from 154Q to 163Q in 21 days
This is gonna be a very detailed explanation of my experience with this exam so bear with me. Also, the program I wanted did not care about verbal, so this is all quant focused.
To start, I studied engineering and applied unexpectedly early for a PhD program that required the GRE, so I barely had 2 months to prepare. I tutor Calc 1 and 2 and I’m naturally good at math, so when I looked at the included topics I thought they were so easy (which they are, that’s not the issue).
To put it simply: I underestimated the exam and the time factor.
My prep was all over the place. For the first month I was solving from the Manhattan 5lb book with zero structure, very randomly, and I thought all the questions were easy. I was solving them fairly fast too… except I wasn’t doing timed practice at all.
A few weeks in I took my first practice test (PP1) and scored pretty bad. I had huge time issues, thought the questions felt very different from what I had practiced, and I ran out of time in both sections. At this point my exam was a little over a month away and I started panicking a little because even though I only needed a minimum of 156 I realized it is not guaranteed.
Then I discovered GregMat. I subscribed and realized I needed to work more on foundations specifically altered to GRE-style questions. My main issue was that I always resorted to algebra (typical calculus and differential equations style lol). And yes, algebra solves most questions, but it was taking me SO much time on questions that could be solved with other strategies in like 15 seconds.
But in my head I kept thinking:
the more I solve, the faster I’ll become even with the methods I’m used to. Oh boy I was wrong.
Exam day came and by then I had taken PP2 and all of GregMat’s exams and was scoring in the 155-159 range. I knew there was a real possibility I wouldn’t get the minimum, and honestly I had already accepted defeat and planned to retake it. I ended up with a 154Q.
I spent too much unnecessary time on a lot of questions that I still ended up getting wrong, missed easy questions that could’ve boosted my score, and overall it was just a mess. It really affected my confidence.
I got back home and immediately booked a retake for 21 days later because I had a submission deadline for the program and couldn’t afford to delay it any further.
I wasn’t aiming for 165+ Anything 160+ would’ve been good for me considering I only needed 156 for a program I was already conditionally accepted to.
Here’s the golden tip:
WATCH GREGMAT’S STRATEGY VIDEOS.
Seriously. I was so stubborn about solving everything algebraically. I had basically never:
- backsolved
- chosen numbers
- logically eliminated answers
- picked the “smart” approach over the “technical” one
So I had to completely change the way I approached questions to get out of that loophole.
In those 21 days I:
- solved 800+ questions
- watched all of Greg’s strategy videos
- did all of his timed quizzes
- repeated some quizzes multiple times
- kept an error log
Okay “error log” is generous because what I actually did was keep all the quiz tabs open lol and go back every few days to review mistakes.
I retook PP1 and PP2 and scored 166 and 164 on both.
Then I purchased PPP3 two days before the exam and got a 164.
By that point I was finally confident that I would do better than my first attempt, and I think that confidence mattered a LOT. Since I had already experienced the exam once, I wasn’t stressed during the retake at all.
Honestly, during the verbal sections I was mentally relaxing half the time (which I know is not possible for everyone lol), and I think that helped too. Ended up with a 163Q.
Honestly if I had a few more weeks I probably could’ve gotten even higher because I was JUST starting to fully get the hang of the exam and most of my remaining mistakes were very fixable.
But would I go back and do it again? Absolutely not lol.
I’m just glad IT’S DONE.
BYE GRE AND THANKS GregMat