It’s easy to make reckless mistakes when your own writing is illegible. For example, if your numeral 2 has a funny habit of morphing into the letter Z, you’re likely to make mistakes. As someone with shockingly poor handwriting, I’ve found that writing in capital letters makes me less prone to misreading my own handwriting. You may like this penmanship strategy as well.

In addition to writing neatly, it’s important to organize your work thoughtfully. Get in the habit of using well-defined regions of the scratch paper for each problem. Don’t spread your work across the page haphazardly.

In regard to scratch paper: At your GRE testing site, test administrators will provide you with an initial supply of scratch paper. During the test, make efficient use of each sheet. You can obtain additional scratch paper, but you will waste valuable test time while you’re getting the re-supply.