Feeling exhilarated at the prospect of taking the GRE? Dismayed? Somewhere in between? No matter how you feel about the upcoming exam, you’ll need to do some preparation to get yourself ready to do your very best on test day.
Here’s a guide to some helpful things to remember as you get prepared for the GRE:
You already know most of what you need to know. Remember, the GRE is a standardized test, and if you’re in the process of completing an undergraduate degree, that must mean that you’re actually a standardized test veteran. You’ve been there, done that--it’s just that you were a high school student when you went there and did that on the SAT or ACT. Of course, it may seem like it’s been so long since you used the knowledge that you’ve forgotten that you know it. We’ll get into how to go about reactivating that knowledge shortly.
Have a High School reunion: get reacquainted with old knowledge that’s still relevant. Besides your previous standardized test experience as a high school student preparing to become a college undergraduate, you also have all of the general knowledge that you absorbed during high school. Why am I stressing high school again? Well, high school learning is very relevant to the GRE, because GRE Quantitative Reasoning questions involve math drawn from high school level algebra, geometry, and statistics, along with arithmetic and pre-algebra concepts similar to what you encountered in Jr. High or earlier. For many people, a classic example of such forgotten knowledge is geometry. After finishing high school geometry, when have you ever heard anyone talk about alternate interior angles or angle-angle similarity? (unless you’ve been studying math or engineering as an undergrad) You’ll find, however, that it’s just like riding a bike; once you learn, you never forget--although at first it may be really, really hard to remember. But you’ll get there. In order to revive all of your vast stores of forgotten knowledge and reactivate those dormant skills, take the process a step at a time. Just remember, you don’t have to remember EVERYTHING you learned in high school. In reality, standardized tests focus on a fairly narrow slice of that knowledge. In fact, a good way to remind yourself of what knowledge is relevant and what’s not is to revisit the past-- which brings us to the next step.
Reactivate old test prep knowledge and skills, step-by-step. One way to ease yourself back into the waters of GRE-related skills and knowledge is to look back at any previous standardized tests that you’ve taken. If you took the ACT or SAT as a high school student, then you’ve been exposed to many of the topics that appear on the GRE. It’s just that the GRE uses different question formats and often develops the topics into questions that are subtler, trickier, and more involved than similar questions on the ACT or SAT. However, at the deepest levels they really are the same topics. So if you still have your old prep books and practice tests for the ACT/SAT, dust them off and look through them to stir up your old memories and knowledge. Seeing the topics in the ACT or SAT formats that you’re already familiar with helps to temporarily strip away the (sometimes) strange new GRE question formats and shine a spotlight on the major content areas you need to be familiar with. Although so far I’ve talked mostly about math, other skills readily transfer from ACT and SAT to the GRE’s Verbal Reasoning section, as described in the question format summary below.
Reactivate your old test-taking strategies. We’ve been talking about pretty specific topics like geometry and sentence completion. But another thing you want to haul up from the depths of your memory and subconscious is all of the general test taking-strategies that you used on multiple choice tests like the ACT and SAT. Strategies such as process-of-elimination, sketching pictures and graphs, identifying root words, back-solving, and identifying the tone of a passage; these and others were strategies that you once put to good service on the ACT or SAT. They will be just as useful on the GRE.
Get used to the new (to you) GRE question formats. Once you’ve revived your inner well-springs of test prep knowledge by reviewing your old ACT or SAT materials, you have to bite the bullet and get familiar with how the questions are formatted on the GRE.
Here’s a quick summary of GRE question formats:
Reading Comprehension. This type is similar in format to reading comprehension questions that you saw back in high school.
Text Completion. This GRE format is similar to the “Sentence Completion” format on the SAT. Pick one or more words to fill in one or more blanks in a sentence. However, the GRE ups the difficulty by increasing the number of possible ways to combine the answer choices.
Sentence Equivalence. This GRE format is more noticeably different from the verbal formats you saw on SAT or ACT. It requires you to pick a pair of words that could substitute for one another in a sentence without changing the meaning of the sentence. It sounds simple, but some of these questions can be quite challenging. You definitely want to build your vocabulary for these, as knowledge of synonyms and the ability to consider alternate shades of meaning based on context is critical here.
Quantity comparison questions. There used to be a similar format on the SAT, but it was dropped in 2005. These questions ask you to compare two quantities and decide if one quantity is greater, if both quantities are equal, or if more information would be required to decide.
Quantitative Multiple choice (single correct answer). These questions are very similar in format to the multiple choice problem solving math questions on the ACT and SAT
Quantitative Multiple choice (possibly multiple correct answers). Usually the topics are similar to the previous category, but the difficulty level is increased by the fact that more than one answer choice may be correct.
Numeric entry. In this format, you type the answer into a blank box rather than selecting it from a bank of multiple choice answers. This format is similar to the “Grid in” format on the SAT.
You can find additional information about each GRE question type, along with example questions at the ETS website, as well as by following the above links in this summary.
Evaluate your GRE strengths and weaknesses with a snapshot. Review your strengths and weaknesses by looking at the scores on your old college entrance tests. Your old scores from your ACT or SAT serve as a sort of snapshot of your strong and weak areas back then. Now that you’re familiar with the basic question formats you’ll encounter on the GRE, you’re ready to get an updated snapshot of your strengths and weaknesses. You do this by taking a practice GRE test. You can download a free PDF booklet from the ETS website that includes a full length GRE practice test with answer key. You can also download free computer-based practice tests from GRE. Only use one ETS practice test at first; it will give you that accurate, updated snapshot that shows you which areas are in good shape and which areas you need to work hardest to improve.
Get yourself into fighting shape. Train, practice, and exercise for the GRE with custom test prep resources until you’re in “fighting trim”. Now that you’ve started reactivating your old test taking skills and taken a snapshot of where you’re at, you’re ready to customize your test prep approach to target all of the weak areas that need strengthening and all of the strong areas that you want to maximize performance in. Find test prep resources that will help you target the specific content you need to cover. Such resources can include books, mobile apps, other software, flashcards, friends, study partners, tutors, and classes. You know yourself pretty well when it comes to what your learning style and learning environment preferences are. Select the resources that will work best for you. For a detailed look at how to structure your approach to getting the most out of your test prep resources, refer to the previous post.
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