When we study practice problems, our overall goal is to master the problem we’re working on right now. What does mastery mean? It means that, when we see a future different practice problem that tests the same thing as this current practice problem, we will realize that the future problem has certain things in common with this current problem, and we will know what steps to take as a result—we will, literally, recognize what to do on the future different practice problem, a problem we’ve never actually seen before.

It’s necessary to get to this level of mastery because the problems we study will never be the actual problems we’re expected to do on the test. But we will see similar problems—problems that have something in common with problems that we’ve already studied. If we can recognize what to do, then we will be faster (which is always important on this test), and we will be more effective—we’ll be more likely to get it right because we’ll know that the method we’re using actually worked the last time we saw a similar practice problem.

This mastery we’re talking about—the ability to recognize what to do on a new, different-but-similar problem—comes from the analysis we do after we’ve already finished trying a new practice problem for the first time. So how do we do that?

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One of the highly touted features of the Revised GRE is the ability of students to navigate freely within a test section. While the old GRE was (and the GMAT is) a Computer Adaptive Test, which required students to complete the test without skipping a question, the Revised GRE is a Section Adaptive Test, which allows students to skip questions and analyze the overall section on a review screen. But, as great as this feature sounds, you shouldn’t skip around. On the GRE, time is extremely valuable. Time spent hunting for an easy question is time wasted.

That is not to say the review screen isn’t a boon; it can be. Pacing is an extremely important part of GRE strategy, and the review screen can help you with that.

By test day, you should have an idea of how much time you will spend on each question. Here are some good guidelines for how much time you can afford on each problem type: Read more

A few months ago, the New York Times published an interesting article: Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits. (Click on the title to read the original article.) We’ve been discussing it here at Manhattan GRE and I wanted to share this discussion with you.

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Take a sneak peek into Manhattan Prep’s 500 Essential Words and 500 Advanced Words GRE flashcard sets!

You know what we’ve noticed? There are all kinds of words that people don’t know, but rarely look up, because those words aren’t “vocabulary words.” Hmmn. Actually, those words — generally conjunctions, prepositions, and adverbs — tend to be pivotal in understanding the meaning of a sentence! Check out just one of the kinds of words we’re talking about:

Are you clear on moreover, nonetheless, incidentally, whence, whereas, notwithstanding, via, apropos, per, and ergo?

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Mnemonics or mnemonic devices are memory tricks to help us remember things like vocabulary words (here’s a post about the word mnemonic).

However, many mnemonics are pretty cheesy — often involving the kind of jokes some people call “groaners.” For instance…

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Credit: XKCD

To succeed at Argument Structure Passages on the GRE — short “Reading Comp” passages that are really logic problems — it helps to know a bit about the study of logic, because most mistakes in logic have been made many times before, even over thousands of years.

Many of the logical mistakes made on the GRE are really just the same logical mistakes Aristotle (the founder of the study of logic) complained about in the 4th century, B.C.

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As a Manhattan GRE employee I tend to see GRE vocabulary everywhere.  When I’m reading a book, or watching TV, or listening to music, GRE vocabulary words just jump out at me.  It is sort of like in the movie They Live when Rowdy Roddy Piper puts on his magic sunglasses and suddenly all of the writing in advertisements is changed to the word OBEY… except for me everything would be saying ACCEDE.

Just last night, during the Republican Presidential Debate in Arizona, I heard the candidates use a few great GRE vocabulary words.  While politicians will often use simple language in an attempt to reach the broadest possible segment of the electorate, last night’s candidates didn’t hesitate to throw in a few obscure talking points.

At different points in last night’s debate, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum each used the word feckless.  Here is Romney’s quote:

Romney: We have very bad news that’s come from the Middle East over the past several months, a lot of it in part because of the feckless leadership of our President.

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Take a sneak peek into Manhattan Prep’s 500 Essential Words and 500 Advanced Words GRE flashcard sets!

When writing these cards, we wanted to make sure that everyone could get something out of every card — even if you already know the word on the front. Sap is one of those strange words that hardly anyone ever thinks to look up, but that actually has far more definitions than you’d think. Check it out:

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This is a little story of a crucial epiphany one of my students (and I) just had.

Recently, at the end of class, one of my students began asking questions about timing and guessing on test questions. He’s really struggling with the idea that he has to let some questions go and that he’s not going to be able to answer every last question correctly. I told him he’s not alone; most students have significant difficulty accepting this idea—and those who can’t accept it almost never reach their goal scores.

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This comic from XKCD is making a very nerdy joke:

The 70, upon opening a package, is “exploded” — into its prime factors.

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