Follow The Syllabus While Working on Your Weaknesses [On-De

[DanielM208]

Hi everybody, how is it going?

I am taking the On-Demand course. While it has a structured study-plan, the course also recommends creating your own study-plan based on your weaknesses.

I was hoping that someone can give some advice: how am I supposed to follow the syllabus, while creating my own study-plan that is based on my weaknesses ?

I find it a bit confusing, since I can keep following the syllabus (say, for example this week's material is on Geometry) while my study-plan that's based on my weaknesses is completely unrelated to the syllabus (say my weakness is number properties).

Any advice, please?

Thanks in advance !!

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi! I would think of it as adjusting your study plan, not creating a new one. You're just customizing it a bit to prioritize properly based on your strengths and weaknesses.

So, for example, you may be studying Algebra and realize that you're struggling with exponents and functions.

Exponents are frequently tested and underlie other topic areas (like quadratics and number properties), and functions tend to be harder problems. So you might decide to spend some extra time on exponents, because some extra effort here will help you to get lower-level questions right (which is crucial in order to lift yourself to higher-level questions) and it will help when you get to other topic areas. In exchange, you might decide to "bail" on functions right now—which means you won't actively study it now and, on your next test, you'll just guess fast and move on if you do see any function problems.

You can star the functions homework or just keep track of it in a document that you create (to remind yourself that you haven't done it yet) and then decide later whether you actually need to study it—that is, you might leave it in the bail category forever. Depending on your goal score and your other strengths and weaknesses, there will be certain things that you'll basically never learn well but that's ok because you've gotten to your goal score without learning those things.

You can see a list here of the most frequently tested topics on the quant and verbal sections of the GMAT—use these frequencies to help you make the call about what to prioritize (and not prioritize):
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/forums/post91758.html#p91758

You could also decide to do this at a broader scale. As you said, let's say this week is Geometry but you'd rather do more on Number Properties—so, ditto, reduce the time you spend on Geo and add in NP homework instead. (Again, check out the frequency list to decide what to spend less time on.) That would be a good call to make if, for example, you're struggling with NP Divisibility and Primes (which is a frequently-tested topic). But if you're struggling with, eg, combinatorics and probability—those topics are not frequently tested,

And you can also ask our advice here at any time—if you devise an adjusted plan for something, we'll be happy to tell you what we think, and if you're just not sure what to do, we'd be happy to help you figure it out.