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My experience: 320 (162 verbal, 158 math)
[#permalink]
11 Jul 2015, 09:36
11 Jul 2015, 09:36
8
Hi! I took the GRE yesterday and scored my target score of 320 (162 verbal, 158 math) after months of preparation. Here are some materials and ways that really helped in my preparation and I hope it will help others too!
Just a disclaimer, I am a native English speaker and always considered myself stronger in verbal/writing than math. When I finally decided to take the GRE, I hadn't done ANY form of math since high school (didn't need it as an art history major in college!). I knew that I would have to work extremely hard at reviewing math and that it would be my biggest challenge.
- In general, my strategy was to do as many practice problems as I possibly could. I practiced problems for 3 hours every single day. I work full time, so I would get home, eat dinner, and then practice, practice, practice.
- I carefully reviewed every math concept that would appear on the exam. I found Kaplan's GRE Math Workbook really helpful in helping me review the materials. My tip is to not gloss over this stage because it's important to have a solid foundation of basic math skills before tackling any problem.
- Even as a native English speaker, the vocabulary on the GRE was tough! There were so many words that I have never seen or used in my life. To help strengthen my vocabulary, I downloaded the GRE Vocabulary app from Magoosh on my phone and iPad and would learn words whenever I had a free moment. In fact for the week leading up to my exam, I did nothing but this vocab app on my commute to and from work every day. I also got flashcards from Manhattan Prep which were helpful as well.
- I took three full-length GRE practice tests in the months leading up to the GRE. I took the first test from the ETS PowerPrep software to gage here I was at and what I needed to work on about 2 weeks after I started studying for the GRE. I scored about a 302 here and analyzed the areas I should target. Two weeks before the exam, I took another full length test from Manhattan Prep and scored a 311. Better, but not quite there! On the week of the exam, I took a final practice test from ETS and scored a 316. I knew that this would be the best approximation of my actual score.
- Taking these full length tests ON a computer was incredibly helpful because let's face it, taking a test on the computer is weird. I had to get used to the interface, get used to reading long passages on a computer screen, and get used to doing math problems without the luxury of scribbling all over my test booklet.
- I highly, HIGHLY recommend Manhattan Prep's 5 lb Book of GRE questions. I honestly believe that I scored what I did because of this book and the endless treasure trove of problems in it. I aimed to do almost all of the questions in that book. The math explanations were excellent and helped me learn from my mistakes. Also, I found that their verbal questions were more challenging than the ones that appeared on the actual test. By the end, I felt like if I could conquer the questions in that book then I could conquer anything!
- Even though I considered myself strong in verbal, I still practiced doing verbal questions every day. I found that I improved my performance the more practice I had which I figured would help bolster my score.
In the end, all of the practicing and the work really paid off, but I studied consistently every single day for 2 months in order to achieve that score (had to sacrifice my social life to do so).
Good luck to everyone!
Just a disclaimer, I am a native English speaker and always considered myself stronger in verbal/writing than math. When I finally decided to take the GRE, I hadn't done ANY form of math since high school (didn't need it as an art history major in college!). I knew that I would have to work extremely hard at reviewing math and that it would be my biggest challenge.
- In general, my strategy was to do as many practice problems as I possibly could. I practiced problems for 3 hours every single day. I work full time, so I would get home, eat dinner, and then practice, practice, practice.
- I carefully reviewed every math concept that would appear on the exam. I found Kaplan's GRE Math Workbook really helpful in helping me review the materials. My tip is to not gloss over this stage because it's important to have a solid foundation of basic math skills before tackling any problem.
- Even as a native English speaker, the vocabulary on the GRE was tough! There were so many words that I have never seen or used in my life. To help strengthen my vocabulary, I downloaded the GRE Vocabulary app from Magoosh on my phone and iPad and would learn words whenever I had a free moment. In fact for the week leading up to my exam, I did nothing but this vocab app on my commute to and from work every day. I also got flashcards from Manhattan Prep which were helpful as well.
- I took three full-length GRE practice tests in the months leading up to the GRE. I took the first test from the ETS PowerPrep software to gage here I was at and what I needed to work on about 2 weeks after I started studying for the GRE. I scored about a 302 here and analyzed the areas I should target. Two weeks before the exam, I took another full length test from Manhattan Prep and scored a 311. Better, but not quite there! On the week of the exam, I took a final practice test from ETS and scored a 316. I knew that this would be the best approximation of my actual score.
