GRE 330 in 20 days

Verbal 162 :) , Quant 168 :| , AWA 3 :(

Hey !! My name is Mihir Parulekar. I gave GRE last week and scored 330/340. It took me preparation of 20 days. This article will give a concise idea of how you should prepare and what you should avoid doing. I am not a teacher and here I am not teaching anything but I am trying to show a possible approach to crack the exam in the short time available. I have formatted links in bold, italics and underline format. Highlight if you find any line meaningful, it will help others.

GRE stands for Graduate Record Examinations conducted by ETS. It is a computer-based test and you can take it any time, any number of times. It is important as many United States-based universities ask for your GRE scores before admitting you to a graduate program and it acts as a screening score.

20 days are enough for GRE .

Pattern and Syllabus:

( Before giving any test not just GRE, you should always learn pattern and syllabus. )

GRE has Five sections of three types. We will discuss Analytical Writing section afterward. The remaining two are Quantitative Ability and Verbal reasoning both for 170 marks each.

For verbal, you get 20 questions and 30 minutes and for quant, you get 20 questions and 35 minutes. In an exam you will be facing 6 sections: 1 of Analytical Writing, 2 of verbal, 2 of quant, and 1 additional section of either verbal or quant. (Depends on luck. So unfair !) Furthermore it's adaptive, that is if you solve the first section correctly you are going to get more difficult questions in the next sections. (It is section-wise adaptive which means complexity will not increase or decrease in the same section but in the next section of that type.)

Based on the responses that you will give in those excruciating four and half hours, GRE will give you your scaled score. No one actually knows how they count scaled scores, it is like ‘ Duckworth Lewis ’ in cricket, anything can happen. But generally, they give reasonable scores. Let us do a breakdown of scores.

Scoring Strategy :

Firstly you have to decide what is your strength. Is it English or is it Maths? I will recommend you all to give a diagnostics test before you start, it will give you a clear idea of your where you stand. Otherwise what generally happens is you will either overestimate or underestimate your level. So I will recommend you to give a diagnostic test, especially Powerprep test by ETS. It is the same as GRE. Give it seriously without skipping the AWA section. What I will recommend is to go to someplace where no one will disturb you. Shut off your phone.

So to get 330+ scores you need 160+ score in one and 165+ score in another (at least). Generally quant is easy to score and many get a perfect 170. If you get 170 in quant you can get away with 160 in verbal. Whatever fewer marks you get from the absolute score in quant you have to compensate for it by adding the same number of marks in your 160 score of verbal.

So being strong in one and weak in another will never get you there.

one more thing: whatever score you have you can improve it! (Unless you have 340.)

Quantitative Ability:

Children’s game.

If you are fair with high school level maths you are going to get at least 160. So if you are looking for 310+ score (which you should never. You should always aim for 330+. Sadly many get satisfied by 310–320.) you don’t have to prepare quant that much. Just a slight brush up of basic probability, statistics, and geometry concepts would be enough. Click here to get an official guide on ETS for mathematics. You literally don’t have to use your brain to get 155+ marks.

I found this pie chart online and is fairly accurate.

If you are looking for 320+ score you should aim 165–170 score in quant. For this advancement, you have to put some effort. In exam, you don’t get any random questions. Your section will be consisting of Arithmetic, Geometry, Algebra and Data Analysis. Unless and until you are some alien who has just landed on earth you are going to be a master of some of these subsections. So be clever and ignore those you know and study the topic you are weak at. For example, you are a wizard of geometry don’t even look at it. Use that time for Algebra or Arithmetic. Make one thing clear in your mind that doing the same thing again and again won't help you, GRE quant is literally a children’s game so just learn the basics of all concepts.

Now if you want 165+ (or 168 like me) you have to aim and prepare for 170. Believe me, it is not as simple as getting 165. It requires effort. (lots of). As it is Adaptive your questions are going to get tougher and tougher. Trust me they will become really tough at the end and you are going to be stuck at some questions.

