Articles published in Challenge Problems

7 GRE Study Habits of Highly-Effective Students

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - 7 GRE Study Habits of Highly-Effective Students by Tom Anderson

You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Crazy, right? Check out our upcoming courses here.


30 minutes of highly-focused study beats 2 hours of “half-studying.”

I’d like to share with you a little study mantra. This is something I firmly and absolutely believe to be true: “30 minutes of highly-focused study is far better than 2 hours of half-studying.” As much as one might try to make up for poor GRE study habits by slogging through a multi-hour weekend marathon session, it just doesn’t work. There are so many reasons to avoid such lengthy study sessions—increasing fatigue, impaired retention, general painfulness of sitting there for so long… Read more

GRE Math Riddle: Doubling the Average Rate

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - GRE Math Riddle: Doubling the Average Rate by Tom Anderson

You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Crazy, right? Check out our upcoming courses here.


Here’s a GRE math riddle:

Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - GRE Math Riddle: Doubling the Average Rate by Tom Anderson Read more

Data Interpretation: Start by Understanding the Graph

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - Data Interpretation: Start by Understanding the Graph by Cat Powell

You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Ready to take the plunge? Check out our upcoming courses here.


In each Quant section on the GRE, you’ll see three questions that ask about a graph or pair of graphs; these are the Data Interpretation (DI) questions. All three questions usually refer to the same graph(s) and show up about two-thirds of the way through the section. Read more

GRE Word Problems: Favorite Tricks and Traps

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - GRE Word Problems: Favorite Tricks and Traps by Chelsey Cooley

You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Crazy, right? Check out our upcoming courses here.


The GRE is a fair test. GRE word problems will always give you enough info to turn the words into the right equations. However, that doesn’t mean they’ll make the translation easy or obvious! To make tough GRE word problems tougher, the test writers use certain words and phrases that they know are frequently misinterpreted. This makes you more likely to write down the incorrect equations and more likely to get the problem wrong. Read more

GRE Verbal is Not a Rorschach Test

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - GRE Verbal is Not a Rorschach Test by Tom Anderson

You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Crazy, right? Check out our upcoming courses here.


GRE Verbal is Not a Rorschach Test

Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - GRE Verbal is Not a Rorschach Test by Tom Anderson

What do you see in the image above? A butterfly? A twisty rollercoaster? Your mother’s disapproval? Read more

GRE Math for People Who Hate Math: Remainder Problems

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - GRE Math for People Who Hate Math: Remainder Problems by Chelsey Cooley

You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Crazy, right? Check out our upcoming courses here.


The secret to understanding GRE remainder problems is in the word remainder itself. Suppose you bake a dozen brownies, and while you’re at work, your roommate eats ten of them. The two brownies left over are the remainder of the batch. The mathematical term remainder refers to the same thing: what’s left over after something is taken away. Read more

Play to Your Strengths on the GRE

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - Play to Your Strengths on the GRE by Cat Powell

You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Ready to take the plunge? Check out our upcoming courses here.


In the first class of our GRE curriculum, we begin by talking about growth mindset vs. fixed mindset. If we approach a new task with a fixed mindset—i.e. I am or am not good at this—we’re a lot less likely to improve at it. When we believe instead that we can and will improve if we work hard, we get better faster. The stories we tell ourselves about our abilities shape what we’re actually able to accomplish. Read more

Perfectionism is the Enemy of the GRE

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - Perfectionism is the Enemy of the GRE by Tom Anderson

You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Crazy, right? Check out our upcoming courses here.


Do you consider yourself a perfectionist?

Maybe you wouldn’t normally use that word to describe yourself, but be honest, didn’t the typo in the sentence above drive you at least a little bit crazy? Read more

Introducing the GRE Just Math™ Course

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - Introducing the GRE Just Math Course by Manhattan Prep

You just need to learn GRE Math. Maybe you haven’t taken math since high school and just need a respectable Quant score to get into your target school. Or maybe you’re already pretty good at math, but your target school requires you to be great. No matter your starting point or goal score, we built GRE Just Math to get you where you need to be on the Math section of the GRE. Read more

Guessing on the GRE and Moving On

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Manhattan Prep GRE Blog - Guessing on the GRE and Moving On by Cat Powell

You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Ready to take the plunge? Check out our upcoming courses here.


Persistence is, in most endeavors, an admirable quality—just not when taking the GRE. For this test, knowing when to give up on a problem, guess, and move on, is a crucial skill. It’s important to remember that this is more than just a test of math knowledge or reading skills; it’s also a test of how one makes decisions under pressure. Read more