u/EffectiveRealist

i'm looking for another book that will take over my life and reorganize my very perspective on the world. some of my favorite books of all time, in no particular order:

• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
• The Years by Annie Ernaux
• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• Babel by R.F. Kuang
• My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (the whole quartet)
• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (the whole trilogy)
• Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
• Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
• Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (I've read all Ishiguro more or less)

generally a fan of: brilliant, arresting prose; slight air of repression or solitude or complexity, usually due to culture - as if there is something almost unspoken occurring; something with deeper meaning/themes but still excellent character development

I took my test on the 21st of May. See in the comments for proof (my score report - it won't let me add to the body of the post for some reason). I wanted to make this post with some of the relevant information I wish I had known before the test but please note this is very particular to my situation. One of the main things I realized is that all the test material and advice out there is not targeted towards your specific situation, and it's up to you to only adopt the advice that is useful to you.

Context: American, taking GRE for PhD applications

My practice score tests:

• Diagnostic (the first practice test in the GRE 3rd edition): 162V, 160Q
• PPP1 (five days before test): 170V, 160Q - ran out of time on the quant section
• PPP2 (two days before test): 168V, 162Q

From my diagnostic I learned a few things. One, my verbal ceiling was very high. I had a lot of time to spare on the section (10+ minutes each) and all my errors were vocab-based (unfamiliarity with particular words). Two, quant would be much more difficult: I nearly ran out of time on the section, and encountered problems I hadn't seen since grade school.

I then followed the GregMat "I'm Overwhelmed" plan for Quant. For verbal I just studied the Magoosh vocab flashcards (basic + common words).

Now onto the tips - the quant ones are specifically how I went from the 160 to 170 in just a few days.

Quant

• Start practicing timed quant way earlier than online places recommend. In fact, don't really do untimed quant at all. My issue with PPP1 is that I had been doing non-timed quant sections, all of which I found very easy once I refreshed my quant knowledge. But I wasn't realizing that it was taking me a minute to solve a problem that should have taken me 30 seconds. I have always loved algebra amongst the mathematics; I was therefore solving many questions algebraically. This is death on the GRE. You don't have time, and it's way too easy to make a mistake. If I could go back, I would solve every quant problem and section (official ETS material, Manhattan, etc.) allowing myself no more than ~1:30 per question. For any question that takes you longer, flag that as a place to drill.
• Use LLMs as personalized tutors; don't bother with online tutoring. I uploaded every single math mistake I had ever made, across every practice test and section, to Claude, and made it drill me on similar problems. Some of the problems it comes up with are quite easy but the quality can be surprisingly good. I had signed up for one GregMat tutoring session; it was totally useless and a waste of time, I cannot recommend against it enough. I would also have Claude test me on what strategies I should use to solve particular quant problems, which brings me to...
• Learn quant strategies way earlier than GregMat tells you. GregMat has you learn all the quant foundations before you get to learn about strategies. I find this to be a bit out of order. Yes, it's nice to have the fundamental quant knowledge. But you don't need it for a lot of the problems on the GRE. Learn strategies like plugging in numbers and choosing numbers first. If there are variables in the answer choices, you are plugging in numbers. If the answers are number choices, you are probably backsolving. For the QC questions, you always test the ZONE-F numbers within constraints (Zero, One, Negative, Extreme, Fraction).
• Write everything down on paper. Even if it's 2+2. If you have time to go back and check your work, you need to know what calculations you actually made. Doing anything in your head will lead to extraordinary errors.
• Understand your error patterns. For me, almost every quant mistake I made was either a careless error (from hasty algebra) or something else related to time pressure. My content gaps were minimal. If I ever did find a content gap, I drilled myself on the relevant Manhattan chapter, solving every single problem, or using Claude to drill me on the problems. If I made a careless error, I resolved the question, writing out every single step to see where I had gone wrong the first time.
• Solve out of order. If a problem looks scary on first read, and you don't immediately understand it, mark it and skip. It's better to come back to what is an easy problem than to sink time into something your brain isn't prepared to solve. This happened on the actual GRE; a problem that should have been a 15-second solve made my mind go blank the first time I saw it. I skipped, solved a bunch of others, came back and saw the 15-second solution and was fine. If I had stayed on that problem, I would have taken 30 seconds+ to understand it and wasted a ton of time.