Quant my suggestions :

You are going to get 6 questions on Data Analysis. That is nothing but graphs and pie charts and stuff like that. Prepare this topic first. In your exam, you should not waste more than one minute each on these 6 questions. For that, you will require some practice. Most of these questions are tricky as the language in which questions are asked is very abstruse and sometimes graphs are also very obscure. So practice beforehand will come in very handy. So get done with this topic first and be sure to jot down the mistakes you do while solving and believe me you are going to make many silly mistakes. It would be sillier not to remember what silly thing you did. So make mistakes log. This whole topic will probably take 3–4 hours.

The next thing you have to get done with is the quantitative comparison. You are going to get somewhere around 10 of these problems. Many people while preparing, only goes after different math topics but smart people like me should not forget the different question types. Quantitative Comparison is a characteristic type of question giving you hundreds of chances to make silly mistakes. To solve at least 100 problems of this type. It can cover many topics such as percentages, work, etc. Get familiar with the format. Again jot down the mistakes you make. It would take 3–4 hours. Solve these problems for practice. (Also check out other problem sets available there.)

Probability, Statistics should be next on the list as these topics are simple but you have to know the definitions beforehand. Median, Mode, Variance, and Normal Distribution are the simplest topics in the whole universe if you know their definitions. So destroy these topics. It won't take more than 3 hours. In the case of probability, you have to review different problem types and understand the procedure to solve them. GRE doesn't ask you difficult problems so learn the typical problem-answering strategies. Knowledge of Permutation and Combinations will come in handy.

Geometry is important. I personally find it very easy. In geometry firstly go for triangles, quadrilaterals, polygons, circles and coordinate. Again, don’t go too deep just go through formulas and start solving. Lastly, go through Three-dimensional geometry. Go through angle measures problems and area problems.

Then go for Percents, Rates, and Speed Time Distance problems. You can solve these problems by simple logic. But little preparation would be better. It would take two hours.

Now lastly go for number properties, divisibility test, etc. I would strongly recommend you solve as many problems as you can. Just reading properties won't help solve problems. Questions such as quadratic or some word problems of age or mixtures should be practiced.

The last step would be going through miscellaneous topics. This is very important. There are going to be topics you may not be comfortable with. Target them and be in a position of at least gaming such problems.

Now some precise stuff:

If you have only 20 days for preparation, I would suggest you give daily 2–3 hours for quant. Within the first week of these 20 days, you must get done with all the topics I mentioned above. You should do it consistently without fail. I would strongly recommend you give diagnostic tests before the start of preparation. There are many available out there. Later I would be giving links to some of them.

Lot of material boon or bane?

The next important factor is books. I will recommend understanding the concepts using the official guide. For problem-solving, I used Manhattan 5lb (link for Indian readers ). The best part about it is the detailed answers and variety of questions. Bifurcation of topics is also appreciable. I have also checked Barron’s guide which has a great summary of formulas and techniques to tackle different problems. (I have given links to the amazon India website to buy these books, and you should always buy, but if you are in the final days of preparation or don't have time or resources to buy, there are plenty of ways available. If you get what I mean to say. Google it.). Don’t use a lot of books, complete the one you have chosen.

Time aspect. It is always better to get used to tickling time. In the actual exam you get a digital clock on the right upper side of your screen starting from 35 towards zero. So if you are not used to that it might give you some psychological problems. Another added advantage is when you time your preparation you get your mind to concentrate. My observation was one exercise in Manhattan prep used to take an hour before I started timing, after which I used to get done with all the questions in less than thirty minutes. So in a short time, your preparation would stop your mind chitter-chatter and will increase your efficiency.

Now, this is something for those who are aiming for 170. Complete all questions in 27–28 minutes and keep 7–8 minutes for checking all the questions.

One day before test day take a review of your mistakes book. Go through the formulas.

