Don’t be fooled by the title. I am preparing for mathematics from Class 1. It was a clickbait and you fall for it 🤣. So don’t go away. Just follow along, maybe you will find something useful.
If you are here to hear that 170 out of 170 in GRE Quant is easy, it’s not. Sorry to disappoint you. But there is another catch - how much difficult it is, totally depends on your previous foundation. For me, as I am a student of Computer Science and had some mathematical sense from my 5+ years of competitive programming, it was not that much hard (Show off 🤣). But I will try to write this blog from a neutral position, which will help everyone to secure a 90th percentile score (167+) on GRE Quant. And this blog will all about Quant. If you have any questions about Verbal or AWA, please let me know in the comments.
Before that, my GRE Score: Verbal - 154 🙃, Quant - 170 ☺️, AWA - 4.5 😇
Preparation Time
I didn’t get much time to prepare as I was preparing for Canada Fall-2020. But at the last moment, I realized that USA would be the best bet for me with my current profile. So I kind of started preparing for GRE on November 3 and sat for GRE on December 10. Before that, I went to a coaching center named GREC but that time I was not 100% sure about giving GRE. So it was just going to classes and collecting notes.
Whatever it is, at first register for the GRE test. Otherwise, you won’t feel enough push to prepare. I will suggest taking at least 2-3 months. More than this will slow you down, less than this will burn you out.
How to Practice
There is only one key to get a good score on Quant and that is Solving & Solving. But it also matters how do you practice. If you just open Manhattan 5lb and solve it at a stretch, it won’t help you that much. It will obviously improve your analytical and mathematical skill, but there are other great ways to prepare for GRE. Here are some tips on how to solve -
- Always solve problems in a time constraint (I recommend 20 problems in 30 minutes)
- Always maintain an Error Log like this one or maybe on a physical notebook
- Go through the Error Log every now and then
- Be sure that you are not making the same mistake repeatedly
- Maintain a spreadsheet to mark your score out of 20 every time you solve, that will help you to track your learning curve
- If the learning curve is going down, leave practicing for 1-2 days and go for more theory
- If the learning curve is fluctuating by a large number (7-10), find out the errors in Error Log
- If the learning curve is fluctuating, by a small number (1-3), just keep solving
- Never Solve problems just from a topic, mix all of them and then solve
- Try to solve problems from pdf or computer screen, that will help you in the exam time from screen fatigue
- If you have completed all and you still have time, go for the ones that you really did bad previously
What to Practice
Here I will share the materials that I had solved and in the same order. But remember that if you are not good at any topic, first go through the theory.
- I have gone through all the theory videos of Quant on Magoosh Premium. Just don’t sit and watch all the videos. Make sure to take notes. The small to smallest tricks will help you on the exam day. Remember, in the GRE Level of difficulty is not the challenge, Time is the main challenge.
- I started my practice from Magoosh. I used the Custom Practice session from the top navbar. And used these settings to solve 20 problems in 30 minutes.
- Then I had solved the Manhattan Strategy Guide (1-6) - only the Easy, Medium & Hard sets at the end of each book. This time the time allocation is a little bit different. For easy ones - I have taken 25 mins, for medium - 30 mins and for hard - 35 mins.
- Then I started solving Manhattan 5lb using the same pattern as before. 20 problems in 30 mins.
- After that I appeared on 13 mock tests including PowerPrep, Manhattan, Kaplan, Princeton and … There are some hacky ways to get Kaplan and Princeton free of cost. You can easily find them just by some Google Searches. I also tracked the scores on a Google Spreadsheet like this.
- Approximately 10 days before of GRE, I appeared on PowerPrep 2. I will suggest everyone to follow this timeline and give PowerPrep 1 at the starting of your preparation. That will help you to compare your previous self to your current self.
- After that, in the next 5 days I only solved KMF problems from here.
- In the next 3 days, I solved all the problems from ETS General Guide and ETS Quantitative Reasoning.
- In the last 2 days, I only went through the Error Log and the notes I have made on Step-1.
- On the exam day, try to be as cool as possible and take enough chocolates with you for the 10 minutes break. I took a protein bar and a dark chocolate by the way 🤣.
Best Of Luck
Some Other Resources
- YMGrad - Best for buying mocks at a lower price
- Yash Mittra Youtube channel - Great one for getting tips and tricks on GRE
- GRE Edge Youtube channel
- Greg Mat Youtube channel
- Galvanize Youtube channel