Hello folks, I took the GRE test (at test center) on 2nd November and I scored 329 (159V, 170Q). I decided to take GRE 3 weeks before my test date and I am happy with this decent score that I have got although I could have crossed 335 had I taken the test a month later. Anyways, I am here to help you in understanding the right way to approach GRE exam.

Lets begin with Quants. The Quant in GRE exam is not at all complicated nor difficult. It doesn't even ask questions based on fancy formulae neither they are too lengthy in terms of calculation. The key to crack 170 in quant is to have razor sharp concentration throughout the section. GRE quant is not difficult, it is tricky and at times devilishly deceptive. But if you can hold your concentration at maximum level, there is nothing stopping you from scoring 170. Now here are a few tips and tricks for making your life easy:

For Quantitative comparison questions, instead of finding value of A and value of B separately and then comparing them, it is smarter to combine them into just one equation. Subtract qty B from qty A. So if A-B is positive, then A is greater, if -ve then B is greater and so on. This is particularly helpful for the questions which have correct answer as "Can not be determined from the given information" because a lot of times when we consider qty A and qty B separately, we tend to forget the corner cases. When you have just one equation to consider, you can be much more focused on it and there is negligible chances to miss out those devilish corner cases. This will also save you a ton of time and help you avoid any confusion caused while solving.

For data interpretation questions, never ever jump to the questions just after having a quick glance of the data. Always understand your data. It is the most crucial part of data interpretation questions. So, when I say understand the data, I mean look at what kind of structure is used display the data (like stacked bar chart, bar chart, line chart, scatter plot etc), then look at the x axis and see what variable is represented on X axis. Then look at the unit of that variable. Repeat the process for Y axis. Now, look for any footnotes that are given or any other such information which is crucial to solve those questions (at times, GRE tends to display crucial information in smaller fonts or at the very end of all the charts and missing out on such information is a sin). Now you have the understanding of the data, go to the questions. Before starting to solve any question, look all the 3 questions associated with the data interpretation set. A lot of times you can solve more than one question in one go if you think smartly (again, these are very easy questions, but you will miss out crucial information by rushing through the set).

For single choice correct, I would suggest to try to solve the questions as you normally do and if you can't solve it or it is taking too much time, start putting in the options. in 80 to 90 percent of the times when you are stuck, options will save you.

I followed these methods and I was able to solve all 20 questions of the section in 15 minutes and in another 10 minutes, I would resolve them so I was able to complete the entire quant section in 25 minutes (It is no big deal, you too can surely do it, you just need to try harder, think smarter and be attentive)
Coming to the verbal section, as most of you, it was my nemesis too. But here I would like to tell you a very interesting fact about GRE scoring system. If you score 15 or more in first section, you get +2 bonus points for that section and you will have a hard section next. Now since this is a hard section, if you score in the range of 7 to 14, you get +1 bonus. There are 2 key takeaways: 1. Always push the hardest for the first section. first section is a medium one and scoring 15 plus is possible here. 2. These bonus points can make a huge difference in you score.

Now coming to SE and TC, you need good vocabulary, but even if you know exact meaning of each and every word in the test, you still wont be able to get all se tc correct just based on vocabulary. I studied GregMat 900 vocabulary list, Norman Lewis word List and Barrons 800 word list. These 3 wordlists have as many as 70% of the words common and it will be really helpful in revising those words multiple times. Vocab is just one part, the most important thing in SE TC is to understand the logic and construction of the sentence. There will always be a part in the sentence which directly describes the word that will come in the blank. Once you find out that part of the sentence, all you need to know is that is there any word which indicates that there is contradiction between the blank and the sentence describing the blank. All you need now is to predict the word which should come in the blank and find it or it's synonym from the options. At times it would happen that you might not know the meaning of all the words, no need to panic. Just eliminate the words which you are confident that they can't be correct and as for the other options, try to guess the meaning by the root of the word and if nothing helps, there is no harm in making an educated guess. This is all that you need to solve most of the SE TC questions correctly. But a word of caution, we generally have the tendency to go with the words which we know even though they might not be the best match for the answer you have guessed. GRE knows this and will play with you in this manner.

For RCs, oh boy! There are 10 rc questions and in your first section, you will surely get a huge RC followed by 4 questions. Never leave that RC for the last. If you would look at the larger RCs, they might look intimidating but the questions that are followed are much easier compared to the shorter RCs. Also, if due to time crunch, you have to skip that RC, you will be skipping 4 mostly easy questions and that is 10% of your entire Verbal. Always do these passages first, keep the shorter ones for the end because most of those passages can be read in under a minute and hence there is very less chance of missing 4 questions. Now, to solve RC questions, you need to make connections between ideas in the passage. So while reading an RC, always track the developments that occur in the passage. Not all sentences of an RC passage are important. Learn to divide sentences into : Author's opinion, supporting/opposing statements (justifying or discarding certain view or opinion) and the opinions stated by someone other than the author. At the end of each sentence, ask a question that what is the role of this sentence, is it author's opinion, or is it an example supporting author's opinion, or is it introducing something etc etc. Initially, reading passages with all these things in mind will take a lot of time, but with practice, it will become like second nature, it will happen automatically and this will help you not just in RCs, but also in your life as it will greatly enhance your ability to effectively understand text in much shorter time frame.


I took 10 mocks ( I wrote only 6 AWA essays and I am yet to receive my AWA score)
2 mocks on the ETS official guide
2 powerprep mocks(free ones)
Manhattan free mock
Princeton Free mock
MacGrawHill Free mocks (had 6 mocks but I had no time to solve all)

And the books that I used were:
ETS Official Guide
ETS VA Official Guide (solved the only easy medium hard practice problems and the sectional tests)
ETS QA Official Guide (solved only sectional tests)

Manhattan 5LB (100 SE 100 TC and 100 RC questions, Advance quant problems, Quant and Verbal sectional tests easy medium hard, and I skipped all QA chapters)
This were the methods and materials I used and I am sure a lot of you can benefit from these methods. Always keep in mind, GRE is not difficult, it is tricky. Have confidence in yourself and solve questions with utmost attention(I drank a RedBull before the test ;D ) and you can score much much more than what I scored.

Good luck for your exam!