When you take an initial, free GRE practice test to get your baseline score (a must for anyone starting to prepare for the GRE), unless you find that you’re only a few points from your score goals for the GRE Quantitative and Verbal sections, it’s imperative that you don’t rely on quizzes, random practice sets, and practice tests to get you to the finish line. GRE practice is a way to refine your skills, not develop them from scratch.

There are a few problems associated with trying to learn the content and concepts you need to earn a good GRE score by simply completing hundreds of random practice questions. First, there are hundreds of different concepts that could show up on a GRE exam. So, if you think you’ll be able to “catch” them all by just doing random practice — even with a large number of questions — you’re taking a huge risk that is extremely unlikely to pay off.

Furthermore, you’re likely to be left with numerous gaps in your GRE knowledge, gaps that will be especially difficult to detect if you’re just doing a mix of random GRE practice problems to try to “cover your bases.” Trust me, this strategy is the opposite of covering your bases! In reality, this reliance on random practice is like rolling the dice on what your GRE score will be on test day.

OK, so you say to yourself, I’ll be more organized in my GRE practice, I’ll get a list of GRE topics and make sure I do practice in all of them, I’ll be methodical about which types of practice questions I start with and when I practice “the hard stuff.” Here’s the thing: GRE practice questions still won’t teach you the GRE. They simply allow you to learn how to apply the knowledge you’ve gained through dedicated study.

So, as systematic as you tell yourself you’re going to be in using GRE practice questions as your primary study tool, you’re unlikely to learn the vast array of concepts and strategies you need to earn a high GRE score by simply completing practice questions, and then reading the solutions to the questions you answered incorrectly. This is a popular but ineffective GRE prep strategy. For example, a student answers a couple dozen random practice GRE questions with a timer going, gets many of them incorrect, and then reads the answer explanations for the missed questions to find out how to answer the questions correctly. I know students who answered literally hundreds of questions using this “study plan” and didn’t see their GRE scores budge an inch.

The truth of the matter is that reading a solution that tells you what you did wrong and what you could’ve done right is not the same as actually knowing those things, and then putting them into practice. Furthermore, when your method of learning is doing GRE practice questions, you’re probably not going to immediately apply what you just learned from an answer explanation. Instead, you’re going to say, “OK, now I’ve learned that,” and move on to the next practice set. And by the time you see another question to which the information applies, there is a good chance that you won’t remember to use that information.

Don’t make the mistake of relying on solutions to practice questions to be your GRE teacher. If you do, you may find it very difficult to increase your GRE score in any notable way.

Warmest regards,

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
Founder & CEO, Target Test Prep