Jash Mehta

Jash Mehta

Masters student at Georgia Tech

Graduate Record Examination (GRE)

16 minute read

Published:

This blog is primarily about my preparation for Graduate Record Examination (GRE).

★ - highly recommended

As I prepared for the GRE, I spent countless hours seeking advice from those who had already navigated the same path. I reached out to peers and seniors for insights on specific problems I encountered while studying. As someone with a passion for writing, I felt compelled to summarize my findings and share them with others, answering common questions that had been posed to me.

About GRE


How impactful are my GRE scores for Graduate Admission process?


I recently came across this article written by Karthik Raghunathan from Stanford CS: Demystifying the American Graduate Admission Process ★. This is the most cohesive source I have found until now, which elucidates every aspect of the admission process. I strongly recommend everyone to go through this.

However, for those who are short on time and want to know specifically about the impact of GRE scores, the article states the following:

The GRE General Test, conducted by ETS is a requirement for most of the top schools. However, the GRE Subject Test is usually optional for a Masters application. The GRE scores are mostly used as a negative filter for rejecting candidates. A poor GRE score can get the candidate rejected, but an exceptionally high GRE score will still not be enough (by itself) to guarantee him/her an admit. Candidates with full (or almost full) marks in the quantitative section are viewed favourably. A great GRE score will help the candidate a lot, especially if he/she comes from a lesser known university that the committee has not heard of. In spite of a good academic track record in such a college, it might be tough to convince the committee if the GRE score is low, since it casts suspicions on the overall quality of the candidate’s undergraduate college. A good GRE score, on the other hand, provides further evidence in support of the candidate and assures the committee that the high GPA is not merely a fluke due to studying in a rather uncompetitive college. A consistently bad percentile in each of the three GRE sections definitely stacks the odds against the candidate. However, a slip up in one of the sections (especially if it is the Verbal or the AWA section) can be overlooked, provided the rest of his/her profile is genuinely good.

For admission in Computer Science in top graduate school programs, it is safe to have:

  • Verbal: 153 or more
  • Quants: 167 or more
  • AWA: 4 or more

However, this is not a rule, just something which you might want to have to increase your chances of getting into top universities.

My Scores


Three scores are reported on the GRE General Test:

  • A Verbal Reasoning score is reported on a 130–170 score scale, in 1-point increments.
  • A Quantitative Reasoning score is reported on a 130–170 score scale, in 1-point increments.
  • An Analytical Writing score is reported on a 0–6 score level, in half-point increments.
AttemptDateVerbalQuantsAWATotal
124 Sept, 20201501674317
29 Feb, 20211591694.5328

My preparation timeline


I was able to achieve a score of 328/340 with some smart work and a hint of dedication. After my first unsuccessful attempt, I was disheartened and the GRE seemed like a daunting task to me. However, I knew that I needed a decent score to fulfill my aspirations of pursuing graduate studies abroad, which motivated me to study harder and rectify the mistakes I made before. In the end, it turned out to be quite fruitful! Let me reflect on my journey from the day I officially started the preparation. My GRE preparation timeline goes something like this:

  • June 2020: Started learning words, spending an hour or so each day
  • July 2020: Started practicing verbal and spend 2-3 hours every day
  • Aug 2020: Was supposed to give GRE but had to postpone because I tested positive for Covid-19
  • Sept 2020: First attempt
  • Dec 2020: Started preparing again for the 2nd attempt
  • Jan 2021: Revised concepts, practiced sums, gave a few mocks
  • Feb 2021: D-day, GRE.

With proper planning, a score way better than mine, probably 330+/340, is easily achievable.

How much did I score in Mocks?


Test NameDateTotalQuantsVerbal
Princeton Review Test 327/12/2020326170156
Princetion Review Test 601/01/2021324170154
Princeton Review Test 706/01/2021330170160
Kaplan Test 510/01/2021327167160
Kaplan Test 414/01/2021324170154
Kaplan Test 217/01/2021319170149
Princeton Review Test 820/01/2021329170159
Manhattan Test 124/01/2021324166158
ETS PP126/01/2021324169155
Kaplan Test 331/01/2021327170157
ETS PP204/02/2021327169158
GRE08/02/2021328169159

Should one take coaching for GRE?


unnecessary for the GRE. In my opinion, the test evaluates your ability to apply knowledge rather than memorize intricate details. All you really need is practice, so unless you’re the type of person who won’t study without external pressure, GRE classes aren’t worth the expense.

How did I prepare for AWA?


The GRE writing section comprises of two essays, each of 30 minutes. Although the score of AWA does not hold much significance, achieving a 4+ score can certainly help boost your confidence for the subsequent Quants and Verbal sections. The writing sections aim to test your structure and critical thinking abilities rather than your knowledge. If you have a flair for writing, this section should not be too challenging. However, if writing is not your strong suit, then practicing a few topics and writing essays can be beneficial.

For my preparation, I practiced three issue essays and two argument essays. During my mock tests, I found that I struggled to come up with ample points to support my issue essay arguments and spent a lot of time in opening the issue essay, which aggravated the problem. To alleviate this issue, I went through the pool of Issue Essays (list of 150 essays), noted the ones that perplexed me (this is my list), and read essays written by others to gather a few points. I even prepared a dummy starting paragraph loaded with GRE words to leave a good first impression and save time for my body paragraphs. I found the argument essays straightforward, so I did not pay much attention while preparing for them.

The start and end I prepared for my essays can be found - here. It is needless to say that copying the text as it is will not help you since ETS has a provision for plagiarism in AWA essays.

