How much money did you (or will you) spend on studying for the GRE?

[babyboomer11]

Hi guys, just wanted to gut-check how much I should expect to spend on studying for the GRE. How much did you guys spend when you were studying (or how much do you plan on spending)? What did you spend that money on?

 

Thanks!

[GeoDUDE!]

I did not study. I took the free power prep tests online and then went and took the exam.

[Vene]

I spent $0 on GRE prep. I spent my time looking for free math problems to practice on and called it good.

[biotechie]

I also did not spend any money on GRE prep. I reviewed some of my old math notes the night before. In the couple of months before I took it, I read a lot of Jane Austen and used a free GRE verbal prep app made by students at MIT. The app just gave me words and I had to pick the right definition... it was pretty boring. I don't think the app was helpful, but reading works with highly variable vocabulary does. I never did any "real" studying. I was able to score decently well and I got into my top two programs.

Edited July 6, 2014 by biotechie

[TakeruK]

I spent no money on GRE prep. I used various websites with sample GRE questions and kept doing them until I felt ready for the types of questions I would get. For me, It took a while to get the hang of what they expect--especially the fill in the blank type questions. My favourite website to use was: http://www.majortests.com/gre/. This was more "orientation/prep" than studying, but it helped me understand how the test works.

 

To study study, I just spent 2-3 hours per week memorizing word lists from the above website. With every list, they have a quiz so that was handy. I only got through 500 out of the thousands of words there but that was enough to do well in the GRE for me. My goal for the verbal was to score above the 75th percentile. 

 

From my prep above, I found that if you have limited time to study, just straight up memorizing a whole bunch of GRE words will give you the most return on your investment. In doing this, I ended up scoring above the 90th percentile, so I was very happy with my strategy. I definitely screwed up a bunch of questions in the reading comprehension section, where word memorization isn't as important, but oh well. Note: I took the "old" GRE where they had a lot of vocab questions without any context (e.g. synonym/antonym/analogies). I have heard that the new test does not have as much of this so perhaps memorization isn't as useful anymore. 

 

I didn't study math since my undergrad degree more than prepared me for the level of math in the GRE. I did complete a few practice question sets though, just to get used to what they will ask. I got the maximum score, so I was happy with my level of prep.

 

Finally, in the week prior to the exam, I used the Powerprep stuff from ETS directly to simulate a test situation. I found this pretty helpful as well.

 

I didn't prepare for the analytical writing at all, except for writing 2 practice essays the night before. I felt this was a mistake though but since I did not think the AW score mattered very much for my PhD programs, and that I knew my own writing ability is approx 4.5/6 and I would be happy with that score, I didn't spend my time on AW prep. In the end, I got the score I wanted, so I was happy!

 

Although I spent no money on GRE prep, I did have to spend about $200-$300 in total for travel costs (and staying the night before) for the two GREs I wrote (General and Subject) because I didn't live in a city with a test center but the closest one was closer than the limit for creating a new one.

[wopr6753]

I spent about $20 to get two books: the Kaplan book (with like 5 practice tests) and a Barron book of just practice tests. Also used the free Magoosh flashcards app. There are also many free resources online for just about anything (like explanations to most quantitative problems).

[victorydance]

$99 on magoosh.

 

I downloaded about 15 books for free off the internet.