Go through the following links and use them according to your need:

Collection of different articles (quant topics). If you don’t want to sign up, copy the title of the article in the new tab.

This is also a useful website. Just beware of a little high difficulty level.

I used these notes to start.

Verbal Section:

For most non-English native students, verbal is the main impediment to good GRE scores. You automatically go in the range of 320+ if you get 155+ in verbal and can certainly get somewhere near 330 if you score 160+ in verbal. It's very important to master this difficult section. For verbal you are going to need way more consistent, persistent efforts.

So at the start of your verbal section, you will have the first 6 questions of Text completion type. Where complex sentences with blanks are given and you have to fill those blanks with the aptest word from the given options. There can be single blank, double blank, or triple blank sentences. Unless and until you fill all the blanks correctly you don’t get any marks.

After that, you will face two Reading Comprehension passages with 5 questions. The length of passages may vary. For some, it would be 400 words while for some it might be a mere 100. But eventually, you are going to get at least one big passage.

After RC you will have 4 sentence equivalence questions where there is a single blank sentence. You have 5 options given and you have to select 2 options that best suit you. This is arguably the easiest question type of verbal.

After Sentence Equivalence, you again have the remaining RC question till question number 20. The length of these paragraphs varies a lot.

All in all, you will have 30 minutes to solve all these questions.

This is all about verbal section format now let's consider the strategies.

Improve vocabulary.

Now I understand improving vocab is long-term process. But you have to do something. GRE has a set of words that appears frequently you have to get done with them first. There are many word lists available out there. Barrons333 is very reputed and a must for all aspirants. Manhattans 500 essential and 500 Advanced are also a good resource. Make sure you remember all the words you read. The best way I found to fortify these words in memory is Mnemonics. Also check the memrise app. There is a special already prepared gre list available you can add it and play games. Its super fun .

If you have more than 30 days I would recommend the world famous ‘Word Power Made Easy’. It is in my opinion the best book to add new words to your basket. Once you start reading you would not keep it down and complete it within a few days. It will surely add those words permanently to your memory.

Reading different websites will also help. The New York Times, The New Yorker will not only provide you with interesting new words but also give you the practice of reading the excerpts you are going to face in RC problems. I found Arts and Letters Daily very useful. Their app is also available. Recently I read the fountainhead. It also included most of the GRE words. It is must-read book as well. Adding words this way would give you context to remember those words. All this is advisable if you have 30–40 or more days in your hand. If you have less than that focus on word lists that would be more fruitful.

I personally prepared a list my friend gave me. I, unfortunately, deleted the soft copy hence can't make it available now but if I find it in the future I will surely make it available. It was in a very beautifully format which I will recommend to you guys which is [Word:Meaning:Sample sentence: Synonym: Antonym]. This made connecting and remembering the words easy.

Dichotomy for Scores:

Let's make a plan for 160+ verbal score. (Again you have to aim for an absolute score to reach at least 160).

Reading Comprehension is the backbone of your Verbal Score. I say this with great thought. Half of your questions are RC. If you answer them correctly you are going to be 155+ or even more without doubt.(This does not mean you underestimate the rest.)The other sections are more like the launching pads for your score. The more you get them correct higher would be your scores. But without good scores in RC you can never have good GRE verbal scores. There is a reciprocating relationship that is if you do better in Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence you normally do better in RC the reason is you get more time for tackling RC problems.

This is the best guide for RC in my opinion. It is concise and I would recommend following whatever you could.

1. You ideally should not read passages more than once in their entirety. In one reading you should get the structure and main point of the passage.
2. You should improve your reading speed. You can always read faster than your present speed. Generally, our reading speed is the same as our speaking speed. You should read faster than that. This is possible within a week. I personally improved my speed. In the final days, I just used to read the keywords of the sentence and not used to notice a, and, the, whereas, etc. If you have more time then go for vertical reading.
3. Mind mapping of different events happening in the passage is also very helpful. It reduces your time of re-reading the whole passage. But it takes time to imbibe this habit so don’t try if you have less than a month.