Does the GRE essay come from the pool of topics specified on the ETS website? Yes, both the argument and essay topics come from the essay or argument pool as specified in the ETS site (links present at the end of this answer)

Many test-takers skip the AWA section during mock tests, but it is essential not to do so. Although it may seem uninteresting and time-consuming, writing the essays can help you evaluate your abilities better. Additionally, if you are not accustomed to taking tests with such long time formats, there is a high chance of making silly mistakes in the last Quants section. Thus, it is recommended to write both essays diligently as it can yield fruitful results.

Important Links:

How did I prepare for Quants?


I think for most of Engineering folks in India, Quants is a cakewalk, specially if you have been decent at math in your high school. For people targeting STEM courses, a perfect score (170/170) in quants should be the only target. It is fairly easy to achieve this if you manage to avoid silly mistakes and excel at time management.

These are the resources for practicing quants:

Whenever I made a mistake in a question during my mock tests, I would go back to that chapter, analyze what I missed, and make a note of it for future reference. Making a list of mistakes is paramount because it helped me ensure that I didn’t make the same silly mistake twice.

I highly recommend starting with Manhattan 5lb and Nova GRE Math Bible for someone who wants to learn concepts. Even though the problems in these books are straightforward, they do help with the revision of concepts and certain areas that are easy to miss, such as box plots. You should not skip a single topic in quants, no matter how trivial it may seem. Some of my peers ignored topics such as box plots, GRE math conventions, and the sum of interior angles, and were surprised to see multiple questions related to them on their actual GRE.

Lastly, if you are aiming for a high score, you might want to solve GMAT problems, which are harder than GRE quants.

Vocab!?!?


Initially, I started my preparation by learning new words from the “GRE Vocabulary Builder” app by Magoosh. There are 1000 words in this app which are divided into three categories - common, basic, and advanced. At the very least, you should know the ‘common’ and ‘basic’ words very well. After doing this, I learned GregMat’s lists, which are quite relevant since they are composed of words from the official ETS material and Big Book. Most of the words in these two lists are the same.

These are lists I would recommend for vocab (in order):

How did I prepare for Verbal?


Firstly, I strongly recommend solving the Official ETS Verbal Guide before taking the actual GRE, especially for the verbal section. This is because it is important to get accustomed to ETS’ way of testing.

During my 2nd attempt, I got a subscription to GregMat Plus★. Nothing has been more helpful. The affordability of GregMat is one of its best points. You will rarely find a course that is so well structured and so credible for such a low price in the world of test prep. A monthly payment of $5 gives you access to an extensive collection of study resources.

It’s important to note that while the verbal score is not as crucial as the quant score for STEM courses, a good verbal score can still boost your overall GRE score. For those aiming for STEM courses, a verbal score in the range of 152-155 is generally sufficient. o prepare for the verbal section, I found solving The GRE Big Book - 27 Old GRE tests ★to be helpful, as the short and long passages are still relevant even though the format has changed. Additionally, practicing text completion and critical reasoning questions from this book can also be beneficial. Apart of the Big Book, I also used The Princeton Review - 1014 practice questions and Kaplan’s Quiz. However, I would not recommend using Manhattan 5lb for verbal practice since the questions are focused more on vocabulary than logic, which is not representative of the actual GRE test.

Mastering reading comprehension is of paramount importance since half of the questions in verbal are passages. Here are some of the reading strategies which might be helpful. Sentence equivalence questions can’t be relied upon since you get only 8/40 of them and you can never be sure of the vocab. However, the Pairing Strategy works surprisingly well! You only get 4/40 critical reasoning questions, which are slightly more difficult than other questions partially because they have a 5-6 line passage for a single question. It’s okay to not spend a lot of time preparing for such questions. I personally find text completion questions quite straight-forward most of the time. I highly recommend watching these tricks (specially the math strategy) which were very helpful.

Resources:

List of Online Mock Tests?


What did I do differently the 2nd time?


As previously mentioned, I took the GRE twice and scored 11 points higher on my second attempt. After speaking with various seniors and searching online, I realized that it is extremely challenging to increase your score if you retake the exam within a month. Based on my personal experience, I know at least 15 peers who retook the test but received the same score (11 out of 15 scored the same!), with varied distributions between quant and verbal. Even though the sample size is small, it is safe to assume that taking more time to practice before retaking the exam is the right approach.

For my second attempt, I revisited most of the material and solved everything entirely, unlike the last time when I solved only a few sections partially. It is crucial to practice all sections and all types of questions. I completed all 27 tests in The GRE Big Book - 27 Old GRE tests ★ Additionally, I practiced text completion and critical reasoning questions. I found the video explanations of the solutions on GregMat Plus to be helpful in understanding the crux of the problem and the concepts ETS tries to test. For quants, I solved the Kaplan Quizzes and rectified my mistakes in the mock tests. Speaking of vocab, I learned fewer words for the second attempt. I realized after the first attempt that ETS focuses more on your problem-solving skills than your vocab. Most third-party study materials do the opposite, which is why I avoided them as much as possible.

That being said, I believe that GregMat Plus was one of the most significant reasons for my improved verbal score. I highly recommend it to everyone. I used it to look for solutions to questions I solved incorrectly in The Big Book and watched the lecture series for text completion and reading comprehension sections. Additionally, I practiced vocab from GregMat’s lists, along with other important lists on his site like “Double Duty words,” “most frequent words,” etc. Although I did not use it extensively, I believe that a $5 subscription is well worth it.

One more piece of advice: take the mock tests seriously and try to emulate the test environment as much as possible. Do not skip the essay sections and experimental section. Rather than focusing on drastic improvement in a particular section, try to do everything slightly better.

Aggregation of marginal gains —”The whole principle came from an idea that if you break down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.” ~Brailsford

Other Important Links:


Please free to reach out to me if you are unable to find any resources. I will be more than happy to share them with you, if I have them.

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