How do you arrange your study time?

[lavender_be]

Hi, all successful applicants and aspiring ones like me. 

 

I'll have to take GRE, GRE Subject in English Literature, and TOEFL before this December. Can you share how you had or would arrange your study time? TOEFL would be the easiest, and I don't think I need more than a week. But the first two are a handful. For example, spend April and May on GRE General and the rest till October on GRE Subject? Does this sound like a good plan? Any replies would be appreciated. 

[semicolon2013]

I studied for the GRE in late May-early August last year and the GRE subject test from late June-November. I did reasonably well on both tests. 

[readallthethings]

I spent a few months in the summer studying for the GRE General, probably from June - September in small daily/weekly increments, and then took a few practice exams the week before my exam in mid-autumn. As for the GRE subject, I studied for only a month or so before my exam, mostly by looking at a practice exam. I felt seriously underprepared for the Subject test and would have preferred to have also started studying for it over the summer, but to be honest I don't think I would have done that much better either way. 

 

Overall, especially for the GRE general, I think what helped me the most was to work with study books for a few months and then take self-timed practice tests, score myself, and see what I needed to look at again. It's kind of pricey (I think it cost me about $30-$40 at Barnes and Noble, but it looks like amazon is cheaper), but I found the GRE study book by ETS to be most helpful, and there are a few practice exams in the back of the book, and a few more on CD with the book (but I'm pretty sure you can get to these same tests through downloading free software from the ETS website). I felt that once I had taken a few practice exams, "thinking like the test-writers" got a little easier.

 

Here's a link to the book.

 

Good luck!!