So, you've got a round two B-School or some other application deadline in early January. Not only is December the heart of holiday season for many traditions, it's also possibly GRE prep crunch time! This post will help you make the most of the weeks leading up to New Year's Eve so that the New Year isn't occupied by more GRE practice

Set a Consistent and Realistic Daily Schedule
The key to GRE success is to practice, practice, practice, so you'll need to make sure that you set a constant schedule for yourself broken into the three parts of the day. Now, your own individual volume of practice will be dictated by what other responsibilities you have, so if you're on vacation obviously you can scale up some of the activities, but if you're still working 12-hour days, you may have to be a bit more limited in your daily efforts.

Morning

• Vocabulary Study | 15-45:00
• Mental Math Practice | 10-15:00
• New Practice Problems | 20-120:00

No matter what. If you're going to make your GRE crash course work, you have to be doing vocabulary study, mental math practice and new GRE format practice problems in the morning on a daily basis. No excuses accepted.

Midday | Full-Time Working

• Vocabulary Study | 10-15:00
• Mental Math Practice | 10-15:00

This is where the difference between working and not working comes into play. If you aren't taking time off during the holiday season, you probably won't be able to dedicate much time to anything beyond reviewing your vocabulary and practicing mental math during a break.

Midday | Vacation

• Vocabulary Study | 10-15:00
• Mental Math Practice | 10-15:00
• New Practice Problems | 20-120:00

If you have the opportunity due to some time off, add more practice problems in the midday. However, it's generally advisable to practice for only a couple of hours at a time. At a certain point, usually in the third hour of GRE practice, the brain starts to struggle with focus and attention, and as soon as that happens the exam starts just pummeling the test taker, leading to frustration and possibly burnout. Don't let that happen! Do sets throughout the day with a gap in between to stay fresh rather than forcing yourself through fatigue unnecessarily and probably unsuccessfully. Of course, keep working vocabulary and mental math on vacation, too.

Evening

• Vocabulary Study | 15-45:00
• Mental Math Practice | 10-15:00
• Review Practice Problems | 20-240:00

Regardless of whether you are working or not, you'll want to spend a nearly equal amount of time to that you spent doing new practice problems reviewing your practice from that day to close your daily study routine. Make sure you try to self-review your practice yourself without an explicit explanation only working to determine why the correct answer is and why the others weren't!

Take Weekly Practice Exams
Obviously, practice exams are a necessary part of any GRE prep plan and that would be true of a holiday crash course, too. But, don't fall into the trap of simply doing practice exam after practice exam. Remember, burnout is real! Instead, prepare two days a week as separate from your general practice routine. That first separate day will be dedicated to doing the practice exam, and the day after dedicated to self-reviewing it in full. As always, the best practice exams are from the ETS, but consider using practice sections from GRE Prep Club and other third-party resources as needed.

And make sure that your last full practice exam is at least three days prior to your official exam date. You need to leave enough time to review that work in full on the following day and then rest and lightly review past concepts the day immediately prior to your exam. If you follow this schedule, maybe you can leave the GRE behind when the New Year's bells ring at midnight wherever you are!