- Taking these full length tests ON a computer was incredibly helpful because let's face it, taking a test on the computer is weird. I had to get used to the interface, get used to reading long passages on a computer screen, and get used to doing math problems without the luxury of scribbling all over my test booklet.
- I highly, HIGHLY recommend Manhattan Prep's 5 lb Book of GRE questions. I honestly believe that I scored what I did because of this book and the endless treasure trove of problems in it. I aimed to do almost all of the questions in that book. The math explanations were excellent and helped me learn from my mistakes. Also, I found that their verbal questions were more challenging than the ones that appeared on the actual test. By the end, I felt like if I could conquer the questions in that book then I could conquer anything!
- Even though I considered myself strong in verbal, I still practiced doing verbal questions every day. I found that I improved my performance the more practice I had which I figured would help bolster my score.
In the end, all of the practicing and the work really paid off, but I studied consistently every single day for 2 months in order to achieve that score (had to sacrifice my social life to do so).
Good luck to everyone!
Re: My experience: 320 (162 verbal, 158 math)
[#permalink]
Updated on: 08 Dec 2015, 10:18
Updated on: 08 Dec 2015, 10:18
4
I received almost the same score
Math - 162, Verbal - 159.
Was preparing for 3 months, had a lot of pressure from work and family, so could not concentrate on GRE only, was lazy all the time, so my score is so much high, but not the best. The only time I had for preparation was way after midnight, when all of my kids went to sleep and I am not distracted at work.
I am not a native speaker, but I had bachelor degree from US university long time ago (TOEFL at the time 600 paper version, GPA 3.2).
Here is what I used to prepare for GRE:
Verbal part -
1) I found this app PAINLESS GRE for android very usefull tool to memorize and test yourself of new words (set RANDOMIZE, and 15 words per session, plus old words ratio to 80%). With it alone I learned 100-150 words (not only memorized, but also know them in context thanks to this app).
2) Watching Big Bang Theory TV (TBBT) series with later reading transcripts from here bigbangtrans. wordpress. com is another way to increase your vocabulary with obscure nerd words.
3) I downloaded podcast JUST VOCABULARY from south africa, which had 500+ podcasts each featuring two GRE words. To combine with PAINLESS GRE app, I "cut" each word and matched it with current set of words, which I was learning with PAINLESS GRE and also in TBBT. They audio file are very handy to listen while you're traveling, re-inforces your memory of new words.
4) I read NYtimes articles every day, esp. in SCIENCE, ARTS, BOOK REVIEWS, OPINION, ROOM FOR DEBATE sections. (the last one is good for AWA)
For math quant, I used the following:
1) Magoosh video course was extremely useful to refresh memories of math, esp geometry, combinatorics, etc
2) Manhatten 5lb practice book - just do all the match problems, even in chapter 30, advanced math. You will notice the results soon. (did only math sections, skipping the verbal ones).
FOR AWA - I found Magoosh video in Writing just excellent, also read article of UNC writing club on fallacies (writingcenter unc edu / handouts)
Also downloaded the list of topics for arguments and issues, and then tried several of them at random, then compared with what other wrote to see if I missed anything. There is a general layout for both argument and issue essay, you just need to find it and practice it on real questions.
For exam practice:
1) took 1st official GRE practice test
2) took 6 Manhattan practice tests (chose always VERBAL + QUANT only option, without AWA simply because I did not have time)
3) took 2 Kaplan practice tests (there were actually 6, but I did not had time to do them all, besides Kaplan's one are the longest, as they contain experimental section, which is not present in GRE official practice, but is PRESENT on real test!)
4) finally took 2nd official GRE test
Results of practice tests:
- Manhattan free test - 160Q / 154V (taken with 1.5x time)
- Official PowerPrep II First Test - 159Q / 151V
- Manhattan 1 - 155Q / 154V
- Manhattan 2 - 156Q / 154V
- Manhattan 3 - 160Q / 157V
- Manhattan 4 - 159Q / 156V
- Manhattan 5 - 160Q / 152V
- Manhattan 6 - 160Q / 154V
- Official PowerPrep II Second Test - 160Q / 153V
===========================================
- Real Test 162Q / 159V / 3.5 AWA
The real test I found to be somewhat easier than Manhattan, and way easier than Kaplan's (Kaplan's tests had in 2nd quant lots of stats and combinatorics questions, i did not see so many on the real exam).
