3 MONTH STUDY PLAN FOR GRE

QUANTITATIVE
Resources you’ll need:
 ETS GRE Official Guide
 ETS Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions Book
 Manhattan 5lb book of GRE Practice Questions
 Manhattan 8 Strategy Guides Set: Books 1 to 6

Plan:
Manhattan Strategy Guides (Books 1 to 6): Use these guides to revise or strengthen your basic
concepts of all GRE topics. Books 1 through 6 contain easy explanations and drill questions that
help you build your mathematical intuition. You should ideally be finished with these guides in a
month.

Manhattan 5 lb book of GRE Practice Questions: Once you are done with the strategy guides,
start practicing questions that are harder and resemble actual GRE questions. An amazing resource
for such questions is the Manhattan 5lb book, a book with established repute as a reliable GRE prep,
especially for quantitative reasoning. The book has around 800 math questions in total; start
solving these questions and refer back to the strategy guides if you feel the need to revise
something. Try to keep your sessions timed, e.g. if you’re doing 20 questions, attempt those
questions in 45 to 60 minutes (If that is too hard, extend it a little but make sure there is some
constraint. Your speed should increase with time). Again, ideally you should be done with this book
within a month.

ETS GRE Official Guide: Now that you’re done with the primary resources covering all the topics,
move on to supplementary books. The first of these is the ETS Official Guide to the GRE. Chapter 6
of this book titled “GRE Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions” contains around 50 questions in
total. Attempt all of these questions under actual test time constraints (i.e. allocate a total time such
that you get on average 1.75 minutes per question). Get done with this book in two to three days.

ETS Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions Book: From this book, attempt four chapters
titled Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, and Data Analysis. These chapters contain around 80
questions, practice 20 questions daily under actual test time constraints.

VERBAL & AWA

Resources you’ll need:

 ETS GRE Official Guide
 ETS Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions Book
  Manhattan 5lb book of GRE Practice Questions
 Manhattan 8 Strategy Guides Set: Books 7 & 8
 Magoosh GRE Vocabulary Mobile App
 Magoosh Online GRE course paid subscription (optional)

Plan:
Magoosh GRE Vocabulary Mobile App: This app has around 1100 GRE words; knowing their
meanings will help you tackle many text completion (TC) and sentence equivalence (SE) questions.
As soon as you start preparing for your GRE, make it a habit to learn at least 15-20 new words from
this app every day. Also, revise the words you have learnt every 3-4 days.

Manhattan Strategy Guides (Books 7 & 8): Use these guides to develop basic strategy for your
passages, essays, TCs and SEs. Book 7 deals extensively with reading strategies and essay writing,
while book 8 is about TCs and SEs. You should ideally be finished with these guides in the first
month of your preparation.

Manhattan 5 lb book of GRE Practice Questions: Once you are done with the strategy guides,
start practicing reading comprehension passages (including logic based comprehension) from the
Manhattan 5lb. Do not use this resource for TCs and SEs. Again try to keep your sessions timed.
Initially you can have relaxed time constraints, but as your reading ability gets better with time,
start reducing your time. Your goal is to be able to complete 10 questions in 20 minutes (this
including the time spent on reading the passage). Ideally you should be done with this book within
20 days.

ETS GRE Official Guide: When you’re done with passages from Manhattan 5 lb, move on to ETS
Official Guide. By now you must have learnt more than half of the GRE vocabulary from Magoosh
app, and hence be prepared to take on the TCs & SEs as well. Chapter 4 of the Official Guide titled
“GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions” contains around 50 questions in total, half on passages
and half on TCs/SEs. Attempt all of these questions under actual test time constraints (i.e. allocate a
total time such that you get on average 1.5 minutes per question. One common distribution is 1
minute/question for TC/SEs and 2 minutes/question for passages). Get done with this book in two
to three days.

ETS Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions Book: Practice every question in book under actual
time constraints. Get done with this book in 3 to 4 days.

Magoosh Online GRE Course Paid Subscription (optional): If you can get this from someone for
free, this is a good resource more practice on SEs and TCs. Alternatively, you can use Barron’s for
the same purpose. (Note: Don’t use Barron’s for math etc).

