what is the right stratergy to prepare for gre

Preparing for the GRE is a monumental task, so information technology'south necessary to take a great study plan in place to ensure that you can effectively push toward your target GRE score. The adept news is that as long as you have a structured, organized, and well-thought-out program, at that place is no reason why you cannot succeed on the GRE.

This article will walk you through all of the components that make upwards each of the two critical phases of GRE preparation in any thorough and effective GRE study plan: the learning phase and the practice-test phase. If yous've asked yourself, "What is the best way to study for the GRE?," this two-phase arroyo is it!

• The Ii Main Phases of GRE Preparation
• Phase 1: The Learning Stage
  • Strategy #1: Use a Topic-by-Topic Approach
  • Strategy #ii: Alternate Between Quantitative and Verbal Study
  • Strategy #3: Take Notes While Learning
  • Strategy #4: Use Flashcards to Study Strategically
  • Strategy #5: Accept a Wait Back at What Y'all've Learned
  • Strategy #vi: Examine Your Error Log Weekly
• Phase ii: The Do-Test Phase
  • Strategy #7: Spread Out Your Practice Tests

Let'southward start by defining the two phases and why it's critical to complete them in guild.

The 2 Main Phases of GRE Preparation

Your GRE test prep should consist of 2 distinct phases: the learning stage and the practice-exam phase. The beginning phase (the learning phase) consists of learning GRE quant and verbal topics through concept report and do. The second phase (the practice-test phase) consists of practicing your acquired skills and cognition by taking full-length exercise exams.

You lot must continue these two phases separate. Besides initially taking a practice examination to get a baseline score, do not take any boosted exercise exams until you complete the unabridged learning phase of your report plan.

Waiting to take do exams is very important. The information from those exams will be virtually meaningless unless yous take already learned all you can from your GRE quant and verbal study. For case, allow's say you accept a practice exam prior to learning geometry, and you get four geometry questions wrong. What does that actually tell y'all? Essentially what you already knew — you are not strong in geometry. No surprise there, because y'all accept yet to learn about that topic!

TTP PRO TIP:

Don't take exercise tests during the learning phase of your GRE training.

If y'all want to ensure that y'all're fully prepared to crush the GRE on exam 24-hour interval, you'll need a study strategy that involves learning GRE content start. So you will refine your abilities with enough of practice. So, permit'due south talk nigh study strategies for the offset phase of your GRE preparation.

Phase 1: The Learning Stage

You've washed your homework on your target schools and established a target score. You've completed your first full-length, official GRE do test nether realistic testing atmospheric condition to encounter how far y'all are from your target score. (If you lot oasis't already, read this mail on how to go started with your GRE test prep.) You're all set to begin your GRE training!

And then, you lot may be asking yourself, "At present what?" Well, the outset thing to consider is that GRE quant and verbal questions cover a wide variety of quantitative and exact topics. In that location is no way to know which concepts volition be tested on whatsoever given GRE. Then, learning random GRE topics in a hitting-or-miss way, without whatsoever lodge or logical progression, is not a productive or efficient study technique.

A topical approach, on the other hand, is a highly constructive method for mastering all of the many topics and concepts you need to learn during the starting time phase of your GRE prep. Let's discuss this strategy in item.

Strategy #1: Apply a Topic-by-Topic Approach

By following a linear, topic-by-topic approach to GRE prep, y'all'll be using the all-time method to ensure that you properly understand each GRE topic. You won't waste material fourth dimension trying to learn avant-garde topics before you've mastered your core noesis.

For case, exercise you think it would exist useful to bound around from Reading Comprehension questions to 1-blank Text Completion questions earlier yous have mastered either of those topics? The short answer is NO. Similarly, would it be helpful to jump from Exponent questions to Quadratic questions to Probability questions before mastering those topics? Again, the answer is NO! Jumping around in such a way volition not allow you to proceeds basis in whatsoever one quant or verbal topic. Yous will feel as though you're treading h2o rather than moving forward smoothly and building your cognition.

