Oh dear... the perils of gifting 'bonsai' to people who've barely heard the word! Watering once a week like it was a philodendron is not how to go, but the person who sold it to you couldn't have cared less (and obviously knew nothing about bonsai), just collected a paycheck. Don't cut off anything yet - there's always time to do it later and it's not important. Water it thoroughly and give it lots of high light all day long, but water again when e.g. the top inch or so has dried rather than using a schedule. I'd like to tell you a lot more, but you really need to do some research on bonsai - read a lot of things about Ficus and/or tropicals in general, and bonsai - and do spritz your tree at least twice a day with water for humidity. These are very basic generic things, but you need to learn a lot more to understand what's what. If there is a layer of pebbles glued to the soil surface, drizzle warm (not hot) water on it then lift it off (it'll come in pieces) with fingers or big tweezers, etc. But your best bet of all if you want to learn about bonsai (whether or not this tree makes it) is to find a local club and let them help you, teach you, etc. etc. Good luck.

It won't be dead. My ficus religiosa bonsai also died but after some months it sprouted new leaves.
Just water it well and don't fertilize it.

DO fertilize it! That's an old myth!

Hi, Liz. Don't remove branches until you're certain they're dead, unless they're currently leafless and wouldn't contribute to the composition in a positive way, even if they did have leaves now.

A fig tree's response to drought is, predictably, shedding leaves. Strangely, over-watering can produce the same drought response as under-watering, so be careful. Your plant will need less water than it did prior to the shedding. Fortunately, ficus usually handles defoliation reasonably well, and bounces back from the stress with out much evident difficulty. It does leave the plant weakened though, because it forces the plant to use a good amount of stored energy to push the new growth, so be extra protective of the new growth until after days are longer and the plant is surely making more energy than it's using.

You should make an effort to water your plant when it needs water. This is particularly true if the soil isn't one that allows you to water on a schedule. The difference between soils you CAN water on a schedule and soils you shouldn't water on a schedule is the amount of water soils hold between the particles. Soils comprised of particles large enough that they hold almost all water inside of the soil particles and at the interface where soil particles touch each other are almost impossible to over-water. Soils with a lot of fine particles and that hold significant volumes of water between soil particles are easily over-watered. Those are the soils you should always water on an as needed basis, rather than on a schedule.

Be patient (an essential virtue required of all that for one reason or another have found it necessary to put themselves on "tree time"), keep the plant warm (65-85*) and in very bright light (don't just move the plant into full sun after you read this. If you are going to move the plant to a brighter area, let's talk about that ahead of the move), water as needed, ................. and I'm going to suggest you flush the soil thoroughly the next time the plant needs water and fertilize at that time. If you like, we can talk about what fertilizer might provide the easiest and most efficient way to deliver nutrients.

Al