Doing a survey: How much time did you take to prepare for the GRE?

[TakeruK]

Hi, I appreciate your input! Looks like you didn't study much? V + A maybe a total of 45-55 hours? How satisfied were you with your score?

Thanks!

That sounds about right! On Verbal, I got 630/800 (91%) which I was really really happy about (my goal was to 75%)!! I was lucky to get a lot of words that I studied for. On Quant, I got 800/800 (94%), but I had to guess the very last question on the adaptive computer test. Analytic writing, I got 4.5/6, which was the minimum I was aiming for, so I can't complain. Probably should have worked harder on that part though, but the general GRE didn't matter very much to the programs I were applying to.

[gellert]

2 weeks, 2-4 hours/day. Only studied quant, no verbal.

Verbal: 99%

Quant: 84%

Edited March 30, 2012 by gellert

[contretemps]

I took a month off and I studied almost all day, everyday (except weekends). Took the test last September. I think I got decent scores, enough to not get my application thrown out immediately.

[zea mays]

I took about 2-3 weeks. I seriously (meaning came home from work and studied until I went to bed) studied the last week of that time.

V=162/90%

Q=151/56%

AW=5.0/87

ETA: It was not stellar but good enough to get me into the program I wanted.

Edited March 30, 2012 by zea mays

[wildviolet]

I unfortunately will not have the summer off (I really wish I did)! I took the winter quarter + spring quarter off so I can raise my GPA as high as possible! What exactly is your doctoral program or masters?

PhD in Education. I was accepted to 3 out of 4 programs that I applied to--all with top researchers in my field. I already had an MS with thesis from a local state university with a 4.0 grad GPA. My undergrad GPA was 3.14 (science at a top private university that did not inflate grades). My summer was "off" because I'm a high school teacher. But, I have two young children, so my summer was not exactly paradise.

[ccarmona]

PhD in Education. I was accepted to 3 out of 4 programs that I applied to--all with top researchers in my field. I already had an MS with thesis from a local state university with a 4.0 grad GPA. My undergrad GPA was 3.14 (science at a top private university that did not inflate grades). My summer was "off" because I'm a high school teacher. But, I have two young children, so my summer was not exactly paradise.

Inspiring, thanks for the input. I had my child early on. When I was a junior in college. It wasn't planned and it was difficult. I had a 3.0 before my junior year, but I ended my program with a 2.2 (degree conferred). I am finishing my masters in business here soon with a 3.18-3.29 (depends on if I get a B or A). My cumulative GPA is a 2.68 (Fresh-Senior). My greatest fear is not even getting looked at for a PhD at a research school. Every-way I look at my situation it gets more and more frustrating considering my U-GPA + G-GPA is not enough for most cutoffs at 3.0. As far as career I am going from the corporate world to the education field. A teacher in business secondary education is my goal as I lost interest climbing the corporate ladder some time ago. I feel it will be much more fulfilling. So as I transition from business degree's to an education degree I was hoping my last degree was a PhD in Education, if not this one maybe an EdD. My first goal was to complete a PhD in Business but since its so competitive in this area I am coming to terms with not pursuing it. It doesn't make any sense if I am switching careers.

This summer I will also be teaching at a community college and I start my secondary education certification classes next month. There is an internship here in Arizona that allows me to teach in my field (business) and also get certified at the same time. Not sure what state you live in or what level you teach but any input would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

Edited March 30, 2012 by ccarmona

[TropicalCharlie]

I have been out of school for a long while, so I studied about 1-3 hours 6 days a week for 3 months while working full-time. It's interesting that I scored better in verbal than quant since I'm stronger in quant. I did well enough in my first attempt that I didn't have to retake it.

Edited March 31, 2012 by TropicalCharlie

[peacebyinches]

Considering I had a massive amount of spare time in the months leading up to the test I probably should have prepared more, but easier said than done right?

One thing I noticed for me was that there was really no point in studying extensively for the verbal part, even if I had tripled the amount of preparing I did for the verbal section I doubt my score would have been a whole lot better. (I got 86% percentile if it matters) How much can you really improve your vocabulary and reading comprehension in a few months? I bought a book that had 800 "commonly seen" GRE vocabulary words and I don't think I explicitly learned the meaning of very many words at all.

I only got 69% in the quantitative part and I definitely should have prepared more for this section. I was rehashing some basic math principles at the very last second and I do remember seeing a problem or 2 that made me go "wtf is this??" and a few others that took me entirely to long to figure out.