So, the construction of your GRE study plan should be to learn one topic at a time, and and then practice questions just on that one topic before moving to the next ane. Using this method, start with the fundamentals and work your way upwards to more advanced concepts.

TTP PRO TIP:

Don't try to learn advanced topics before you've mastered the nuts.

The TTP GRE Written report Plan, for example, begins with a chapter on foundational GRE quant skills, including rules on fractions and decimals, basic concepts of exponents and roots, PEMDAS, etc. These topics are presented in individual lessons followed past 2 to 3 questions based on each lesson. So, let's say a student learns about PEMDAS. Immediately after learning that concept, he would be presented with 2 to iii PEMDAS questions to ensure comprehension.

Also, following each chapter, students take a series of chapter tests based on the affiliate just completed. These tests are broken up into easy, medium, and hard levels.

After each affiliate test, detailed analytics are provided. Students can easily review the lessons that gave them problems on the affiliate test. Using that data, students can strengthen any weak areas before they move to the next test. Finally, after all tests — like shooting fish in a barrel, medium, and hard — accept been completed and reviewed, the student moves to the adjacent quant or verbal topic presented in the study program.

Post-obit an organized and topical arroyo allows for maximum efficiency, as you lot'll always be able to see what you lot've already learned and what you nevertheless have to acquire. Furthermore, if you lot sympathize each topic before attempting a big number of practice questions based on that topic, your GRE practice becomes a tool not only for honing your skills but likewise for validating that you sympathise all of the topics you've studied.

If you lot don't have a well-structured and organized study plan, finding and addressing your GRE knowledge gaps tin can feel like a game of whack-a-mole. This will become frustrating and could even lead to your giving upward on GRE prep altogether.

TTP PRO TIP:

Use a linear, topic-past-topic approach to make your GRE prep more than organized, efficient, and productive.

Now that you take a bones structure for your written report programme, let's discuss some more specific report tactics y'all should utilise to master each new GRE topic.

Strategy #2: Alternating Between Quantitative and Verbal Study

While some separation of quant and verbal study is a good idea in GRE prep, I don't recommend studying GRE quant and exact at entirely unlike times during the grooming process. For example, I would not suggest studying just GRE quant for the kickoff two months of prep, and so studying only GRE verbal for the next ii months. Having such large gaps in fourth dimension volition make retaining what you've learned more difficult. Think about how much quant knowledge you would lose by month four after taking two months off of quant prep!

While we don't want to lose what we've learned, it is of import to give our brains a little "breather" when we're dealing with a large number of concepts in a single topic. For case, consider what it would be like to accept only math classes for an entire semester. Pretty exhausting, right? Fifty-fifty if y'all enjoy math, spending hours every twenty-four hours studying only math would likely pb to boredom, restlessness, and a lack of enthusiasm. Furthermore, the influx of data may crusade your brain to go overloaded.

As a effect, it's a proficient thought to alternate quant and verbal topics inside your study plan. For example, allow'southward say a student using the TTP class worked through our quant affiliate on Linear and Quadratic equations for 12 days, covering all of the lessons and chapter tests. The study program would next nowadays the verbal affiliate on Sentence Equivalence questions. Later on completing that verbal affiliate, a return to quant — perhaps Roots and Exponents — would be next, and so on.

Learning in this way provides students the necessary time and infinite between topics to comprehend what they've learned and proceed their preparation on track. They're as well more likely to stay engaged and interested in what they're learning. This prevents the study process from becoming monotonous. After all, when a task becomes repetitive, nosotros tend to zone out and lose our focus and drive to study.

TTP PRO TIP:

To increment your knowledge, skills, and retentiveness as you proceed through your GRE prep, alternating between learning a quant topic and learning a exact topic.

Strategy #3: Accept Notes While Learning

Taking notes every bit you learn new topics is essential when you are in the learning phase of your GRE study plan. Too often, students read or watch videos about concepts without taking any activeness to reinforce what they're learning. Passive activities are not an effective way to learn.

