A Guide on preparing for the GRE

A guide on how to plan your GRE preparation in order to do well on the examination.

The Graduate Record Examination, popularly known as the GRE, is a compulsory exam one must take before applying to universities in the US for graduate studies (masters/Ph.D.). The exam consists of three sections: Verbal, Quantitative (quant) and Analytical Writing Assignment (AWA). The verbal and quant sections are for 170 points each, whereas the AWA is evaluated out of 6 points.

The exam is approximately 3 hours and 45 minutes long (including the breaks) and consists of 2 AWA sections (30 minutes each), 2 quant sections (35 minutes each), 2 verbal sections (30 minutes each), and one experimental section which can be either verbal or quant, which is not counted in your final score. The AWA sections will require an essay type answer, whereas the other sections will have 20 multiple choice or number entry questions each.

I had given the GRE in February 2019, and got a score of 333 out of 340 (Quant: 170, Verbal: 163 and AWA: 4/6). In this article, I’ll cover my preparation strategy and try to answer the questions prospective candidates about the examination.

How many days before the exam should I start my preparation?

The answer to this question varies a lot on how comfortable you are with 10th grade mathematics.

For candidates who have taken maths in 11th and 12th grade, and are currently working a job/pursuing an undergraduate degree that regularly requires the use of maths, I would recommend that you start your preparation 45-60 days before the exam. For others, I would recommend that you start your preparation 75-90 days before the exam. The quant sections in the GRE test math concepts upto the 10th grade, so the additional month can be used by candidates to study and practice those topics.

I had begun my preparation on December 18th 2018, exactly 2 months before my exam. I dedicated about 3-4 hours per day during the first 3 weeks of my prep, and 2-3 hours per day during the next 5 weeks, since my college semester had begun.

How should I begin my preparation?

The first thing you should do when you start your preparation is to take a mock GRE test (you can avoid giving the AWA section as of now). This has multiple benefits. Firstly, you gain an understanding of the format of the paper and the types of questions asked. Secondly, you get to know what your base knowledge level is and which areas you'll have to focus on during your prep.

I had given a Princeton Review GRE test before starting my prep and got 317/340 (quant: 166, verbal: 151). Looking at my poor verbal score, I knew that a lot of work had to be done in this area in order for me to improve. The quant score gave me confidence that my concepts were clear and with a little bit of practice, I can hit the 170/170 mark.

Preparation strategy: Quant

For people with math background

Candidates in this category are familiar with all the concepts asked, but need to work on two areas: speed and accuracy. The only way to improve both these areas is practice. I recommend doing 1 timed section (35 minutes) per day . That way you can improve your time management as well. I used study material from Kaplan, ETS’s official GRE guide and Barron’s GRE. Along with the mock tests you’ll be giving from time to time, this should be enough to get a great score in the quant sections of the GRE.

For people without math background

Candidates in this category should study all the topics in the syllabus one by one and then move on to timed section practice as mentioned above. I would recommend studying the topics from the Barron’s GRE book, and additional practice from Kaplan and the ETS’s official GRE guide. The first month should be dedicated to finishing the syllabus, and the next two months to practice.

Preparation strategy: Verbal

The verbal section has two types of questions: vocabulary based and reading comprehension based. As you can guess, the vocabulary based questions require you to have a large vocabulary. Here are the techniques I used to improve my vocabulary:

Magoosh GRE flashcards app: This app has a 1000 flashcards distributed among different categories based on difficulty. This was the most useful tool for me to build my vocabulary, since these words are seen very frequently on the exam. I would recommend attempting 1 deck a day (50 words). Try keeping a note of the words you are getting wrong and work on that list whenever free. Tip: Once you have completed all the decks, delete the app’s cache to reset your progress, and do it again.

Barron’s GRE word list: An exhaustive word list consisting of 3000 words. The list is a bit of an overkill, but I would still recommend that you go through it since it does contain a few important words that the Magoosh app misses.

Practice: Having a large vocabulary is compulsory but not sufficient for doing well on the vocabulary based questions. I would recommend practicing vocabulary based questions from the Kaplan material and the ETS GRE guide.

Reading Comprehension (RC) based questions

I am highlighting this topic separately since I believe it makes or breaks your GRE score. I know multiple people who had solid preparation in both quant as well as vocabulary, but got poor GRE scores due to lack of preparation in RCs.

The main tricky part about RCs is that the options provided are all very similar, making it difficult for the candidate to pick an option. The only way to get better at choosing the right option is to practice a lot of RC’s. An important thing you must do is to go through the solutions of the RC right after attempting it. That way you’ll learn from your mistakes and also understand why a certain option is correct. I had practiced RCs from the ETS GRE book and the Kaplan material.

How many mock tests should I give?

I would suggest giving one test every week for the first 6 weeks and then 2 tests per week for the last two weeks of preparation. ETS provides two mock tests on their website which can be taken for free. I suggest that you take those tests towards the end, since they provide you with a realistic idea of how you’ll perform on the actual test.

AWA: preparation strategy

Each of the AWA sections will require you to type out an essay on a certain topic. The list of possible topics can be found on the ETS website. I would recommend going through this list and finding essays written by others on a few of these topics. This way, you can get an idea of the kind of things you are supposed to write about. The Barron’s GRE book also has sample essays on a few of these topics which I would highly recommend you to read.

When it comes to writing your own essays, I recommend that you leave that for the last 2-3 weeks of your preparation. Try to write 2 essays per week (write the ones which appear in the mock tests) for the last 2-3 weeks and you should be good to go.

What is a good GRE score?

I’ll consider an overall score of more than 325/340 good. However, the breakup of the score is important as well. For example, for people applying for masters in engineering/science, a high quant score(167-170) is essential. Regarding AWA, one should score a minimum of 4/6. For liberal arts degrees, the AWA score holds more importance than it does for engineering or science based degrees.

In case you are looking for the study material I have mentioned above, drop me an email and I will tell you how you can obtain it. Hope this helps and best of luck for the GRE!