Many GMAT students wear long study hours like a badge of honor.
Five hours yesterday, six the day before.
But more hours don’t always mean more learning. In fact, after a certain point, they can mean less.
Economics has a concept for this: the point of diminishing returns. Beyond a certain level of effort, each extra unit of input produces less output.
There’s also a point of maximum output. Up to that peak, you’re still getting some benefit, even if smaller each time. But once you cross it, you slip into negative returns.
Both these principles apply to learning as well. There is a point of diminishing returns in learning. Beyond that, the additional time you spend studying will give you a lower gain in improvement.
There is a point of maximum output also in learning. Beyond that point your time spend studying will actually cause harm. You might get confused, you might figure out incorrect takeaways.
In school, sometimes I’d keep staring at books till my eyes would start watering and I couldn’t keep them open anymore. I wasn’t learning anything. I was just reading words, half-asleep. Yet, I kept doing it. Why? I think it was mostly guilt. If I stopped early, I’d feel like I hadn’t worked hard enough. What became evidently clear was that not only did I not really gain from those late night hours, in fact, my brain worked less efficiently the next day that actually made matters worse.
That kind of “fake studying” doesn’t help. It might help assuage your guilt to some extent, but that is misplaced. Because while you might think “at least I’m putting in all my effort”, you could actually be increasing confusions and thus making matters worse.
I strongly recommend that you stop studying some place between the point of diminishing returns and the point of maximum output.
What’s the sweet spot?
There isn’t a single magic number. For many working professionals, two hours a day is a common figure. But don’t go with a common figure. Figure out your own points of diminishing returns and maximum output. You could be in diminishing territory after 45 minutes. You could be going strong after 3 hours.
How do you know you’ve crossed into diminishing returns?
Two ways:
- Behavioral signs. e.g. You’re reading a sentence, a paragraph, an entire passage — and nothing is registering. You read the text multiple times yet you can’t make heads or tails of it. It happened with me one day – I was trying a few Critical Reasoning questions. First question: I felt all 5 options were wrong. Second question: I felt maybe 3 could be correct. Third question: I again felt all 5 were wrong. Mind you: This was while I was already a GMAT coach. Getting confused about multiple questions in back-to-back questions was quite rare for me. My initial takeaway was: The questions are very difficult. But thankfully I decided to close the book and call it a day after 3-4 such questions. The next day I tried them again. This time – they all seemed like a piece of cake. I was in fact confused about what confused me about them last time. It was essentially fatigue manifesting itself in that way.
- Evidence signs. You’re making more careless mistakes than usual. You’re getting questions wrong for reasons that seem “trivial” and very uncommon for you.
That’s your brain telling you: stop.
Should I wait till I start more making mistakes/ misreading more?
You don’t need to. After a few days you should have a fair idea about how much time can you comfortably put in on a day. You can take that figure as a guideline. Not a minimum limit, mind you. No need to continue till you are fully exhausted. Study at a level that feels comfortable and sustainable. Some days you’ll push 15 minutes extra. Other days you’ll need to do less. Both are fine.
But …
“Won’t I fall behind if I don’t maximize every available hour?”
I’ve had students proudly tell me, “I studied 7 hours yesterday.” And then we dig in — what did they actually retain? Maybe 2 hours’ worth. The other 5 were just slogging through tired eyes. Hours don’t equal progress. Quality does.
“How do I know if I’m being lazy vs. genuinely tired?”
Here’s one test: imagine you’re re-reading the same line of a passage three times, and it’s still not clicking. Fatigue is when your mind simply refuses to process anymore. That’s not you being lazy.
“How do I structure my study blocks?”
It is ok to take breaks. If your brain can’t manage 3 hours in 1 go, see if it can manage three sittings of 45 minutes each with 15-minute breaks in between. I’ve seen students light up after a 20-minute walk and suddenly solve problems they were stuck on before. Rest isn’t the opposite of work. It’s part of the work.
The next time you find yourself re-reading the same sentence over and over, or solving questions without really understanding why the answers are right or wrong — that’s your signal. You’ve already crossed the point of diminishing returns. Close the browser, get some rest, and come back sharper the next day.