Follow that guide for RC. (It is really helpful.)

The Ultimate Step:

The ultimate step that would give you a sure shot of success in verbal is Practice. Verbal it is very very important. Because of the Text Completion, Sentence Equivalence problems are not as innocent as they appear. They are full of traps. You have to keep an eye on extremes, overstatements, and understatements. If you practice you will not only gather a lot many new words but also revisit those you know. You can’t master Verbal without practice. I would recommend Manhattan 5lb book because it has elaborated answers which will teach you how to approach these question types.

For RC as well Manhattan is very great. Every question is explained very well.

I would recommend a timed practice. Go for 30 minutes session in which you should solve either 30 Text Completion or 30 Sentence Equivalence. And 20 minutes session in which 5 RC problems. Use elimination.

So for 20 days in the first week, you should focus more on word lists creating a foundation for yourself (Also start problem-solving), and in the last two weeks keep solving as many questions as you can.

Analytical Writing:

This is the section that failed me. I prepared for AWA but somehow didn’t score as much as I expected. I did an analysis of what might have hampered my scores.

This is the perfect guide for your AWA section. (Read it).

Keep in mind reviewer is going to have only 2 minutes to review your essay. To maintain clarity in your writing. It should be easier to understand what you want to convey.

As you might be knowing the topic pool is available.

Argument Topic pool. Issue topic pool. Go through sample-assessed essays and make your observations.

Both essays must be 400–500 words long so practice writing. Use this website. It gives you word count, Level of your writing, spelling, and grammatical mistakes.

Write few essays. Most important is get your responses checked. Writing without assessment wont be useful.

In 20 days it is difficult to improve score by lot margin but you can surely improve your score by 0.5 or 1 by rectifying the common mistakes.

Adding quotes to your essay is advisable but don’t do the mistake I did which putting Irrelevant quotes. You can find many quotes here.

Crunchprep also has a very good compilation of quotes here.

General Tips:

1. Give a Diagnostic Test before starting your preparation. Here are some: 1:Official ETS powerprep 2:Manhattan Practice Free Test
2. While giving a test don’t jump the AWA section.
3. Keep the last two days for review and get done with the learning and problem-solving phase before that.
4. Make a practice of sitting in one place for 5 hours. Otherwise, it would be hard at the test venue. GRE is an exam of Endurance.
5. On test, day keep yourself hydrated. Take fruits with yourself.
6. Select universities you want to apply to beforehand.

I wrote this article as many of my friends were asking how I prepared. I know 330 is not a very great score and I am not trying to teach you guys anything. It is just the approach I think will help. These were the strategies I employed and they worked for me you should apply your own thinking.

The main point I am trying to make is GRE is not a difficult exam and 20 days is enough for preparation. To understand the exam, plan, and execute.

Also please show your love to my article ‘Read this before your first Startup’.

Edit: September 5, 2022

Hey, I am updating the post after nearly 4 years, the article has about 250k+ reads and I am really happy that I was able to help so many of you. About me, I am currently living in Seattle and working as a software engineer at Microsoft. Life has been great, the US has taught me many things and all the efforts were totally worth it.

GRE is an important step in the application process but is not the last one. Proper SOP (statement of purpose), LOR (letter of recommendation), resume, cover letter, proper transcripts, pragmatic selection of universities, and managing all the deadlines for application are important steps.

If you need help in this process (I highly recommend it as someone who has been there done can help you avoid the same mistakes and even increase your selection chances in the top 100 universities .) A friend of mine, Mugdha has recently started a consultancy service. The quality of services and rates at which she is offering them is a great bargain. I would highly recommend her to all of you.

To connect with Mugdha, connect with her on Instagram or LinkedIn.

This is not a paid promotion.

Thanks for reading! :) If you enjoyed this article, hit that 👏button below. ❤ Would really mean a lot to me and it helps other people see the story.