Tupamaros

At the very least familiarise yourself with the types of questions asked and the overall structure of the test. Also take a free practice test from powerprep and that'll be a fairly accurate indication of what you'd score if you took the test. Make your decision as to your level of study after those steps.

Thanks Pat That settles the question for me as to if I should email POIs in advance!

I would note, I have read that the Manhattan tests have different no. of answers correct for different scores, relative to the same scores with ETS/Powerprep. Read that on the Manhattan forum if I recall.

Good post and best of luck on test day, that looks like very good improvement so hopefull all goes well. I agree with you on Barron's. I used it for my first test and felt on test day I was unprepared. It only provides the bare minimum really on the Quant, though it's fine for Verbal I think. When you say Manhattan is harder than Magoosh, are you merely referencing the 3rd (hard) section at the end of each guide, or the guides generally, the 5lb book etc? If it is just the hard section, I'm now sure how you could see that improvement by going over and over the same set of questions in practice?

Marketman, really good post! Did that poster come back to say how they got on second time around?

They are exactly what I'm using. It would not be overkill, for the simple reason that the strategy guides don't offer enough practice problems in my view. If an individual is a math whizz, the strategy guides would be fine, just to get them used to the test etc. But I think the guides and 5lb book complement each other well. The only issue is that it's a LOT of material to cover. You could cover PR or Barron's in no time, but they are quite general. Manhattan's guides take longer because of the depth they go into, and the 5lb book will be slow work also. At the end of it though, if you have the time, I've no doubt Manhatten will improve your score more.

You need to research your desired programmes so as to establish goal scores. Then take a practice test to assess where you are currently, that will give you a good indicator of the amount of study you need to do to reach your goals.

You are clearly capable of much better on quant, so if possible, take it again. Improve every aspect of your application to the optimum degree possible.

Hey Pat Had you emailed them in advance about their interests, or how did that come about?

Brilliant scores, congrats! If you've any words of wisdom/study advice, here is the place

The Manhatten books (in fact any of them) give you access to six practice tests on their website. I would use of these first, and save powerprep for an accurate assessment of your level just before you are due to take the test. The 5lb book is basically all practice questions divided by sub-topic. There is a section at the end to test yourself, but the six online tests are the best resource for that as the functionality will resemble what you'll be dealing with on test day.

Magoosh is an online resource, learning through videos as opposed to books. Just google it and it'll come up. Their blog is quite helpful actually, so you could start there to get a feel for it before spending some coin. Manhatten's 5lb book is the ideal companion to their strategy guides in my opinion, as the guides simply don't have enough problems for practice.

Is 158Q not 74th %ile? http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/concordance_information.pdf For top polsci/IR programmes your math score just about makes the grade imo, but barely. If you could raise it by 3 points you'd be in more solid shape for a top school.

From most people I speak to, it can take a couple months even to see a small jump, say 2-3 points. You've already made nice progress on your last test, so you were bound to hit a plateau. It's important to keep perspective. And even if our desired scores don't materialise, it's still important to get our scores as high as possible in the time we have available.

I made my own. I used a 1000-word SAT list, and already knew about 600 of the words. So I learned the remaining 400 by writing the words up myself. I'm not the best person to advise you on verbal as I'm a native speaker and I scored pretty high with a small amount of preparation. You are better off speaking to someone who was in your shoes and saw improvement. It's the same with quant, someone who is a maths whizz isn't always as helpful to someone struggling as another person who struggled originally and did well.