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.

Verbal is going to be quite slow to improve, so there is not much else you can do but keep at it. When you read something and see a word you don't know, always look it up. And plenty of people don't recommend just learning hundrends of new words to boost your vocabulary, but it definitely helped me and words I learns through flash cards actually came up on test day.

Have you gone through all the Manhattan guides? I'm on my 3rd guide now, and dread to think how I'd do in a practice test right now. I also found early on that the guides simply don't offer enough practice questions, as the hard section is almost a write-off it can be so difficult, so that leaves just 40 questions on a couple of topics. To help I bought the 5lb book, which offers plenty of questions on all the sub-topics. Keep the faith though, people reach plateaus in their study and don't improve for a while, then make a little jump..and the process continues. But targetting your weak areas is definitely a good idea, you just need enough questions to do that. Studying is frustrating, especially when it seems there is no progress (I know, trust me). But the one thing you have to keep is a positive attitude, it is much easier said than done, but being optimistic and confident will make your study go much better.

Yeah, not exactly the most constructive of threads. Also, the OP didn't do himself/herself any favours in the general way they framed that question. ''Czech politics and the roots of terrorism'' - this made me giggle, though.

You didn't do 9 questions and still got a Q161?? If that's the case then with some time management you could really get that score up.

Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but just came across it while searching for admission/GRE stats at schools. Question; is the information in the link RWBG provided (http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/political-science/rank/________________M_______________________________________________U) accurate with regard to average GRE scores for each of the schools? And if so, does ETS' most recent concordance table give an accurate conversion of these scores eg. Does Stanford's 775Q mean that their average is roughly a 162Q score? I would have thought it was higher...

That's a crazy drop in your quant on test day. Who did you do your practice tests with, and was it a problem with language or nerves or something?

Good call Here's mine: Started: April 2013 Goal scores: V165 Q162 Practice test scores: 1st - V:N/A Q149 Previous GRE scores: V165 Q153 GRE test date: Undecided. Materials: Manhatten Strategy Guides/Manhatten 5lb Book

Hi folks, After mentioning this to one or two posters I thought it may be useful to create a thread like this. Essentially, the intention is to provide a space where people who are currently studying for the GRE can talk about it, share their plans/progress/problems/methods, and ultimately hone their studying skills and improve their score through mutual discussion. Of course, input from people who have been through the process and can offer their 2 cents would also be very useful. It can also act as a place of motivation for students to turn to, and seek advice/have a rant if necessary, during what can be quite a long process. To kick things off, I began my study in earnest this week. I am a previous test-taker (last year) and require a sizable jump on the quant side of things. I restarted studying a few weeks back but quickly got distracted and due to travel had to stop for a bit, so this week I've begun properly. I have completed over 20 hours, all of which has been focused on quant. The materials I am using are Manhatten. Previously I used Princeton Review and Barron's general book, the former being quite poor if you're looking for a good Q score and the latter being a little better but ultimately limited also. Manhatten's guides are excellent thus far, but have two problems as I see them. First, they are very long, which has it's good and bad points. They seem very thorough, which is important. The other side of the coin is that study will take quite a while to get through. However, their quality is better than PR and Barron's and worth the extra cash. The second problem is the lack of Q questions available, with the 'Hard' section at the end being extremely difficult to the point I can't do any of it really. To rectify this I also have bought the 5lb book, which has more problems than you may need! So that's that problem solved. Regarding study methods, previously I rushed through the content, pretty much approaching it like a book. I would go through a section, do the problems, next section. This approach doesn't work for me, as the content is quickly forgotten (and there's a lot of content to go through before you can return to your first topic etc.). Now I'm sticking with a topic a bit longer, doing the problems and then re-doing it before moving on. Hopefully this helps with both learning and retention! In relation to scores, I took a test to see where I currently stand and it was a 149Q. My goal is >90 percentile in verbal and >80th percentile in quant. Let the work commence!

That's some decent progress on quant, keep it up! I don't believe your verbal has fallen that far down though, you'd need a couple more tests to get an idea of where you're really at imo. Yeah I took a practice test (just math) and got a 149Q. 4 below my real score last year, but nice to know where I'm at. I did on/off study with Manhatten for about 2 weeks prior, where I just went through the books and practice Qs (went straight through two quant books). I found this approach poor to be honest, as the content was hard to retain. So now after 2 odd weeks off/away I've restarted this week with a different approach whereby I'm going to spend a bit more time on the individual books. As there are 6 Q books ahead of me it's very time consuming and it's a steep hill ahead, but I think taking your time and not rushing through the content is the best way to retain as much info as possible.

How's the study going Imago? Perhaps a thread should be started for progress updates for those of us studying over the coming period! I scored a 153Q last year in the test. 2 weeks into study this time I took a practice test and scored a 149, with my original diagnostic being a 145. My goal is to score between 160-162. As for prep resources catbarf, I'm using Manhatten now and it's much more thorough (but waaay longer and thus more time consuming) than PR or Barron's. I think maybe Manhatten for quant and vary it for verbal with Barron's or something. And learn a few hundred words to boost your vocab