u/pjsholic

Hi! I took the GRE general test a little over a week ago, and today, my official scores, including my essay score, have finally been released! 167V 170Q 5.0AWA!!! I'm really pleased with my score, considering how nervous and unconfident I was about verbal and essay writing in particular. I honestly was not expecting this score; I was aiming for something like a 160V 165Q 4.0AWA. Definitely not complaining though!

I already made a pretty in-depth post with my tips and advice (which I'll link here if you're interested in reading about my strategies, resources, mock test scores, etc.), so I won't go into much detail about my study materials here. Instead, I want to share more about the experience itself.
I was so, so, so scared. I could barely fall asleep the few days preceding my test date, to the point where I was worried that my own lack of sleep would negatively affect me on test day. It also didn't help that I was taking summer courses at the time, and I had a major school exam less than a week before. On the night before my test, I remember falling asleep at maybe 2 or 3 AM, and jerking awake at around 5 AM despite my test being at 11 AM. I couldn't even stomach my breakfast, and I didn't speak a word in the car ride over because I thought I would either burst into tears or puke.

It feels silly looking back now, but I felt very underprepared because it seemed like everyone else had studied for much longer than me. Heck, I didn't even know what the GRE was until May! I just knew that I had to do it to apply to my dream schools, and that it costs a ridiculous amount of money. Redoing the test was not a realistic option for me, not only because of the price, but also because I would have no time to study for it again, given my schedule for the latter half of summer. Essentially, I knew that I had one shot to take the test and not fuck it up. I never took a standardized test before, so I didn't really know what to expect going in, which kind of made the nerves worse.

But then I checked in at the test centre, I sat down at my spot, and I put on the noise-cancelling headphones. Despite all the nerves and test anxiety from the days beforehand, seeing the familiar interface on the screen seemed to calm me down a lot, and it just felt like I was doing another practice test at home. (Thus, I highly recommend doing a paid ETS PowerPrep Plus practice test! It's definitely pricey, but it really familiarized me with the exact test interface and exam difficulty.)

I don't know what my body does when it's under pressure, but it seems like the anticipation is always the worst part, because once I started the essay, I felt like I was on a roll! My hands stopped shaking, my brain cleared up, and by the end of the essay, I felt pretty sharp. I think the essay is a nice warm-up for the rest of the exam. Then I just went through the same strategies that I used during practice, and it was all smooth sailing from there. Seeing my unofficial scores flash on the screen honestly made my day, as it was proof that all my stressing and studying paid off in the end!

Needless to say, I slept like a baby that night. Probably the best sleep I've had since I started studying for the GRE a month ago.

Hopefully, this post finds people in similar situations -- extremely stressed, overwhelmed by work, and feeling underprepared. You can feel all those, and still do really well!

Hi! I don't often post on Reddit, but since this sub has been a great help to me during my GRE journey, I thought I'd put my experience out there in case someone finds it helpful. I also think my methods are slightly different from what many other posts share.

First of all, I just did my GRE today! That means I don't have my AWA scores yet, but I have my unofficial scores: 167V, 170 Q. This score is much better than I ever could have expected! I was literally shaking on the way to the testing centre this morning because I was so scared.

Background: My background is in chemistry and physics, and I started studying in early-mid May, so in total, about 1.5 months. I was studying for this test while enrolled in a summer course, so I couldn't dedicate as much time to it as I would have wanted. Prior to this, I had never taken a standardized test before. Before I continue, I want to emphasize that we all have different backgrounds and learning styles, and I just want to share what worked for me specifically.

Resources:

• Manhattan Prep 5lbs book
• Official Guide to the GRE (3rd edition)
• Official Guide to the GRE - Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions
• Official Guide to the GRE - Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions
• Magoosh vocab app

I did all the questions, cover to cover, for each textbook above. I split the chapters/problem sets up and did about 1-3 sets per day, depending on whether I had other commitments that day. This allowed me to finish all practice problems about 1-2 weeks in advance of my test, before I moved on to mock tests to test myself. As for the vocab app, I went through all the vocab quizzes. I will note that while I did work through the quizzes, I did not memorize all the words. More on that later.

