Create a long-term study plan. It is important to have a solid study plan to follow when you begin to study for the GMAT. Write out weekly goals to determine what you want to accomplish. If you know your weakness lies in quantitative questions, make sure that you tackle them first. Start preparing for this exam at least 3-6 months in advance, to make sure that you are not cramming at the very last moment.
Purchase the Official GMAT Study Guide. This book is modeled after the actual test, so it will provide you with good practice questions for the exam. Some additional reliable study guides with good strategy and study advice are The Princeton Review and Kaplan.
Sign-up for an account on mba.com, where you can have access to free test preparation software. Practicing similar questions to the ones on the test is very important, so you will get used to the format of the exam.
Familiarize yourself with the structure of the exam. Make sure that you understand how the test is laid out and the timing given for each section. Understand what is expected of the three main sections. The Analytical Writing Assessment has two writing assignments: the Analysis of an Issue and Analysis of an Argument, which are both 30 minutes each. The Quantitative section has 37 questions of two different types: Data Sufficiency and Problem Solving, and you are allowed 75 minutes for the entire section. The Verbal section includes 3 different types of questions: Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning, and Sentence Correction and you must complete 45 multiple choice questions in 75 minutes.