Need advice on GRE preparation

[jonyoe1]

Hello all. I am pretty good at math, but not the GRE, which really frustrates me. I want to get a 165 and am about 10 points short. My problem is seeing the stuff that's not explicitly labeled. I have gotten better than when I first started, but still struggle to think outside the box. I want to get good advice on quantitative strategy, but don't know if I should sign up for a course or not. I was thinking maybe the quant-specific Power Score. Any advice? Tha.nks

[Preston7777]

How are you studying? A quality book on math test strategies can go a long way. Also, I try to take short quizzes whenever possible and thoroughly review my missed questions, which helps solidify both the mechanics and abstractions of different types of problems. 

[Coyosso]

My only advice is practice, practice, practice. Do as many problems as you can between now and test time. This has been my strategy. I think the specific type of problelms the GRE uses are somewhat unique, in that they don't use complex math, but are difficult from a logic standpoint. Be aware of your meta-cognitive strategies, and be flexible in those strategies Obviously, you have to have a solid grasp of the basic concepts involved in all types of math problems seen on the GRE, but that alone won't do it, imo. Being a good problem solver means not being rigid in your approach. There may be multiple ways to solve a problem, and expert problem solvers will evaluate which strategy they think is best, and re-evaluate during the problem solving process to see if it is still best. don't get stuck on a the first "path" you can think of. This has been dificult for me (I get this information from a cognitive psychology course I took. you can probably look up to see for yourself by googling "cognitive psychology", "metacognition," and "problem solving"). With this is mind, I think you can develop an "intuition" about the kinds of problems present on the GRE, only by doing them again, and again, and again. It sucks, and is no fun, but I don't think there is a short cut, especially since you need that intuition to serve you over your anxiety that will likely be present during test day. 

I hope that helps.

Edited September 1, 2017 by Coyosso