I did not use Gregmat, which I see included in most posts. I do not doubt that it is an amazing resource at a great value, but personally, I learn better by grinding through practice problems than by doing a structured course and watching videos, plus I was already familiar with the math concepts anyway. Again, personal preferences and learning styles. If you learn best by watching videos and need to touch up on your math, I hear it's a real lifesaver.

Practice/Mock Tests: In chronological order. I took all these within the last week. Both raw scores and scaled scores are included, if given, but scaling differs from test to test. Also, I did not take a diagnostic test before I began studying. In hindsight, it would have been nice to see my improvement, but realistically, it probably would have only discouraged me if I did not score as well as I'd hoped.

• Princeton Review: 162V (20/27) 160Q (22/27) AWA 4.0
• Magoosh: 160V 164Q AWA 5.0
• ETS PowerPrep 1 (unscored): (20/27)V (27/27)Q
• “Official Guide to the GRE” (3rd edition) Test 1: (42/50)V (48/50)Q
• ETS PowerPrep 2: 162V (21/27) 166Q (25/27) 
• "Official Guide to the GRE” (3rd edition) Test 2: (42/50)V (48/50)Q
• ETS PowerPrep Plus 3: 165V (22/27) 167Q (24/27) AWA 5.0

People always say that the ETS paid tests are the most accurate predictor of your scores, and based on today, I'll have to say I agree! The difficulty was pretty much exactly the same, so I strongly recommend everyone take at least one paid PowerPrep Plus test, if they can. I would have taken all three had they not been so pricey.

Verbal: I was the least confident in my verbal section. In fact, I believe the last time I made a post on Reddit, it was inquiring about the importance of GRE verbal scores for a STEM program. That's how unconfident I was.

I am a terrible reader. When I come across large, dense chunks of text, my eyes glaze over, and I realize I'm scanning the words without actually taking anything in. I am also terrible at memorization in general, so I had zero confidence that I would be able to memorize the seemingly infinite number of GRE vocab words. Here's what worked for me, and might work for you if you have the same problems as me.

• I did NOT just go through other people's flashcards! I would read and forget them immediately.
• I did one Magoosh vocab app quiz every day, and while it did help me remember a few words, I found myself mostly just powering through the quiz and forgetting the words afterward.
• What I DID do, which worked the best, was I did all the verbal practice questions in the resources listed above. For every word I encountered that I didn't recognize (even if it wasn't the correct answer), I wrote it down in a notebook along with a short definition or synonym. I'm not really sure why this worked so much better than the former methods, but I think it helps because you're putting the words into context, and you're going through them slower.
• I made this list into a set of Quizlet flashcards, and I would add to them with every new verbal practice set I did. This was a slower process than using other premade flashcards, but I think writing the definitions/synonyms myself really helped them stick for me.
• In total, I only memorized about 400 new words, but I made sure that I knew these 400 words in my sleep. 400 words hard-coded in your brain is much more useful than 1500 words you kinda recognize.
• Obviously, this meant I would still encounter words I didn't recognize, but it still made picking answers by process of elimination much easier when these words were among the other choices. For the words I didn't recognize, I would try to look for the roots to figure out what they could relate to. (eg. veri- probably means something to do with truth, -loquence probably means something to do with speech, etc.)
• As for RC, this I struggled with the most, but my strategy is to be very picky about the choices and be very strict when eliminating answers. What I mean by this is that an answer can sound right, but the tiniest word choice can make it completely irrelevant to the reading.
• EDIT: I went more in-depth about my actual process for answering the verbal questions in the comments; you can take a look if you're interested!