One way to become an active participant in your learning is by taking notes as yous cover new concepts. The human activity of putting a concept into your own words encourages yous to retrieve more deeply nigh its meaning. The more you have to recall about what y'all're learning, the more than you'll call up. So, when reading a lesson or watching a video, engage your brain by taking meaningful notes on the essential concepts presented.

Taking notes will not but help you think more than information merely too provide yous with something to review at a later fourth dimension. Furthermore, annotation-taking will aid in the process of making flashcards, which we will discuss side by side.

TTP PRO TIP:

Taking notes makes you an active participant in your learning and gives you reference material for later on review.

Strategy #4: Utilize Flashcards to Report Strategically

Creating and reviewing flashcards that summarize disquisitional concepts is a terrific method of making your GRE studying more than efficient and helping y'all to be a better test-taker. Utilize key concepts from your notes to make flashcards. This provides you with yet another take a chance to think almost what you've learned and put information technology into your own words, both of which are proven to help with knowledge retentivity.

A great function nigh flashcards is that they can be used almost anywhere. For instance, if you take public transportation to and from piece of work, yous tin use that time to review your flashcards. Or if you're waiting in line at the grocery store, accept out your flashcards and give yourself a two-minute quiz. You'll undoubtedly discover that there are several opportunities to fit in "quick-hit" flashcard study sessions throughout your solar day, and believe me when I say that they add upward! You tin add an extra 20 minutes to your daily written report time by fitting in five minutes here and ten minutes there. Over the grade of a week, yous'd fit in an extra 2 hours and 20 minutes of GRE studying!

Some students prefer to use traditional paper flashcards, while others prefer digital flashcards. Any format you lot select, make sure to use your flashcards equally frequently as possible. Shuffle the deck or randomize your cards earlier each use to add a new level of difficulty. Your brain will have to work a little harder to recollect the material if you reorder the cards each time you lot study them, and your retention will better.

Keep in mind that the number of flashcards you use will increase as y'all proceed through your GRE study plan. So, to make flashcard study more efficient, divide your cards into two piles: one for concepts you've mastered and another for concepts y'all haven't. Naturally, you'll desire to expect at the "not mastered" pile more than often than the "mastered" pile. However, as we'll run into adjacent, you won't want to forget about what you've already learned, so be sure to look at your "mastered" pile every then often. If y'all are wondering what should continue your flashcards, check out our GRE quant equation guide for some inspiration.

TTP PRO TIP:

To make your flashcard review more challenging, shuffle the deck earlier each utilize.

Strategy #5: Have a Wait Dorsum at What You've Learned

You must revisit GRE topics you've already covered on a frequent footing equally you get through the learning portion of your GRE study plan. Every bit we've already discussed, you lot don't want to get so far from a topic that you forget it. Because at that place is so much data to learn for the GRE, you risk losing knowledge as you progress through your study plan if you lot don't become over previous topics regularly.

As an example, consider studying a foreign language: even if you become skillful, it doesn't take long to forget words if you don't routinely hear the language spoken and speak it yourself. Approach GRE prep in the same way. Over the duration of your study plan, it'due south unlikely that you'll be able to written report a topic once and only once and recall that topic on test day.

Information technology'due south unlikely that you'll be able to study a topic once and just in one case and recall that topic on examination solar day.

So, incorporate periodic review quizzes on previously studied topics into your GRE study plan. Practise this in add-on to plumbing fixtures in flashcard review whenever y'all tin to refresh essential concepts. Past analyzing these quizzes, y'all'll easily see if yous've lost any cognition from previously learned topics.

For example, when students motility from 1 quant or verbal chapter in the TTP form to the next one, they begin with a review quiz that includes 10 questions based on several of the prior chapters they've studied. These quizzes provide students with a valuable opportunity to regularly review what they've learned. As a upshot, important concepts are less likely to exist forgotten equally new data is learned.

Periodic, mixed-topic review quizzes likewise permit students to routinely assess their ability to use what they've learned. Considering these quizzes present problems from many topics, they are similar to what students volition meet on the math section or the verbal section of the real GRE. At TTP, our mixed sets are compiled strategically, and then that our students never waste matter fourth dimension on trouble sets that include topics they haven't yet learned. Thus, students never progress also far without seeing a previous topic.

