Studying not going as planned, SO confused!

[DeanDough74]

A little bit of background on me first----I'm 38, returning to grad school next Fall. I was attending an online school and finished about 12 hours (with, but I want to transfer to a local school to work on my PhD. I never had to take the GRE and this new school will not waive the GRE requirement (despite my grad GPA thus far and my work experience). It's been 17 years since I finished my undergrad. I took a practice test and realized I need major help in all areas (specifically math and vocab issues). I reviewed the boards for resource suggestions and for the past several weeks I've been reviewing several books (ETS, Kaplan, Manhattan, Gruber(sp?)) and watched all of the Magoosh videos. I still have 8 weeks until the test but it just seems like the material is not soaking in or "sticking" for some reason. As an example, I'd watch a section of Magoosh videos, read through a couple books on that same topic then try the example questions on Magoosh and totally bomb it. I'll understand the particular topic during the lecture or reading it in the book but when it comes to actually applying it to a question, or reading a question and realizing I need to do this and this to solve it, I'm bombing that part. 

 

I'm getting SOOOOO frustrated!! I'm not sure what to do at this point. Do I just keep chugging along? I have most of my notes from several book consolidated together on the math and I have tons of vocab notecards but I just feel so overwhelmed, confused, upset, stupid, nervous etc. I contemplated taking a Kaplan online course and I also saw a suggestion about using mygretutor.com? Should I take those routes? Something else? Keep doing what I'm doing and keep the faith?? HELP!!! 

[DaisyAdair]

I would say you keep chugging along. I am an older student, and it took me a while to grasp some of the concepts - especially math. It has been forever since I have been in a math classroom and many concepts were foreign to me. But I didn't focus on the math as much since I am applying to English programs. I just wanted to get by on the math and do really well on the vocab.

For the vocab, I carried around notecards everywhere. I pulled them out at traffic lights, waiting in lines, anywhere. My kids would find them and then start quizzing me (which was fun considering they would try to pronounce the words and would butcher them). It became addictive and I am still looking at the notecards even though the GRE is over for me. And I did practice questions to get used to the format and how to approach the different questions. It took a while, but eventually I began getting more correct answers than wrong answers.

It took me some times to start improving, even with vocab and I am an English major.

Good luck!!

[LMac]

I had about 8 weeks before I took the GRE as well. I used the Kaplan online course (the one at your own pace which costs almost $500) which helped me figure out how to structure my time. With every practice test, it adjusts which lessons you should do next, so I didn't waste time figuring out what to study. In hindsight, I'm not sure it did much that I couldn't do on my own, certainly not $500 worth of anything. You can find practice tests online that give you feedback on what you missed. Then you can use that info to decide what to work on next. I took a practice test every Saturday morning, which was the day and time I'd take the real thing, so I could adjust my weekly study plan. Closer to the test date I took the free tests on the ETS site which are closer to what you'll encounter on test day.

 

For vocab I created flashcards on my iPhone using an app called Brainscape. I pulled popular GRE word lists that I found online and copied and pasted them into Excel. Then I uploaded them into the Brainscape website in 30 word decks. Every day I learned 30 new words in any spare time I had. I also did the exercised in the Kaplan workbook. My Verbal score went from 54th percentile in my first practice test to 86th in the actual. For Quant I also used the Kaplan workbook. I think my Quant score went from 63rd to 79th, although my practice scores right before the test where in the high 80's (super bummed about that). I was also taking calculus at the time which meant I'd recently reviewed a lot of the algebra that is used on the GRE.

 

One thing I wish I'd focused on more since I'd only recently returned to school after 10 years, was the writing portion. Having to write a succinct essay in 30 minutes proved more difficult than I expected. I would have used the service on the ETS site that you can purchase and have someone grade several essays.

Hope any of this helps. Good luck!

[DeanDough74]

Thanks for the input and more importantly, the encouragement   I keep telling myself that 8 weeks in long enough to continue what I've been doing and I can still make lots of progress. I think it's just bothering me more b/c it's been so long since I've taken any type of standardized test, gee, the SAT in 1991 LOL 

 

I wondered if part of this was the type of delivery method of the instruction, maybe that the online instruction would be more helpful? I was looking at the Kaplan On-Demand course, but wasn't sure if it was a waste of money or anything different than what the books have to offer? 

 

Thank you!

[TakeruK]

You can also consider hiring a tutor if you think having in-person interaction would help you learn some concepts. As a college and grad student, I've tutored people of all ages for the math sections of many tests like the GRE. You could try looking up the Math, Physics, or Chemistry department websites of local universities and see if they have a list of their grad students who are working as private tutors. Sometimes we would get a department-wide email from the department administrative person forwarding a tutor request from someone outside of the school. 

 

In undergrad, I charged $20-$25/hr and in grad school, I charged $30/hr but it may depend on where you live as well. It's not super cheap but cheaper than some official courses. Of course, you have to hope you get a good tutor (ask for references if you really want to be sure) but at least you can just try it once or twice and stop if you decide that you are not making progress (might not be able to do that with some of the courses!).