Your Guide to Free GMAT Prep

November 10, 2021

This article provides a step-by-step roadmap to prepare for the GMAT at no cost.

The path you’ll take to prepare is pretty much the same path our paying customers follow, with one exception: instead of learning all of the GMAT content through our video lessons, you’ll learn it by answering and reviewing practice questions (you'll also find dozens of free video lessons throughout the course).

The layout of our course is uniquely suited for this kind of prep. Each subtopic (e.g., standard deviation, right triangles, negative exponents, etc.) in the course features a wide variety of linked practice questions related to only that one subtopic. For example, here’s a partial screenshot of the linked practice questions related to the subtopic of inequalities:

Free GMAT Prep screenshot.png

These links are freely available to all students, regardless of whether they purchase access to the video lessons in the course.

Since the practice questions under each video lesson cover a small handful of concepts, answering those questions will expose you to all of the required concepts and strategies related to that subtopic. Along the way, you’ll also become familiar with the many different ways the GMAT can test your knowledge of each subtopic.

Note: This process will take a bit longer, but once you've answered enough questions, you'll be exposed to all of the necessary properties, rules and techniques.

Ready to begin preparing for free?

Your Free GMAT Prep Study Guide

Follow these steps and then take the GMAT with confidence.  

1) Learn the GMAT's format and the various Data Sufficiency strategies by watching all of the (free) video lessons in the following two modules:

• GMAT Overview and General Strategies
• Data Sufficiency Strategies

2) Take a (free) practice test to determine your baseline GMAT score (here's why all students need to do this)

• Note: You can skip the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) and Integrated Reasoning (IR) sections of this first test.

3) Since each practice question link takes you to a question on the GMAT Club forum, it’s a good idea to create a free account on their site. This will allow you to track your progress via your personal dashboard, which provides information about your success rates, time spent per question, and so on.

4) Read these important articles

• Using answer the choices to your advantage (part I)
• Using the answer choices to your advantage (part II)
• Using the answer choices to your advantage (part III)
• Simplifying your calculations
• The permutation formula and other unnecessary formulas to forget 

5) For every topic (e.g., Statistics, Geometry, Algebra, Critical Reasoning) in the course, visit each video lesson (i.e., subtopic) page and answer as many linked practice questions as necessary (more on this below). 

• The linked practice questions are categorized by difficulty level. Answer questions up to and including your target score range. For example, if you need a score of 600, then answer questions in the 350 to 650 range. If you need a 710, then answer questions in the 350 to 800 range.
• You've been preparing for tests for much of your life now. So, we trust you'll keep answering questions until you feel you've mastered that topic to the extent you need. Of course, it’s worth noting that answering all 4000+ practice questions in the course will practically guarantee your success on test day.   
• Take notes as you work through the course.
• Most of the experts on the GMAT Club forum take the time to thoroughly explain their solutions. So, after attempting a question, be sure to review a couple of expert solutions to see whether they’ve provided a better/faster way to solve the question.
• Note: Keep in mind that the number of practice questions under a certain subtopic is proportional to how frequently that subtopic is tested. So, if a subtopic (e.g., Quadrilaterals) has a lot of practice questions, then make sure you’re comfortable with that subtopic.
• Important: Feel free to alternate between quantitative and verbal topics. Just be sure to complete the quantitative topics in the order in which they appear, since many topics build on previous topics.
• Important: The topics of Sentence Correction, Reading Comprehension and Integrated Reasoning aren’t arranged into subtopics the same way the other topics are. For those three topics, you’ll find all of the linked practice questions at the bottom of the module page.

6) Once you've completed all of the modules in the course, take another practice test

• At this point, you may already have the skills necessary to achieve your target GMAT score.
• If you achieved your target score on this practice test, you might want to take a second practice test (to confirm the first test wasn’t a fluke :-), and then schedule your test.
• If you haven’t yet reached your target score, the remainder of your prep will consist of taking practice tests, identifying remaining weaknesses, and working on those weaknesses before taking another practice test.

7) For each practice test you take, carefully analyze the results to determine your remaining weaknesses. There are four types of weakness to watch for:

• Specific quantitative skills/concepts (e.g., factoring quadratics, standard deviation rules)
• Specific Verbal skills/concepts (e.g., assumption questions, subject-verb agreement)
• Test-taking skills (e.g., time management, endurance, anxiety)
• Silly mistakes

For the first two weaknesses, the fix is straightforward: find the related lesson(s), review your notes on that topic, and answer more linked practice questions (in the Reinforcement Activities box) until you’ve mastered the topic. If you’ve run out of practice questions, you can use GMAT Club’s question filter to find additional practice questions on that specific topic.  

If your test-taking skills are an issue, then work on those. For example, you'll find videos on time management and coping with test anxiety in the General Strategies module.

If silly mistakes are hurting your score, then try to identify and categorize these mistakes so that, during tests, you can easily spot situations in which you are prone to errors. For more, read this article.

8) Keep taking practice tests and strengthening weaknesses until you reach your target score.

9) Schedule/take the test

10) Send us an email to tell us how you did. 

11) Better yet, record a video review.