For example, if a student finishes the Number Properties chapter on day 75, she won't have to look until mean solar day 150 to see some other Number Properties question. She may come beyond Number Properties questions in mixed-problem review quizzes on days 85, 100, 127, and so on.

In addition to the review quizzes, the TTP study plan includes larger, 40-question review tests that cover topics from several previous chapters (shown beneath). These tests, once over again, provide strategic review of previously learned topics too as ample timed practice.

TTP PRO TIP:

Revisiting previously taught GRE topics at regular, strategic intervals trains your brain to notice that the information is essential. This increases your chances of remembering the information on test day.

Another style to written report past topics regularly is through reviewing your fault log. Permit'south discuss that strategy now.

Strategy #half-dozen: Examine Your Error Log Weekly

While it'south important to review every GRE question that you incorrectly answer, it's equally equally important to keep rails of those incorrect answers and the reasons why you got those questions incorrect. However, simply keeping rails of your mistakes and going through them at random is not an efficient way to avoid repeating the aforementioned mistakes in the future.

In the TTP grade, for example, there is a congenital-in error log that we advise students to review in one case a week. In conducting this review, our students reread the solutions to the problems they've answered incorrectly. They then get dorsum to their study materials or notes to revisit whatever concepts that tripped them upwardly.

A weekly review of your mistake log ensures that y'all fix mistakes and fill knowledge gaps correct away. This prevents those gaps from lingering and growing larger and ensures that poor habits don't become ingrained.

Additionally, performing a weekly "cheque-in" with your error log guarantees that you're never confronted with an overwhelming listing of topics that need improving. Consider how much work yous'd have to do if yous spent three months studying and practicing for the GRE before reviewing your mistake log.

Remember, the value of your practice sessions will diminish if you don't frequently rectify your errors. Thus, ensure that your GRE study schedule includes a weekly review of your error log.

TTP PRO TIP:

A weekly "cheque-in" with your error log ensures that knowledge gaps and bad habits don't linger and abound.

Once yous've studied and skillful each GRE topic thoroughly, revisited previous topics in mixed sets, and reviewed and stock-still your weak areas regularly, the learning stage of your training will exist complete. Thus, you'll exist set up to move on to the 2nd (and final) part of a successful GRE written report strategy: completing full-length practice tests in the practice-test stage.

Phase two: The Practice-Exam Stage

In the last phase of your study plan, yous will have the remaining four full-length, official GRE exercise exams. (Note that in that location are actually five do exams available on the ETS website, but y'all will have already taken one of them to establish your baseline GRE score at the starting time of your study plan). Let's discuss how to take these remaining exams.

Strategy #seven: Spread Out Your Practise Tests

Use the four remaining total-length do exams on the ETS website. They volition help you lot familiarize yourself with the test-taking feel, build stamina, polish your pacing, determine whether you can striking your target score, and identify any remaining weak areas. I want to be articulate: this strategy of using ETS practice exams to assist with any lingering weak areas works only because you have completed the learning stage.

Be sure to spread out your practice exams, leaving nigh seven days betwixt exams. Y'all don't want to be in a scenario in which yous have to have all 4 practice tests in the same week. By spreading them out, yous'll have time between practice tests to examine and fix your weak areas. Plus, you'll give yourself a few days to clear your head before your side by side practice test — a must for performing at the acme of your game.

TTP PRO TIP:

Be certain to spread out your practice exams, leaving about seven days between exams.

Of course, if you're not getting your target score on total-length practice exams, you might want to recall near whether yous demand more time to prepare for the GRE. Because every educatee learns and develops abilities at a different rate, there is no "standard" time frame for completing GRE grooming. The further your baseline score is from your target score, the more time y'all'll need to gear up for the GRE fairly. If y'all're unsure of how long y'all may need to adequately ready for the GRE, this article can help you calculate your report time.

Happy studying!

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Source: https://gre.blog.targettestprep.com/best-way-to-study-for-gre/

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