I scored a 4.5 on the writing, a score I may or may not have been able to improve with preparation. My biggest issue with this part was having only 30 minutes to write each response. I feel I am a strong writer when given enough time (which for me may be longer than average, but that's just how I write I guess). Sitting down and practicing these responses in a timed manner was so unbelievably frustrating for me, it took me at least 15 tries to actually finish a timed response successfully. I would get a prompt, brainstorm, start writing and 10 minutes later only have 4 sentences typed and give up. Since I was not very prepared in a timed setting, I ran out of time during both of my responses so the end of my conclusions looked something like:

"The author of this article provides evidence based on flawed assumptions and [*omfg 10 seconds left!*] whisch , its implications are they improvement needed more "

So that probably didn't help... haha.

Anyways, I wish I did more practice tests in a structured manner, but I also feel like people over estimate how much they can improve their GRE scores through studying, especially in areas they are already strong in.

[ccarmona]

Considering I had a massive amount of spare time in the months leading up to the test I probably should have prepared more, but easier said than done right?

One thing I noticed for me was that there was really no point in studying extensively for the verbal part, even if I had tripled the amount of preparing I did for the verbal section I doubt my score would have been a whole lot better. (I got 86% percentile if it matters) How much can you really improve your vocabulary and reading comprehension in a few months? I bought a book that had 800 "commonly seen" GRE vocabulary words and I don't think I explicitly learned the meaning of very many words at all.

I only got 69% in the quantitative part and I definitely should have prepared more for this section. I was rehashing some basic math principles at the very last second and I do remember seeing a problem or 2 that made me go "wtf is this??" and a few others that took me entirely to long to figure out.

I scored a 4.5 on the writing, a score I may or may not have been able to improve with preparation. My biggest issue with this part was having only 30 minutes to write each response. I feel I am a strong writer when given enough time (which for me may be longer than average, but that's just how I write I guess). Sitting down and practicing these responses in a timed manner was so unbelievably frustrating for me, it took me at least 15 tries to actually finish a timed response successfully. I would get a prompt, brainstorm, start writing and 10 minutes later only have 4 sentences typed and give up. Since I was not very prepared in a timed setting, I ran out of time during both of my responses so the end of my conclusions looked something like:

"The author of this article provides evidence based on flawed assumptions and [*omfg 10 seconds left!*] whisch , its implications are they improvement needed more "

So that probably didn't help... haha.

Anyways, I wish I did more practice tests in a structured manner, but I also feel like people over estimate how much they can improve their GRE scores through studying, especially in areas they are already strong in.

Gosh, I never really thought about it the way you explained. My thinking is improving in these areas (V + A) to up my chances. Even if its +1 or +15 I am not sure how much graduate programs are paying attention to scores anymore. It seems more like a requisite than anything else? But I am stuck cause my strength is math, not V or A. The probability of me scoring higher than the 75th percentile is pretty low. And like you said, "How much can you really improve your vocabulary and reading comprehension in a few months?" I think that's so sad but also very true!

[TakeruK]

And like you said, "How much can you really improve your vocabulary and reading comprehension in a few months?" I think that's so sad but also very true!

I think you can improve your GRE vocabulary quite a lot in a few months by rote memorization. I've forgotten almost all the extra words I've learned now, so it's true that you can't truly improve your vocab in a few months, but you can at least know it for the test. Not the ideal way to learn words, but the GRE is not an ideal way to screen for grad school aptitude either!

[vertices]

Count me in as another praising peacebyinches' thoughts on the matter.

In my field, people are looking for scores that don't raise questions. Doing well won't get you into any program, but can help you get funding as some fellowships will use them. "Don't raise questions" in my field's case means not too many slip ups on quant since it's all stuff with which you should be handy. It also means a verbal and analytical score that doesn't indicate difficulties with the English language. As such, as long as your practice test scores are abysmal, there's no point in studying for the verbal at all. That's just time you should be spending strengthening other parts of your application. I know some of you don't have it so easy though.

A professor of mine gave the good tip "spend no more than 10 hours" -- basically enough time to get the feel for the questions and how they might trip you up and a feel for the overall test so you know what's coming and won't get distracted wondering about it during the test.

I did the two practice tests using the program from the GRE website that mimicked the actual software. I also did the extra practice multiple choice questions. I looked over every quant question I missed and figured out where I got tripped up. I read through all of the analytical examples included with the software and their corresponding review sheets. Finally, I looked over the list of possible analytical questions on the GRE website so I could at least backburner thinking about the common concepts that might come up on the test and possible examples. I started a couple days before the exam. All in all, I think I met the 10 hour limit.

[Hillary Emick]

I've taken the GRE twice. I took it in my final semester of undergrad. No real prep. All my math was fresh. I took a couple practice tests and did well. I also did well on the exam.

6 years later and I was ready to go back to school, and my scores were expired. I took a couple practice tests and identified some areas I needed to brush up on in math. I studied until I felt ready. It took about 2 months. It was not my top priority within those two months and I was studying sporadically. I would guess it was about 10-14 hours of studying, and about 8 hours of taking practice tests to gauge if my math had improved enough to take the real one.

