spend some extra time thinking about that one. You can also do this with other problems—ones that weren’t part of the group homework.)
Which problems did you find the most annoying? Does someone else have a better way of approaching that problem? Or a good way to narrow down the answers to make an educated guess?
Did you just get totally stumped with something? One of your study partners might be able to explain something to you in a way that gets you unstuck. And you might be able to return the favor on another problem. ☺
Did you make a mistake on something but now you think you understand what to do next time? Prove it! Articulate three things out loud to the group:
- Here’s the exact mistake that I made.
- Here’s why I made the mistake.
- Here’s the new habit I will build to avoid that type of mistake.
If you can clearly articulate all of these, then you will be putting into place the specific habits you need to minimize that category of mistake in the future. You might even help a friend who has been making the same kind of mistake but hasn’t realized it yet or hasn’t figured out how to fix it. And if you can’t clearly articulate these steps, then your study buddies are going to tell you that your explanation is unconvincing—and they’ll push you harder to make sure you get this fixed for the future.
One caveat: Don’t always do the same homework as the GMAT study group, because you each want to customize to your own strengths and weaknesses. But do some of the same homework so that you can then learn from each other and help to lift each other up.
Teach a Problem
My colleagues Chris Gentry and Noah Teitelbaum both strongly advocate putting yourself in the teacher role. If you think you know how to do something well, then (once again!) prove it by teaching it to your study group.
Chris calls this exercise “You’re the Teacher!” and here’s what he says to do. Before you get together, each person chooses one problem to prepare. Choose something that you think will be at least somewhat challenging for the group—but not so challenging that you’ll struggle to teach it.
You can give people the problem to try in advance of your meeting or you can give it to them to try during the meeting. If it’s during the meeting, give them whatever the average amount of time is to do that kind of problem on the real test.
Now, here’s what you’re NOT going to do: You’re not just going to tell them how to do the problem. Rather, you’re going to lead a discussion with the goal of getting them to figure out how to do the problem and tell you what that is. That’s what a good teacher does—teaches his/her students how to think for themselves.
Start asking questions. What did you think was straightforward about this problem? Which parts were challenging? Does the group all agree on the straightforward stuff? If not, hash that out first. Then, start brainstorming what to do about the challenging parts. When the group gets stuck, give them clues—but don’t give them too much at once. The best clues will be enough to get the group unstuck and allow them to move themselves further through the problem until they either finish it or get stuck at a different part and need another clue.
What are the big takeaways? Next time you see something like this, what do you want to be able to recognize? And what steps are you going to take when you recognize that thing? Try to frame the answer in the form “When I see X, I’ll think/do Y.” When you’re the teacher (and when you’re not!), help the GMAT study group to articulate these takeaways.
Open Questions/Quiet Study/Buffer
The buffer part is self-explanatory, but I’d like to talk a bit more about open questions and quiet study.
You will be studying a lot more in a week than you plan specifically to address with your GMAT study group—so you will all likely have additional questions or areas that need help. Tell the group what you’re struggling with most and see who else might be good at that area and able to help you. You might even set up a one-hour exchange on some other day—you spend 30 minutes helping the other person with some topic, question type, or strategy and then they spend 30 minutes helping you with whatever you need.
Start a discussion board where you can all post questions throughout the week while you’re studying separately. People can answer questions when they have time, and you can also pull up the discussion board when you get together to help you figure out what you might want to discuss during the Open Questions portion of your study session.
The Quiet Study portion might sound the least helpful in a group setting, but I think it’s actually super useful. First of all, it just helps to keep you on track. I’ve had students meet twice a week, but one of those meetings is pure quiet study. It keeps you honest. If your GMAT study group is meeting for quiet study on Wednesday, you aren’t going to blow off your Wednesday study time because you had a long day at work (or whatever…we’ve all been there!)—because your group will want to know where you are.
When you are studying on your own, there are tons of times that you get stuck. In general, it’s true that it’s good to push through and try to figure things out on your own—but, if you get really stuck, it’s incredibly helpful to be able to toss out a question and get an immediate answer/insight from the group. Then you don’t have to set aside that lesson and come back to it later when you do finally get help to unstick yourself; you can keep pushing through right now.
Takeaways for Your GMAT Study Group
(1) Set up a GMAT study group of 3 to 5 people, online or in-person. Try to have a mix of skills/strengths and weaknesses so that you can help each other and learn from each other.
(2) Commit! Plan a schedule and stick to it—no absences without a legitimate excuse. Set study goals from week to week. Share the goals with your group members and make sure that you’re updating them on your progress.
(3) Plan meeting agendas in advance and engage in a variety of activities to help you stay motivated and learn from each other.
Happy studying!
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Stacey Koprince is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, California. Stacey has been teaching the GMAT, GRE, and LSAT for more than 15 years and is one of the most well-known instructors in the industry. Stacey loves to teach and is absolutely fascinated by standardized tests. Check out Stacey’s upcoming GMAT courses here.