Quantitative: While I was far more confident in my math skills, I realized that I needed a much higher score in quant than verbal, considering the programs I am targeting, as well as the fact that the quant median is significantly higher than verbal. Basically, I knew I had to stand out in quant, but I could probably get away with an average verbal score, so I tried to focus my efforts here.

When I first started looking at GRE quant questions, I thought that they weren't very hard. The math itself was essentially high school math, and I do a decent amount of math in university. I personally found the math itself to be easy, but the tricks and traps were always what tripped me up. Anyways, here's my breakdown.

• It goes without saying, but if you aren't coming from a STEM background, review the basic concepts. There's this neat little formula sheet that's somewhere online; it's about 10 pages, so I'd start with skimming those and making sure you know at least the foundations (as in properties of numbers, area of triangles, basic stuff). There are a few hyper-specific properties in there that I didn't know and didn't see in any of the practice questions, so don't worry about learning EVERYTHING. This step is just making sure you know enough to get started on the practice.
• I spammed practice problems. That's it. I mentioned at the beginning, but I already know that I learn the best through doing problems, making mistakes, and learning from mistakes. If you learn differently from me, maybe take a different approach.
• I timed myself when I did each practice set. I knew I had to get used to working under time pressure for the exam, so it didn't make sense to practice without the clock. If you are still working on building the fundamentals, maybe start untimed, but definitely move to timed practice as soon as you can.
• After each practice set, I checked my answers. If I got the question wrong, I made sure I knew exactly what went wrong.
• At the end of each practice set, I made a list of the questions I got wrong, as well as 1-2 lines about why I went wrong. Was it a calculation error? Did I forget a negative case? Or did I fundamentally not understand a certain property? This was a great way to catch gaps in my understanding.
• A few days before my real exam, I made a master study sheet, where I compiled the properties/formulas that I had trouble remembering (in my case, compound interest for example), and a summary of my most frequent mistakes (this is where my list at the end of each practice set came in handy).
• I also targeted learning about tricks and traps in quant questions, because many times, I got the answer wrong because of the wording tripping me up. Or sometimes they trick me into jumping right into calculations without seeing a more straightforward solution. Overall, quant practice was less about learning math for me, but getting used to the tricks in GRE-style questions.
• EDIT: Forgot to add this initially, but one of the biggest things that helped me is knowing when to skip a question and move on. This seems pretty obvious, but the first time I took a mock test, I spent too long trying to chip away at a question, and I had to rush through the last handful (which is reflected in my first mock test score). On the actual GRE, if I couldn't figure out an efficient way to get to the answer, I would guess, mark, and move on. This meant I could do all the easy questions first, and I would have 6-8 minutes remaining to crack the few difficult questions with a fresh perspective. The second look + lessened pressure from knowing all the other questions were done really helped, and I was able to get the answers quite easily on the second pass.

Essay: I do not have much to say about this, since I only have my unofficial scores. I'm going to abstain from commenting on this, at least until I get my official scores.

Final thoughts: I kind of just brain-dumped all at once, so I probably missed some things I wanted to say. I'll add to this if I think of anything else, or if anyone has any questions. I want to say one last thing, though:

Even though I studied for over a month, I only booked the test a week in advance. I found that booking the test later alleviated a lot of pressure and allowed me to be flexible with my studying. I would personally recommend against booking the test too far in advance for that reason, but again, my personal take.

Will be happy to answer if there are any questions! It's my first time making a post on Reddit that isn't a question, so apologies if the formatting isn't great.

I’ve seen others ask this from older posts, but they didn’t plan to stay in academia, so I was hoping to ask again here.

I’m starting my final year of undergraduate studies (chemistry) at a pretty good research university, and I’d like to do a PhD next. I really like my current school — I love the city, my family and friends are all here, and I like the research that my professors do. Plus, from what I’ve seen, the funding I’d get domestically is much better than what I’d get in another country.

It’s my dream to be a professor someday, though. Would staying here for my PhD be really that bad for staying in academia? Would it affect opportunities in the future, or would it just raise a few eyebrows?