[wildviolet]

Not sure what state you live in or what level you teach but any input would be greatly appreciated!

I've taught in both Maryland and California. Feel free to PM me with more specific questions.

[peacebyinches]

Gosh, I never really thought about it the way you explained. My thinking is improving in these areas (V + A) to up my chances. Even if its +1 or +15 I am not sure how much graduate programs are paying attention to scores anymore. It seems more like a requisite than anything else? But I am stuck cause my strength is math, not V or A. The probability of me scoring higher than the 75th percentile is pretty low. And like you said, "How much can you really improve your vocabulary and reading comprehension in a few months?" I think that's so sad but also very true!

Yeah, as much as standardized tests are despised, the makers do a very good job at making it painfully difficult to "crack" or "master" these tests. I took the SAT twice, first time I took it was basically for practice - I did not prepare at all and I was pretty tired the day I took it as well. I was always planning on taking it another time, the first time was just to get the feel for it and see if I had any serious difficulties with any part. Then after a whole bunch of preparation (going through several SAT prep books, taking an SAT prep class and taking several SAT practice tests) my score on the verbal section was the exact same and my score on the math part decreased by an amount equivalent to me guessing correctly on one less question than the first time I took the test.

As harsh as it sounds, these kind of tests are really just figuring out the level of verbal and mathematical competency the taker has. Getting better scores on these kind of tests aren't up to a person "learning some new words" or "memorizing math questions" they are up to a person improving their entire language and quantitative competencies, which can be a really time consuming and difficult endeavor.

[rockandroll]

I took one supervised practice test with Kaplan because it was free at my college. I bought a book and went over the format of the tests and a few practice questions. I felt like there was no sense trying to learn the things that I didn't know already, particularly when no section of the test is particularly applicable to my career (psychology). I ended up doing REALLY well on the critical reading (which was always a strong point for me) and good, but not outstanding, in quantitative.

[Chande]

One week. It didn't deserve any more time than that.

[annieca]

I am amazed at how much time you all are devoting to the test prep. 2-4/day, 5 days a week for 7 weeks? That's between 70 and 140 hours.

I am starting to realize that the GRE is nothing like the ACT where you can just walk in and do fine. Hmm... things to consider.

[avicus]

I took one month off to prepare, spend around 4-5 hours each day, including weekends. Studied Verbal virtually all the time- by memorizing the Princeton Review Revised GRE Verbal Cracked word lists, revised Quant and practiced the AW section by doing mock tests for 1-2 weeks before the actual test.

My scores:

Verbal 162 (90%)

Quantitative 161 (86%)

Analytical Writing 5.5 (96%)

P.S. Only do this if getting high scores matters much to you, as it did for me (to strengthen my application by making up for average GPA). Otherwise it's not worth it IMHO.

[narev]

Didn't bother preparing after I looked at what words would come out.

Motivation: I did Mathematics at undergraduate level, so didn't bother to study for Quantitative section. Also being an avid reader since young (read through classics, contemporary fiction, popular sci-fi/fantasy authors, Project Gutenberg), most of the words tested were already familiar. So perhaps you could say I've been preparing since high school for the Verbal part. Those which weren't could be guessed from prefixes / suffixes / context. Went by gut feeling during the test.

I was lucky during the test though - both AW questions focused on topics quite close to me - and dare I say even relevant to what I studied, so I wrote quite well.

My scores:

Verbal 163 (93%)

Quantitative 170 (99%)

Analytical Writing 5.5 (96%)

If you're an avid reader and can do maths - don't bother preparing.

Edited April 18, 2012 by narev

[unforth]

I've taken the GRE twice. First time was in 2004, during my super-senior last semester of undergrad. I took one practiced test, reviewed what I got wrong, and didn't study more than that. I scored 98% verbal, 76% math (that second might not be quite right, it's been a long time since I checked, though I know I got 720 in each) and 5.0 writing.

Just took it for the second time today. I haven't been a student since 2007. Took a practice about two months ago, then studied starting last Friday, maybe 10 hours total? Don't know my percentages yet, obviously, but early evidence suggests I did roughly equivalent to last time. Suspect I did better than last time in the writing, though won't know for two weeks.

Considering I have now not studied mathematics formally in more than 10 years, I'm good with that.

I'm a bit shocked by all the people who studied for months! I guess different people have different approaches. The most useful thing for me (other than reviewing basic math such as how to calculate the area of a circle...) was reading about what exactly is expected in the two writing sections, I don't think I knew that the first time, and I think (hope!) that knowing it this time will improve my scores.

Damn the scores for expiring, though....