Was psyched to get this cheesesteak beef (Philly Gourmet brand) cause its cheap and allegedly lean as hell. But looking at it there’s no way this meat is 2g of fat per 112g right? That would be 98% lean. Other similar products seem to list like 5x that much fat
Feel like I butchered the writing though, I genuinely blanked on anything interesting to say about the issue for the first 5 minutes. So I will just enjoy the 340 for now until I get any bad news
Anyway some thoughts on the test, hopefully helpful for somebody:
**Verbal** - I found the reading sections on my test to be significantly easier than practice tests/material (see below for my prep resources). The readings seemed shorter and just easier to understand on one pass without going back over them a few times like some of the denser ones I saw in practice tests. Even the questions about them seemed more straightforward. Not sure if this is a trend in GREs overall or just my test being a bit of an outlier. The vocab questions also seemed slightly easier, there were one or two words I didn't know but but never more than one in one question so I could always use process of elimination.
The trickiest thing in verbal for me is when you're between two possible answers on a reading comprehension question, which always happens for me at least a couple times per section. My rule of thumb is to then shift from "what feels right" to going as stupidly literal and pedantic as possible. If you can find some concrete piece of evidence, even if it is 2 words which have absolutely nothing to do with the main thrust of the text, that make it so even the slimiest lawyer in a court couldn't possibly prove the answer incorrect, then that's the one you pick.
**Quant** - this was WAY more of a challenge, but I expected that so I prepared for it a lot. Still honestly surprised at my score, since there were a lot of questions I blitzed through when I was short on time. For GRE I had to completely change my usual strategy for math tests, which is to do one pass quickly and then go back at the end and check over everything with fresh eyes. I found I just never had time for the 2 full passes with these time limits. So I had to switch to a single pass, just trying to read the questions more carefully (but still mark anything that was especially hard or tricky so I could come back to it).
For me the key thing with quant was timing and figuring out how not to blow too much time on the hard ones. I realized somewhere along the way with practice questions that they basically ALL have a trick of some kind, and if you don't see it in the first minute just mark it and move on. That really served me well today, got hit with a question that was totally incomprehensible. I was really tempted to keep frantically trying to manipulate the expressions but I made myself move on and finish the section first. Sure enough I was able to get back to it with a few minutes left and found the trick within about 20 seconds. If something seems too hard to be true it probably is, they always make things reduce in a friendly way or make it solvable if you can see the concept. For practicing hard questions this guys Google Drive link was really helpful:
https://www.reddit.com/r/GRE/comments/krumwj/all_the_hardest_gre_quant_problems_from_all/
(just note there is no answer key for the Manhattan questions and the ETS answer key has a couple mistakes, but I just drag and dropped them into AI to check solutions).
This cheat sheet thing is also awesome for learning tricks I didn't really see laid out anywhere else:
https://gre.blog.targettestprep.com/gre-math-cheat-sheet/
I'd recommend really spending some time with that, and the rules where you don't quite grasp how to use it in questions, just have AI generate some related practice questions for you. How to find the number of factors of an integer, greatest common factor, lowest common multiple, number of elements in a sequence, all the different cases for inequalities involving positive and negative numbers and absolute values, all that stuff was pretty new to me and really useful. Like I said IMO these questions are all basically just tricks. If you can get to a point mentally where you know for sure that you have all of the actual mathematical knowledge you need, and you can approach it as a game of just puzzling out where they have hidden the trick, then quant becomes much less intimidating.
**Prep** - I studied about 2-3 months but pretty spaced out. Seems like I'm the only one here that didn't use Gregmat. I bought a paper copy of the ETS Official Guide book and did that basically cover to cover. Also did the 2 free tests and all 3 of the paid tests online, one towards the beginning of my prep period, one in the middle, and one a few days before the test. Score when I started I think was 327. Good luck to all