MOCK EXAMS
In the last two weeks leading up to the test, take as many mock exams as you can. This will give you
vital test practice and pressure training. It will also give you an opportunity to practice essays. The
following mocks should be taken:
  ETS Powerprep Online (Free Tests)
 6 Manhattan Practice Tests (These cost around Rs 4000, but totally worth it)
 2 ETS Paper-based Tests at the end of the Official Guide (Optional)
 Mixed Practice Sets at the end of ETS Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions Book
(Optional)
 Mixed Practice Sets at the end of ETS Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions Book (Optional)

(Note: You can combine the last two to create a mock test of your own)

SOME IMPORTANT PIECES OF ADVICE

1) To start with, register for the test 3 months in advance of the test. The deadline keeps you from
becoming complacent.

2) From there, take everything along in a very balanced manner. A lot of students spend way too
much time on one aspect of the test on the expense of other components. For example, I have seen
students, upon finding out they are weak in verbal, totally abandon their preparation for the
quantitative section. In the process, their quantitative reasoning becomes rusty by the time they
appear for the test. Similarly there are students who spend too much cramming words,
compromising their reading comprehension in the process. You have to take everything along
together. This of course does not mean you do not put extra effort in your weak areas, just don’t let
it affect your overall preparation.

3) The words that you memorize in order to tackle the text completion and sentence equivalence
will relentlessly elude your memory. Revising the words at regular intervals is a MUST! It is safe to
learn 800 to 1000 words; but irrespective of the number of words that you learn, the main thing is
to retain them. And retention requires revision on a daily basis.

4) Talking about text completion (TC) and sentence equivalence (SE), remember it is worthwhile to
remember that merely learning the words is not enough. TCs and SEs are a test of your ability to
complete the logical sense of a sentence. This ability is only honed when you practice actual TC and
SE questions. Learning the words is a means to an end, not an end itself.

5) Now to other component of the verbal section: reading comprehension. Reading comprehension
makes up half of the entire verbal section, but is often neglected because of fear of the vocabulary.
Remember for the vocabulary you are never sure if the words you’re learning will actually appear
on the test, it’s a gamble at best. But with the reading comprehension, you know the effort that you
put will definitely reap results. So it’s wiser actually to invest time in perfecting your reading
abilities.

6) A lot of people feel intimidated by quantitative reasoning on the GRE, especially the ones who
have had no connection with math for a long period of time. To those I say this: GRE tests the most
elementary of math concepts so there’s absolutely no need to be discouraged. All you need is to get
hold of the basics and develop mathematical intuition. From there the climb will be much easier.
The big question is how to build those basics. Here are a few things that can help:
 (i) You can get an idea of the concepts that you’ll be working with by consulting the chapter
on Math Review in the ETS Official Guide for GRE.

(ii) Once you know the topics, you can consult books on elementary mathematics, watch
videos on YouTube and get help and coaching from any good math teachers that you know
of.

(iii) You may also want to try the eight book Manhattan guide series covering all the basics
of GRE.

Once you’ve spent a good month or two to soak in the basics, you have enough groundwork to move
one step higher and start practicing actual questions. And from that point onwards, the more
questions you practice the better you get. But there’s a catch to it. Practice won’t help if you do not
identify your mistakes, which include (a) your weak areas (the concepts that still need revision, or
were missed out completely), (b) flaws in the way you approach certain questions and (c) relying
too much on formulae instead of mathematical sense. Identification of mistakes is what makes
practice meaningful and helps getting better.

7) Lastly, taking plenty of mock exams towards the end gives you the all-important match practice.
Even with all the concepts that you have mastered and the problem-solving techniques that you
have learnt, you lack the vital pressure handling and time management strategies that you can only
figure out by taking the mock exams. I often recommend timing your regular practice too, so that
you’re used to solving questions under time constraints from the very beginning. You can start with
a very relaxed constraint and then gradually tighten it as you get better.

Acing the GRE is more about discipline, perseverance and direction than anything else. If you can
stick to your plan and maintain consistency, 3 months is ample time to prepare effectively and
score big. I wish all aspiring test takers the very best!