How to prepare for the quantitive part of the GRE?

[calicopirate]

How does one go about preparing for the quantitive part of the GRE? I did really badly on it during my last test and have been practicing, but still am doing poorly. What I find to be really difficult is rewiring my brain to interpret the questions and figure out what the question is asking me to deduce. (I'm a native English speaker.)

 

I'm spending a lot of time memorizing the formulas, but it's the wording that always messes me up. If I had my way, I would select option D (not enough information to deduce a solution) for all of the questions asking for which column is greater because I can't connect the dots.  

 

[MyWorkIsDone]

I wish I could help you
I too am having HUGE amounts of trouble with the quant section. I've always been really awful at math, so I put in hours and hours of prep time and still did terrible (139). I just signed up for a prep course at my college, and it seems to be helping, at least according to my practice tests. It was pretty cheap (comparatively), at about $15 per class. If you're in school right now I'd see if your school has something like that. Local community colleges often do prep courses that you can enroll in even if you're not a student there.

 

Wish I had some more helpful advice, but hopefully we'll work it out!

[Ele-MOT_Hopeful]

Hi Decaf!  I had taken the GRE a month ago and wished I had studied really hard.  It's a 3-month prep, and most of my grad friends agree.  I bombed the Quantitative part.  I actually purchased the online Kaplan course this time.  I realized it was faster for me to go thru problems in the book than watch the videos alongside.  HOWEVER, there is a free service Kaplan provides which is called "Kaplan GRE Question of the Day" in which they email you a verbal or math problem, provide correct answers, rates your progress, and includes tips for answering the problem. I would have done both the textbook - the Kaplan Premier GRE book - and the verbal workbook (for you, it would be the math workbook).  If you're rusty on your math, they have a $99 online course with plenty of quizzes.  I know it sounds like you're going back to high school, but it really helped me.  They have awesome tips, btw.

 

I suggest you divide your time up between Math and Verbal because I spent too much time on Math (hence, I barely made the minimum for the grad school of my choice...but I DID do well on math).  

 

I hope this helps, and good luck!

 

Ele

[midnight]

My broken record response: Check out The Princeton Review's Cracking the GRE (great tips, tricks, breakdown of GRE language and commonly made mistakes), and do all of the practice tests on Powerprep and in Barron's Six Practice Tests.

[wsc215]

Quantitative is all about practice IMO. It depends on how you like to prepare for exams but I prefer cramming. Well, "cramming" is such a dirty word, I think my method is closer to "total immersion".

 

Basically I put off studying for the GRE for two months, and one week before I took 3 GREs a day (I took 18 total that week) plus 4 hours each day. Essentially I spent all day just doing GRE stuff for six days. But it was just for a week and I ended up getting 164/169/4.5 (V/Q/W).

 

I think there are two ways to get a high score on the GRE. One, you try to learn the test. You can spend months doing that, dissect each question type and memorize different strategies in the GRE prep books. That's what both my siblings did and I outscored them by far.

 

Instead, I recognized that I have solid quantitative skills and that GRE math isn't much harder than SAT math... so for me, it was more about comfort, familiarity, and having confidence. I acclimated myself to the test environment over a week of cramming, so taking the test was second nature to me, and in fact I performed better on the actual test than any of my practice exams.

 

My point is, look at the problems in the quantitative section. They are not hard questions, if you had them in homework form you would probably blaze through them. What's hard to cope with is the time pressure, the testing environment, and the emotional stress. Find a way to deal with those and you'll do fine, after all if you got into college you must have done okay in the SAT/ACT quantitative sections and GRE's isn't much more difficult.

[languages-etc]

If you have been practicing the quantitative for awhile and don't seem to be improving: 

 

1) First ask yourself: do you have the basic mathematical knowledge and skills under your belt? Do you know immediately (without having to look back at a crib sheet) how to figure out things like percentages, mean-median-mode, probability, area and volume of different shapes, properties of triangles and the angles of other shapes, ratios, how to multiply and factor polynomials? Are you comfortable with reading graphs, reducing fractions, finding LCD etc? 

 

2a) If you aren't comfortable with the basics, then it might not improve your score if you're just doing lots of practice exercises. First take time to get the basic concepts down well. 

 

Not everyone can learn math on their own -- so perhaps a math tutor could help for a limited time, within your budget. They'd be teaching you a very limited range of concepts for the GRE, so a few sessions might make a big difference. 

 

2b) If you're very comfortable with all of the basic skills required, then it's just a matter of learning the test. What I mean is that the GRE questions are predictable: the quantitative section always has the same types of questions which you should expect to encounter. As others have said, practicing a lot helps, but more than just trying to plow through dozens of problems, read the answer explanations thoroughly. Also, try to figure out for each type of problem, what the best strategy for that type of problem is. Again, not everyone can learn math on their own, so a course or tutor might help here also. 

 

 

 

That's my 2cents. During college, to earn extra income I taught for one of the major test prep companies. Keep in mind -- test prep courses vary a lot -- those that just have students do lots of exercises are not as helpful as those that teach strategy and understanding how to score the most points within the time you have. 

 

Good Luck!

[Brent@GreenlightGRE]

When preparing for the GRE, it's important that you cover only those concepts that the GRE tests. I say this because I've seen some resources that have repurposed other courses and failed to either remove superfluous content that the GRE doesn't test or add content that the GRE does test.

 

ETS's Official Guide to the GRE Revised General Test is a good start.

If you're interested, we offer a free, step-by-step Study Guide that ensures that you cover everything that the GRE tests: http://www.greenlighttestprep.com/study-guide/overview 

 

Cheers,

Brent 

[narcisso]

I'd suggest you read Kaplan's Premier and Math workbook and the Official Guide. They cover all the math subjects that can be found on the exam.