How do you prepare for the Chemistry GRE?

[Pnictides]

Should I use textbooks, old exams, prep books, class notes, online notes, etc.?

[mcstev13]

The old exams will give you a good idea of what material you need to spend the most time studying. When it comes to actually studying material, honestly I found that re-reading all of my old textbooks worked best. People have even made lists in this forum about what textbooks really worked for them.

[waddle]

Should I use textbooks, old exams, prep books, class notes, online notes, etc.?

There was a good discussion in this thread:

[nechalo]

I recommend the ACS subject review guides for general, organic, and physical (none for analyt or upper inorganic). You may find them at your library or they're not too expensive.

[quimico]

I took it this past October and managed to score 860 (90%). Integral to doing well (at least for me) was getting my hands on official test material directly from ETS. Don't waste your time using any of the awful, error ridden prep books written by anyone else.

Unfortunately, ETS no longer publishes "GRE: Practicing to Take the Chemistry Test" and if you search on websites like Ebay you'll find lots of A-holes who are trying to gouge (sometimes hundreds of $$$) those who are looking for it. If you're lucky, however, you can find a copy at a library like I did.

The book is a gold mine. It has over 100 practice problems VERY similar to those I saw on my test. This book, in addition to the two practice tests from 2000 and 2006 available online, means having almost 4 whole tests to help you determine your weak areas. Then all you have to do is review those areas using your class notes and textbooks (assuming you didn't sell them back for beer money).

Hope this helps. Good luck!

[Pnictides]

How many full length exams are on the book, "GRE: Practicing to Take the Chemistry Test", 3rd edition? Or rather the question I should ask is what edition did you used that has 2 full length practice exams (since you said 4 total counting the 2000 and 2006 exams).

[quimico]

Pnictides,

There is only one full-length exam (from 1995) in the book (3rd edition was the one I had). In addition, the book has ~100 practice questions that are grouped by area (analytical, organic, etc). What I mean by 4 full tests is that when you take into account these 100 extra questions, plus the 1995, 2000, and 2006 full length tests, you basically have 4 whole tests to study from.

[nechalo]

that's a really good tip, as someone who recently took the chem GRE I agree that the old tests were indeed the best study material. I only had the two posted online though. I took one really early on to give me an idea of what it would be like, and give some stuff to focus on. I then went through both of the exams the night before the test to help review and get into "GRE chem" mode.

Edited December 25, 2011 by nechalo

[contretemps]

The 1995 subject test is also available online aside from the 2000 and 2006 test. I posted the link here:

I tried all the review books. REA was too outdated, with very, very easy questions. The Princeton review book sample test is quite similar to the GRE sample tests.

[Pnictides]

For the GRE Chemistry code, GRXX27, where "GR" stands for GRE, "27" stands for the Chemistry subject code, and XX stands for the year it is administered in like 90 means 1990, 06 means 2006, etc.

Is there a way to know what month of the year it was administered in?

Also is it true that in "1 cycle of the school year" where October is the start of the cycle and April is the end of the cycle, that the GRE Chemistry exams administered in that time frame has similar questions? By this, I mean like the October 2011 exam has similar (sometimes even exact questions) as those found on the November 2011 exam and April 2012 exam? Has anyone taken the Chemistry GRE more than once in 1 cycle?

The reason why I ask this is because my professor says he thinks he still has the prep book that contains the 1977-1978 exam as well as another version of the prep book by ETS that has the 1978 exam and he recalled that the exams were indentical (but he still needs to find the book and double check).

He might have gotten the years wrong, so it could have been something like 1975-1976 and another 1976 book.