Verbal

• The GRE is fundamentally a vocab test. There's no way around it. You have to memorize vocab. Knowing roots and stems is nice; if you've taken Latin, I envy you; but otherwise, just memorize. Rote memorize. Use flashcards (handwritten). If you encounter a word you can't immediately define, make a physical flashcard of it and test yourself on it every day.
• Read, a lot. I read a lot of fiction and news already. The best places to find GRE-style vocab: The New Yorker (long-form), the London Review of Books, and older novels from the 1920s-1950s. Contemporary fiction is nice; usually written in too simplistic of a style. Reading in context helps cement vocab.
• For multiple select, there must be an evidentiary sentence in the text itself. These were the only questions I got consistently wrong on verbal. The trick here is that every single time, there will be a corresponding sentence in the text that proves the point. If you can't find that sentence, don't mark. "Well, the vibe seems right, and I know from prior experience that this is probably true..." No! That's how they get you. This is reading comprehension, not common sense.
• Some of these questions are logic-based. It's probably why law schools, much to their chagrin, still accept the GRE. Some of the questions are logical deductions. So treat them as such. What evidence does the paragraph give me? What conclusions can I draw?
• Go out of order if time is a problem. There is a law of diminishing returns on verbal. In order, solve: text completion (fastest), sentence equivalence, then the largest paragraph with the most questions, then paragraphs with two questions, then paragraphs with one question. You don't get points for working through it in order, you get points for the number of questions you get correct.

AWA

I can't help with prep for this that much because I honestly didn't prep for this section. But some maybe useful ideas:

• Five paragraph, standard high school essay. Introduction paragraph ends with your thesis in a sentence. Three body paragraphs with a topic sentence that relates directly to your thesis, and a concluding sentence. The third body paragraph should provide a counterpoint you then dismantle. Final paragraph is a conclusion.
• Outline your argument on paper. Check off each point as you make it.
• Divide your time: 5 mins outlining, 20 mins writing, 5 mins proofreading.
• Use your new GRE vocab words! You learned them, now deploy them. Write in a higher register than you would normally. This is a formal academic essay.

Day of

• Take the test at a testing center, if available to you.
• Ask for new scrap paper between sections. When you finish a section, you get to take a breath (no official break, but I think you have probably 90 seconds before you have to click continue). Ask for new paper during this time. My proctors got annoyed I was asking for so much paper. Didn't care. I wanted new paper for each section, it helped.
• Eat a big breakfast with protein and listen to music you like that's soothing on the way over.

Hopefully this was helpful even a little bit for some of you. Happy to answer questions in the comments if people have any. You got this ❤️

EDIT: if it's helpful, this is the prompt I gave my Claude:

>You are a GRE math tutor. I will give you problems I got wrong or that took me too long, and it is your job to explain them to me simply until it's clear I have mastered the concept. You should ask questions of me to ensure I understand what is occurring at core. After you are satisfied I understand what is going on mathematically, it is your duty to give me practice problems that test the same concept but are meaningfully different from the original problem. I will then send you answers and explain my thought processes so that we can ensure I have mastered the material. You must ask clarifying or follow up questions after each explanation.

i took a diagnostic in the beginning of last month and scored 162v/160q. i knew verbal wouldn't be an issue for me, but felt quant i needed to really improve my foundation. so i did the gregmat prepswift package, working through every single module, and felt like i had become much stronger on the core concepts.

then today i took a power prep + test on ets official, and scored 170v/160q. the verbal increase is great (but verbal has always been my stronger point) but not to have increased AT ALL in quant is super disheartening. my problem with the diagnostic was that i felt i didn't have enough time; i STILL felt that today, even after reviewing all the concepts and drilling etc. etc.

i am not sure what to do to maximize my score. i know the math concepts cold. my mistakes on quant today were

section 1:

1. something i forgot about triangles

2. stupid error, flipping an inequality

3. another stupid error where i was running out of time to check all answer options (on a select all that apply question)

section 2:

1. stupid error, running out of time, i knew how to solve but applied a formula backwards from stress

2. didn't have time to check an all that apply

3. straight up ran out of time to solve so had to omit (but knew)

so it's not a content problem at all, only 1 question i would've been wrong on for sheer content reasons. it's a timing issue. i have almost 10-15 minutes to spare on the verbal and zero seconds left on quant.

i'm feeling quite disheartened as i need at least a 165+ on my quant for the programs i am applying to. is a 5 point increase possible when the issue is fundamentally time and not content, seems the gains would be much lower?

my plan for the next 5 days:

1. wallow a bit today and take 1 more timed official ets quant section (from the fourth edition book)

2. tutoring session tomorrow, i just signed up for one, and ask specifically for QC strategies to make things go faster in case i can save time there. also figure out the "check all that apply" strategy. any other time saving metrics anyone has would be amazing

3. take another power prep full test in 3 days to see if my quant has improved at all

would really welcome any advice at all, or anything. i know i'm down to the wire here but i can always retake it but i would so prefer to not have to. if i could get a 170 / 165 i would be totally set

I don't know why, but I have been unable to stop listening to this variation. I'm really new to classical music so I don't have the right language to explain it, but I love how the piece feels a little desperate, a little anxious, like it's racing ahead of itself somehow. I also feel like the strings when they go high are almost engaging in a kind of pleading. It reminds me as if someone was trying to desperately get everything out that they wanted to say to someone before they knew they had to leave and they knew they were forgetting to say so many things but they had to keep trying anyways.