How to Form an Online GRE Study Group
In this time of social distancing, studying for the GRE in some ways should be easier for many of us—we no longer have to fight FOMO, because we don’t get to go out, anyway. But in other ways it can be harder. Being alone and/or indoors for extended periods of time can feel isolating, and the situation that has given rise to the social distancing causes anxiety for many of us.
My plan this week was to write a post on how to create an in-person study group, but since that’s not possible (nor a good idea) at the present date, I’ve decided to share ideas for how you can create an online GRE study group.
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.
Look Before You Leap When Studying for the GRE
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People study for the GRE in different ways. Some people spread their studying out over time, taking 10-15 minutes every few days and studying for several months or more. Others condense their studying into a more limited amount of time.
When I was first studying for the GRE, I was lucky enough to get to doing it during six weeks I had off over a summer. During this time, I mainly spent my time doing two things: learning vocabulary (using flashcards) and taking practice tests.
I spent so much time studying for the GRE during this time that I began to have dreams about exponents, ratios, and number properties! Sometimes they were nightmares, in which I imagined myself confronted with an unsolvable problem, filled with a growing sense of dread as the clock counted down to 0.
Other times, however, I had dreams that filled me with a sense of confidence. In these dreams, I was confronted with a problem, and, even before I knew what the answer to the problem was, I knew something even more important: I understood what the problem was asking me to show. Read more