I’m looking for advice from someone that may have found themselves in the same position as me. I’ve been studying for GRE for over a year and recently took the GRE for the fourth time. My scores were 158 both sections and I’m aiming for a 163 in both. The score breakdown over the last few tests are is as follows:
I’ve watched all of the quant concept foundation videos, and almost all of the strategy videos. Likewise, I’ve watched most of the verbal strategy videos but have only memorized ~400 words. I only have 1 PP+ test remaining and have 17 Big Book tests remaining. I’ve exhausted all of the OG material, having done each section from all 3 books several times. My study times have been as follows:
foundation for 1hr (vocab and quant concept review)
strategy for 1hr (I would pick a strategy and work at that)
timed sections for 1hr
Since I work full-time, I only have ~3hr per day to study. That will decrease to about 2hr/day now that I’ll be working on application and study material simultaneously. I don’t know what else to do or what to change aside from memorizing more vocab words. Since I’m applying to tough schools, I need to increase my scores. Any advice (aside from the suggestion to give up) to increase my scores is welcome. I’m aiming to take the test again in one month. Thank you!
It’s time to move on and choose schools that are easy…tough schools doesn’t assure you good education. Many small schools are better …one year is too much of a time to spent in on GRE! Your work ex will suffice for your GRE!
Write your own questions. Take the same ideas that you’ve seen and practiced, identify your weak areas from your results, and start writing yourself some sample questions. Evidence has shown that writing your own questions is one of the most effective ways to learn material, because in order to write the questions and supply the answer choices, you have to really bake the words into memory.
Interleaving: This has shown to be very effective for memory and retention. The idea is that instead of doing blocks of time dedicated to one subject, you do shorter sprints with one subject, take a break (I suggest a 15 min walk to get your heart rate up) to help digest what you just learned (the break is very important!), and then go right to the next subject. This may be a good strategy for learning vocab, since that requires more memorization.
Engage more of your brain per subject: Your brain is more likely to remember something if you engage multiple senses in the learning process, and since visual is such a powerful sense, we need to try multiple visual strategies. This is easier to picture with vocab too, so, for example, use colors in your flashcards or word spreadsheets for words that are neg/pos (impact on the sentence), try moving things around, putting the words into new groups, use colors as categories so that you can start to compartmentalize. You may not remember a word, but you may remember the position you put it in, or the color it was, which will help enable more neural connections and pathways that may eventually tap that word you were trying to remember.
I am not citing studies here, but if anyone is interested in the science behind this I can provide that by request.
If you can, try to practice a little mindfulness to help you get unstuck. Something that always helps me is simply naming the thoughts. So, if you start to feel overwhelmed, and your brain starts shouting at you (typically with a bunch of “you should do…x”), just simply give them a name and then whenever they creep up say their name. It stops the brain swirls in their tracks. I call my “you’re never going to learn all this/you should be studying more/stop procrastinating” GRE thoughts “Jeremiah”. So, basically, I say “SHUT UP JEREMIAH” and regain control of my brain energy. It brings you right back to the present.
A second tip comes from the behaviorists, and that’s your basic “star chart”! When you do something during the day that was hard for you to get done, put a gold star on the calendar. This is what I use pretty much every winter in the rainy pacific northwest (Washington State), when I get my seasonal “where is the damn sun” depression. Usually this means I stop doing things like take out the garbage. Star charts always help me pick back up with the basics. And for you it could be some other reward - the aim here is to just make sure you acknowledge your work - no matter how small - if it serves your goals.
Thank you for your insightful and thorough responses, Jeni. Definitely not along the lines of what I was thinking but also pretty empowering. I’m looking forward to giving some of them a shot!
Oh something else that may help you - can you teach someone else what you know? I know you said that you have limited time, but maybe if you’re able to, try to partner with someone who you can teach tips to. When you do that, you really force yourself to think. Or, practice doing some of Greg’s strategies, and just “teach” yourself (but actually pretend you’re teaching someone who doesn’t know, as if you’re training your replacement to take the exam for you).
Your scores are already great - I am sure you have them set so high because of your dream school. But, I hope, that if you’re feeling defeated, that you can look to your score improvements you listed above and reflect on your progress - it’s really quite amazing!
And honestly, if you want to practice “teaching” my scores are a lot lower, so I would surely learn from you.
I ended up getting my quant to 163Q and 5.5AWA on my fifth attempt. I learned that I did have testing anxiety so I worked on that particularly by praying and practicing mindfulness prior to the exam, and taking deep breaths when I caught myself becoming overwhelmed during the exam. All the best everyone!! Hang in there, you got this!
…one year is too much of a time to spent in on GRE! Your work ex will suffice for your GRE!