Starting from (essentially) zero - GRE Quant specific (141Q/153V ETS practice)

[skwaat]

Hi everyone,

 

28 years old, no formal math course since 2007 (undergrad).  Targeting GRE end of September for mid October application to MBA programs in NC.  This week, I spent time reviewing Cliffsnotes for math concepts and purchased the following books:

• ETS Quant
• ETS Verbal
• Manhatten 5lb
• Cliffsnotes math concepts.

Today, I took the first practice test for the GRE.  I scored a 141Q and 153V - so, not very good.  Undergraduate GPA was 3.57, and I have very good recommendation letters, so this is by far the weakest link.

 

Outside of Khan Academy (which seems a little basic), are there any tried and true approaches for re-learning or refreshing literally everything?  I feel very discouraged and unable to even know how or where to begin.  If anyone could offer some thoughts or advice, I'd really appreciate it!

 

Thanks...

[DogsArePeopleToo]

Hi @skwaat, the struggle is real and we all know it. I did the GRE when I was 28 as well.

Except Cliffsnotes, I got all of the other books you mention. I found taht the ETS books are really not that helpful from the standpoint of learning concepts. The quant review in the beginning of the book sometimes made me feel even more stupid because it was written just so...unhelpfully. The ETS Practice Questions books are only helpful for you to get a sense of the difficulty level of the questions, how they are worded, the traps, etc...and to get some practice on the real stuff once you're familiar with the basics. I wouldn't use them very early on in my training. For one, you need to know the basic concepts before you can practice the questions, and two, you will run out of real practice questions if you do them too early.

All good prep companies give you a math grounding, starting from the very basic. I used Magoosh and watched all the math videos, some of them two or three times. It was pretty comprehensive and I felt prepared. I wasn't a 160+ student on quant, and Magoosh was very helpful for my prep.

(I was a 160+ student on verbal, so the content there seemed OK, if you're wondering.)

Magoosh was very, very affordable compared to other prep companies, and its videos are light and can load easily on poor internet connections (I live overseas where the internet is very bad).

I also used Manhattan's math and verbal flashcards. The verbal flashcards come in three sets ("essentials" and then two sets of advanced). I found the two latter sets useful...more useful than Kaplan flashcards. The quant flashcards were very useful too...they essentially gave you more quant questions using intermediary concepts (factorization, circle properties, etc. that would be one part of a bigger package in a question), so you get stuff drilled pretty well.

There's a lot of time between now and October, so you can rest assured that you can improve somewhere between 5-15 points, maybe more if you put in the hard work. The thing about quant is that you learn by doing...watching concepts and other people solving questions doesn't work.

Best of luck!