PS. I have to add some notes on time management. GRE included excellent feature of MARKing any question, so that you could return to that question. If you stuck on some question, do not hesitate and waste time, randomly select the answer (say C) or type any number (say 2) or fraction (say 1/2), press MARK and go to the next question. You will notice that with proper time management, you will always have some time left before the timer for the section ends. I used this time to go back and review those difficult question.
Math - 162, Verbal - 159.
Was preparing for 3 months, had a lot of pressure from work and family, so could not concentrate on GRE only, was lazy all the time, so my score is so much high, but not the best. The only time I had for preparation was way after midnight, when all of my kids went to sleep and I am not distracted at work.
I am not a native speaker, but I had bachelor degree from US university long time ago (TOEFL at the time 600 paper version, GPA 3.2).
Here is what I used to prepare for GRE:
Verbal part -
1) I found this app PAINLESS GRE for android very usefull tool to memorize and test yourself of new words (set RANDOMIZE, and 15 words per session, plus old words ratio to 80%). With it alone I learned 100-150 words (not only memorized, but also know them in context thanks to this app).
2) Watching Big Bang Theory TV (TBBT) series with later reading transcripts from here bigbangtrans. wordpress. com is another way to increase your vocabulary with obscure nerd words.
3) I downloaded podcast JUST VOCABULARY from south africa, which had 500+ podcasts each featuring two GRE words. To combine with PAINLESS GRE app, I "cut" each word and matched it with current set of words, which I was learning with PAINLESS GRE and also in TBBT. They audio file are very handy to listen while you're traveling, re-inforces your memory of new words.
4) I read NYtimes articles every day, esp. in SCIENCE, ARTS, BOOK REVIEWS, OPINION, ROOM FOR DEBATE sections. (the last one is good for AWA)
For math quant, I used the following:
1) Magoosh video course was extremely useful to refresh memories of math, esp geometry, combinatorics, etc
2) Manhatten 5lb practice book - just do all the match problems, even in chapter 30, advanced math. You will notice the results soon. (did only math sections, skipping the verbal ones).
FOR AWA - I found Magoosh video in Writing just excellent, also read article of UNC writing club on fallacies (writingcenter unc edu / handouts)
Also downloaded the list of topics for arguments and issues, and then tried several of them at random, then compared with what other wrote to see if I missed anything. There is a general layout for both argument and issue essay, you just need to find it and practice it on real questions.
For exam practice:
1) took 1st official GRE practice test
2) took 6 Manhattan practice tests (chose always VERBAL + QUANT only option, without AWA simply because I did not have time)
3) took 2 Kaplan practice tests (there were actually 6, but I did not had time to do them all, besides Kaplan's one are the longest, as they contain experimental section, which is not present in GRE official practice, but is PRESENT on real test!)
4) finally took 2nd official GRE test
Results of practice tests:
- Manhattan free test - 160Q / 154V (taken with 1.5x time)
- Official PowerPrep II First Test - 159Q / 151V
- Manhattan 1 - 155Q / 154V
- Manhattan 2 - 156Q / 154V
- Manhattan 3 - 160Q / 157V
- Manhattan 4 - 159Q / 156V
- Manhattan 5 - 160Q / 152V
- Manhattan 6 - 160Q / 154V
- Official PowerPrep II Second Test - 160Q / 153V
===========================================
- Real Test 162Q / 159V / 3.5 AWA
The real test I found to be somewhat easier than Manhattan, and way easier than Kaplan's (Kaplan's tests had in 2nd quant lots of stats and combinatorics questions, i did not see so many on the real exam).
PS. I have to add some notes on time management. GRE included excellent feature of MARKing any question, so that you could return to that question. If you stuck on some question, do not hesitate and waste time, randomly select the answer (say C) or type any number (say 2) or fraction (say 1/2), press MARK and go to the next question. You will notice that with proper time management, you will always have some time left before the timer for the section ends. I used this time to go back and review those difficult question.
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Joined: 16 May 2014
Posts: 592
Given Kudos: 0
GRE 1: Q165 V161
Re: My experience: 320 (162 verbal, 158 math)
[#permalink]
23 Nov 2015, 09:04
23 Nov 2015, 09:04
Expert Reply
Congratulations to both of you for these amazing scores! This is really helpful for the future test takers!! Thanks a lot! Good luck for your Graduate School applications! 
