Hello! I need advice on improving my Quant score. I recently took the GRE and my Quant score was 163. I need to improve this to a 165 or higher for a master’s scholarship.
My approach to the GRE so far
- I covered all the fundamentals using the I am Overwhelmed Plan and revise the Quant mountain regularly.
- I attempted the foundation quizzes and did not achieve 85% or higher on all of them and redoing the overwhelmed plan did not help. I opted to go through the Manhattan 6 book set. This helped and I was able to achieve 85% and higher on my foundation quizzes.
- I did untimed practice using gregmat quizzes for each topic, manhattan 5 lb for each topic and the manhattan 6 book series. All these were for targeted practice in each topic.
- I started mixed practice sets from gregmat timed sections and ETS Official Guide. Initially I would allow myself 1.25 to 1.5 times the allowed time so I could learn to manage my time and my rough notes. Eventually I reduced the time to 26 minutes and was averaging scores of 12 out of 15 in gregmat hard timed quant.
- I was only able to practice choosing numbers and back-solving strategies, first in isolation and untimed and then when doing timed practice.
- I maintained an error log throughout my practice. My primary cause of errors was missing or misreading information (e.g. solving for x instead of 2x), or in QC questions I failed to consider all or a lot of the possible cases. And in level 4 and 5 questions, I tend to fall into traps. Furthermore, I am very bad at reading long word problems and translating them into algebra within the time constraints. I have a hard time reading from the screen and tend to lose focus easily. This is where I suspect I might be failing in algebra. I have tried to manage my time effectively, but I am unable to speed up on algebra without losing accuracy.
My current GRE score breakdown
I got 10/12 in the first section. I got 8/15 in my second section, which I suspect was hard difficulty. I got two (out of four) level 3 difficulty arithmetic questions wrong and three (out of four) level 4 and 5 algebra questions wrong. I had four mistakes on level 5 questions.
My plan for the next 2 weeks
- First revise arithmetic and algebra foundation as those are the problem areas.
- Do targeted practice for arithmetic and algebra through gregmat and manhattan 5 lb. Especially algebra word problems. Try to do them one step at a time.
- Maintain an error log, specifically to see which types of arithmetic and algebra questions I am getting wrong. Focusing on what the question is asking for and not getting lost in the details of word problems.
- Do more targeted practice for choosing numbers and back-solving strategies (timed and untimed).
- Then start gregmat hard timed quant and try scoring 13 or 14 on average. Here focus on time management strategies, like skipping questions where I am unsure of the approach, reviewing questions, verifying solutions, etc.
Question
I am a little unsure of my gaps in arithmetic, but have a general idea of where I might be failing. Firstly, based on my current score breakdown, what are my possible weaknesses and areas of improvement. Secondly, and more importantly, is my approach for improving my gaps feasible and effective? Any suggestions for how to approach and improve my current score within my given time frame?
Note: I am off for the 2 weeks so I can dedicate the entire time to practice.