How to Maximize Your Vocab Prep
What are the best ways to study vocabulary on the GRE? I’ve compiled my top strategies for getting the most out of your GRE Vocab prep.
Also, be sure to check out our GRE Word of the Day Vocab Series on YouTube!
What Are the Hardest GRE Math Problems?
And what do they tell us about prepping for the GRE?
Students often ask me, “Where can I find the most difficult questions on the GRE?” In this blog entry, I’ll show you the top three hardest GRE Math problems, ranked by percent of students who got them wrong. Before we get there, I should say: you don’t need to correctly answer questions like these to get a very, very good score on the GRE. This is a test that favors accuracy and consistency on mid-range questions over the ability to get the very hard ones. One can nab a score in the 90th percentile or above without getting any of the very hardest GRE Math problems correct. In case you’re curious, though, this is what the hardest GRE Math problems look like. Each of these questions were correctly answered by fewer than 20 percent of GRE test takers.
Start the drum roll.
How To Take a GRE Practice Test
Regularly taking GRE practice tests (but not too many!) is how you find out whether your studying is working and what to focus on next. But in order to take a practice test perfectly, you need a bit of…practice.
How to Study: Reviewing a GRE Practice Test
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.
You’ve been studying for the GRE for a while now, and you’ve taken at least two GRE practice tests. (If not, start with this article instead!) Last time, we started discussing how to review a GRE practice test at a high level. This time, we’ll go even further: you can learn something from every single question on your GRE practice test. Here’s how. Read more
Coronavirus GRE Updates
Update: ETS will allow stay-at-home official testing.
At Manhattan Prep, we’ve been closely monitoring the effects of COVID-19 in our communities. This is an immensely difficult time and our thoughts are with all those who are impacted. Our top commitment is to the health and safety of our employees, our students, and our partners.
We know that COVID-19 is deeply disrupting your life right now, and it has the potential to delay your long-term goals for your career and education. You can still study effectively, though, and it’s also fine to delay your studies if needed—the GRE isn’t going anywhere and neither are we.
How to Actually Do Combinatorics Problems on the GRE
Combinatorics—it’s a word none of us can say and none of us had ever heard of before we started studying for the GRE. It’s a fancy word that just means “the number of possibilities” or “all the ways something could go” (my definitions).
Why A Review Log is Vital to Your GRE Prep
Like many folks these days, I’m catching up on some TV shows, but I’m still teaching too. For anyone out there studying for the GMAT, LSAT, or GRE, there’s a valuable lesson that I want to share with you that I learned recently from, of all places, a TV show. It’s about the danger of failing to review your work, and the associated importance of keeping a detailed review log. That show is called “Masterchef,” hosted by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.
Using the Computer to Your Advantage on the GRE
The fact that the GRE is administered on a computer is tough for a number of reasons—you can’t mark up the passages on the Reading Comprehension sections, for instance. It can also be visually tiring to stare intently at a screen for four hours (though many of us are used to this from doing so at work all day).
But there are also reasons why taking a test on the computer can be a good thing. Let’s take a look. Read more
How Much Can You Expect Your GRE Score to Go Up with Studying?
As a GRE instructor, I get this question a lot. I’ll start by just sharing what I see, and note that this is just my experience: most students go up 5-8 points with study. That said, there are also students who go up 15 points, so I don’t mean the 5-8 to be read as a cap or threshold.
Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll state the obvious, which is that every person is different. So many factors play into this question, including where you start, how much you study, and how you study. But since you already know that, I want to unpack each of these in order to answer the question more specifically to you.
Can You Skip Questions on the GRE?
The GRE is a typical standardized test in some regards. For one, it’s a test of endurance—you will be sitting there for around four hours. It’s also typical in that it is a test of speed—you will face significant time pressure. And it’s a test of skill, of course—you will be tested on content that graduate schools have deemed relevant to their admissions decisions.