Sharing my journey of how I scored 331/340 in my GRE.

Verbal - 162/170
Quant - 169/170

PS - The difficulty level of Quant has drastically increased since the last time I took GRE which was in 2020. I think I could have performed better at Verbal but my last section had 1 single and double blank and 4 triple blank questions which really threw me off. Nonetheless, I am really satisfied with my score.

Having studied Political Science in undergraduate, I was under the impression that Verbal would be relatively easier for me as I took writing-intensive coursework in colllege. However, that preconceived notion was called into question when I first appeared for GRE in August 2020 when I scored 306/340. I only practiced through Manhattan practice tests and did not work on my concepts which resulted in such a score.

Verbal - 152/170
Quant - 154/170

For Quant - I started my preparation from scratch as I worked on my math concepts from the Manhattan Guides. After which, I solved the quant questions from the Manhattan 5lb book. I then got a 3-month subscription from ScholarDen where I practiced the quant questions. I must say that Scholarden perfectly mimics the difficult questions that one will witness in the actual GRE. I first went with the easy questions, followed by medium, and hard questions. I had an error log where I jotted down the incorrect questions that I had from the Manhattan 5lb book and ScholarDen questions. I used to go back to those questions and work on my weaker areas. After doing all this, I practiced full-length tests.

For Verbal - I purchased a yearly New York Times subscription as I used to read 4 articles every day spanning from topics such as technology, literature, and politics. I also read articles from Long Reads - a very good resource. Following which I started practicing Reading Comprehension on ReadTheory until I reached level 12. Watching the verbal videos from ScholarDen also helped me a lot regarding exam-taking strategies. While I was doing this, I was also doing words from the Magoosh App, I managed to do all the basic, common, and advanced words from the App whenever I got time. I then went on to practice Verbal from the ETS Big Book. After doing preparation from all of the resources, I moved on to doing full-length practice tests.

In conclusion, it has been an uphill battle for me as I am a working professional so finding out time after work while living all by myself and doing household chores was difficult. Nevertheless, I managed as I was adamant to go for my Masters at a really good university. As cliched as it sounds, do not give up and keep on trying and hopefully, you will see the desired results.