Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

I am an incredibly anxious person. Like all of us, I worry about the big things (work, money, relationships, illness), but I also descend into fear when confronted with absurdly small things (the weird look the Dunkin’ Donuts cashier gives me when I ask for six sugars, the ominous clicking sound my toaster makes—WILL IT BLOW UP AND KILL ME???). Learning to manage my many anxieties is one of my main challenges on a day-to-day basis.

So I relate, strongly, to the students I work with who struggle with GRE anxiety. This anxiety manifests in a few common ways: Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

If you ever took language classes in grade school or high school, you have an extra advantage when it comes to the GRE. Why? Because learning the GRE is a lot like developing fluency in a language. There are several reasons for this. Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

Some researchers estimate that there are as many as a million words in the English language. However, you won’t see words like mylohyoid, ekphrasis, or cotyledon on the GRE. In fact, even though English has a huge number of extremely rare words, the GRE almost never tests them. Instead, it focuses on a set of words we’ll call rare but reasonable. Read more

Can’t get enough of Neil’s GRE wisdom? Few can. Fortunately, you can join him twice monthly for a free hour and a half study session in Mondays with Neil.

The GRE is a loooong test. Sure, it’s broken up into 20 and 30 minute chunks, but you’re going to be sitting in front of that computer for more than 4 hours. Honestly, that’s too much time for any of us to focus effectively.

When was the last time you focused on one thing for 4 hours? I mean, besides Netflix or your Xbox? Has your ability to pay attention gotten better or worse lately? If email is a part of your life, if you have Facebook or Twitter, if you watch cable news (if you’re a human being who lives in the modern world) then chances are, your ability to concentrate on one task is nowhere near what it could be. Recent studies show that our attention span has dwindled to about 8 seconds before our minds start to wander. Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

Here’s one surprising way to speed up your GRE studies: quiz yourself. Now, that doesn’t mean that you have to take a lot of practice tests. Think smaller. To reap the benefits of the “testing effect,” give yourself frequent, small quizzes on whichever topics you’ve studied lately. Here’s how and why it works. Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

I recently did an exercise in one of my classes in which I asked each student to teach one or two problems to their classmates. I think some of my students suspected that I just wanted to make them better appreciate how hard teaching can be (like how my parents want me to have grandchildren so I can know how much they’ve suffered). But in truth, my hope was that this activity would help my students to study more effectively at home, and I was happy to discover that this turned out to be the case.

A lot of us, at times myself included, think of studying as a skill distinct from teaching. As I’ve seen with many students, though, the practices that make for a good teacher also make for the most effective student. The things that I think about as I prepare for a class are the same things that you should be thinking about at home when you sit down to work through a new math topic or GRE problem set. With this in mind, here are a few good teaching moves that you can apply to your studying. Read more

If your GRE exam is coming up sooner than you’d like to admit, it’s officially CrunchTime. But don’t be (too) nervous; we’re hosting three GRE CrunchTime workshops in January and February! Whether you want to brush up on Quant, Verbal, or both, we’re here to make sure you’ll feel ready to tackle the test when it’s time. Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

A lot of people think that GRE Verbal questions can have more than one right answer. The GRE itself doesn’t do anything to dispel this myth, since Verbal questions often include wording like which of the following is best supported? or with which statement would the author most likely agree?. These questions make it sound as if you’re supposed to read five pretty good answers and pick the best one, even if the other ones are okay, too. However, this mindset will hurt you on test day. Read more

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The Manhattan Prep—GRE® app isn’t just for vocabulary — although it can certainly help you with that! Think of the app as a way to turn down time into study time. When you have time for a longer study session, use the Manhattan Prep Strategy Guides and the 5lb. Book of GRE Practice Problems. But, when you only have a few minutes, use the app to target a particular GRE® skill quickly. Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

I get dozens of questions from students every week about when and how to schedule their tests. A lot of the basic information on scheduling your GRE can be found at the ETS website, but here’s all of the advice you won’t find there: Read more