Day 1: Format and baseline
Your first day is reconnaissance. Read everything public about the specific test you are taking. Number of questions, time limit, section mix, scoring method, whether wrong answers cost you, and whether the interface lets you flag and return.
After the format read, take a single untimed set of 20 questions to establish a baseline. Do not stress the raw score. The goal is a clean read on which question types feel natural and which feel foreign. Write a half-page summary at the end: what I am comfortable with, what I am not, where my time is going.
Day 2: Drill your weakest question type
Today you work on whichever question family scored lowest yesterday. Forty untimed questions in a single session, with careful review of every wrong answer. Write each mistake in your mistake journal with the specific pattern you missed.
If your weakest type is numerical word problems, spend the full session on numerical word problems. Do not get cute. Do not mix in a little bit of vocabulary. Targeted volume on one question family is what moves scores in tight prep windows.
Day 3: Drill your second weakest type
Same structure, different topic. Forty untimed questions focused on your second weakest area, with full review. By the end of today your mistake journal should have roughly 15 entries. Read through them before you close the session and group them into three or four recurring patterns.
Those patterns are your bullseye for the rest of the week. If the journal shows that you routinely misread percentage increase versus percentage of, that is something you will see again on the real test and you will have fixed it.
Day 4: Light review or rest
Skim your mistake journal for 20 minutes. Do 10 easy questions from either weak area to keep your brain warm. Spend the rest of the day not thinking about the test.
This day is non-negotiable. Cognitive prep is neurologically intense and consolidation happens during rest. Skipping rest day is how candidates hit a wall at day six with two days left and no capacity to push.
Day 5: Timed mixed sets
Three sets of 15 timed questions across mixed question types. Target roughly 70 to 75 percent accuracy per set. If you drop below 60 percent, the pace is too aggressive for your current level and you should back it down slightly. If you are above 85 percent, push the pace.
Review each set immediately before starting the next. Five to eight minutes of review is enough to catch the pattern you missed while it is still fresh.
Day 6: Full-length simulation
One full-length mock under strict test conditions. Clear desk, closed door, phone in another room, the exact time allotment the real test uses. Do not pause. Do not check the clock as often as you practiced. Simulate the real experience.
Score the mock and walk away. Review the next morning, not the same night. Fresh eyes spot patterns that exhausted eyes miss. Give yourself 45 minutes on the review with the mistake journal open.
Day 7: Light review and sleep
Read through your mistake journal one more time. Do not add new material. Do not take another mock. Your prep is done. What is left is executing on the day.
Eat a normal dinner, sleep eight hours, and plan your test-day morning. Protein breakfast, normal caffeine dose, clean desk at least 15 minutes before the test starts. If you followed the plan, you are operating at roughly a full standard deviation above where you started. That is enough.
Adjusting the plan to real life
Seven days is rarely seven clean days. If day three gets eaten by work, compress days two and three into a single heavier session and push everything else back by one. If rest day is unworkable on a weekday, swap it with your least demanding day.
The structural order matters more than the literal day labels. Diagnose, drill, rest, timed sets, full mock, review, sleep. Keep the sequence. Adjust the calendar.