How I Scored 165, 167, & 5.0 on GRE Verbal, Quant, & Writing — And How You Can Too

Below is a screenshot of my GRE Test Taker Score Report. As you can see, I completed the General GRE Test on August 13th, 2016, scoring a 165 (96th %ile) in Verbal Reasoning, a 167 (90th %ile) in Quantitative Reasoning, and a 5.0 (92nd %ile) in Analytical Writing. Near the bottom of the page, you can see my score and percentile ranking in the Psychology Subject GRE Test from an October test date later that year.

I wish I could say that reaching these scores was easy and that I barely studied, but unfortunately, however, that is far from my experience! Achieving these scores took four months of an intensive, iterative preparation process that included (a) organizing my studying plans, (b) actually studying, and © taking practice tests to evaluate my progress. When I was preparing, I wanted to attain scores that would stand out and be a strength in my application package during my future Ph.D. admissions process. My goal was to rank in the 90thpercentile [or higher] of test-takers in all three components of the GRE. In this article, I want to share the “big picture”-aspects of my approach to reaching my GRE goals. In the next article in this GRE Series, I’ll be discussing the more fine-grained details for acing Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning questions as well as the two essays in the Analytical…