GRE Guide by TechClubSSN

Graduate Record Examination (GRE)

A Guide
By TechClubSSN

This guide is a compilation of tips and advice suggested by students from ECE, batch of 2019-20, for
tackling the GRE. After many revisions, we believe that this document captures the essence of the GRE. Some of
us feel that if we had this document before taking our own GRE tests, it would’ve been extremely beneficial to
us. So spend 20-30 minutes going through this guide to learn the GRE playing field. When you start your
preparation, you can refer to this from time to time to make sure you’re using the right resources or the
recommended approaches, whatever is listed.
The first misconception about the GRE is that everyone tends to think it’s easy, although this is mostly a
subjective opinion. The portions of GRE quants is just mathematics up to the 10 th standard level, and portions for
GRE verbal is a mix of higher-level English vocabulary and sentence structure. You’re already almost prepared for
the GRE, but your ability to improve your score matters a lot on the strategies you employ, ones that work for you
specifically. On top of that, the pressure element is high when you go to the test center, because they have a
ridiculous check-in procedure to make sure you don’t have any extra papers/devices on you. Therefore, it’s natural
to feel that your actual test is “hard”.

Before you start reading the rest of this document, note that English is the most important resource for
the GRE (and the entire graduate school application package as well – Statement of Purpose, Letters of
Recommendation, etc., but more about that in a different document). A good grip on English grammar and its
vocabulary will most definitely make your test taking experience a lot smoother. No matter what year of college
you’re in when you read this document, if you feel that your English could be improved, please do so starting
immediately. Check out the Verbal Reasoning section of this guide for more on this.

As a bonus, Section 9.1 suggests what range of scores you should aim for, Section 9.2 talks about
university selection, and Section 9.3 explains how your scores reach the universities you apply to. Definitely read
these parts of this guide well in advance as choosing the right universities takes a long time and is a very
important task.

Note: Make sure to use the resources suggested in this guide since it worked out well for many of us. You’re more
than welcome to change your study plan, but be sure to strictly follow the resources that are suggested.

An important fact: GregMat is the Lord Saviour of the GRE. Pray to him. A lot of his instructional videos and
strategies will be linked throughout this guide. He’s not as famous as most test prep companies, so you might
wonder, “Why should I believe in him or his strategies?”. This video ought to answer that question and hopefully
make you believe in this amazing person’s work (not a sponsor). Throughout this guide, his videos will be marked
with an IMPORTANT tag. Don’t fail to watch all of those videos.

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Contents
1. Sections of the GRE
2. The Best Resources
3. General Tips
3.1 How long should you prepare?
3.2 When should you take the test?
3.3 Taking the test in Chennai
3.4 Reports
4. Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA)
4.1 About AWA
4.2 Scoring guide and prompts
4.3 Preparation
5. Verbal Reasoning
5.1 About Verbal
5.2 Types of Questions
5.3 Improving Grammar and Vocabulary
5.3.1 Grammar
5.3.2 Vocabulary
5.4 Vocab-based Questions (TC & SE)
5.5 Reading Comprehension (RC)
6. Quantitative Reasoning
6.1 About Quants
6.2 Types of Questions
6.3 Preparation
6.4 Has Quants become harder?
7. Mock Tests
7.1 Official Mock Tests
7.2 Third Party Mock Tests
8. Sample Study Plans
8.1 Study Plan 1
8.2 Study Plan 2
8.3 Study Plan 3
8.4 Study Plan 4
8.5 Study Plan 5
8.6 Study Plan 6
8.7 Study Plan 7
8.8 Study Plan 8
9. GRE and Universities
9.1 What are safe GRE scores to aim for?
9.2 How to search for universities?
9.3 How do your GRE scores reach the universities you’re applying to?
10. Concluding Remarks

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1. Sections of the GRE

At the end of these bullet points, there are two videos linked, which explains the test structure in detail. Watch
those after you read the following quick summary:

• Computer-based test. The test cost is $205. If you take the test once, you can retake 21 days after your
first test date.

• Three types of sections – Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA), Quantitative Reasoning (QR) and Verbal
Reasoning (VR)

• During the test, you will need to attempt six sections in total.

• The first section is AWA, of duration 1hr, split into two 30-minute sections:

◦ Analyze an Issue

◦ Analyze an Argument

• The remaining 5 sections can be of two types (Q – quants, V – verbal):

◦ QVQVQ

◦ VQVQV

• In QVQVQ, one of the Quants sections is an experimental/research/ungraded section. This is not counted
towards your final score.
• In VQVQV, one of the Verbal sections is an experimental/research/ungraded section. This is not counted
towards your final score.
• You will not know which section is an experimental/research/ungraded section.

• Each Quants section contains 20 questions and is 35 minutes long.

• Each Verbal section contains 20 questions and is 30 minutes long.

• Two quant sections and two verbal sections count towards your final score.

• AWA is scored from 0-6, Verbal is scored from 130-170 and Quants is scored from 130-170. The
composite score is, therefore, from 260-340. The AWA scores are described separately. For eg., you say
you scored V156, Q164, AWA 4.5.

• The GRE is section-adaptive, which means that your performance in the first section decides the difficulty
of the second section.

◦ Performance in the first graded quants section decides difficulty of the second graded quants section.

◦ Performance in the first graded verbal section decides difficulty of the second graded verbal section.

◦ Note that this does not apply for the experimental/research/ungraded section. The difficulty of the
experimental/research/ungraded section is random, although it tends to be the most difficult
section in the test for most people.

◦ THE most useful website that suggests the best advice, tips and resources is GregMat. Everything
you need to know about the GRE is in that website. GregMat also has a YouTube Channel, but his
website is better organized.

IMPORTANT - Watch two videos by GregMat (sped up at 1.5x or 2x) called GRE Test Structure and GRE Scoring
Algorithm, which is a detailed version of the above bullet points. We highly encourage you to watch both videos
as this will cement your understanding of the test structure and the scoring algorithm.

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2. The Best Resources

IMPORTANT – Watch two videos by GregMat about using the right GRE resources:

• Complete breakdown of all official GRE material

• Why most GRE test prep material sucks (and what you should use)

This is all updated in his website – GregMat’s Recommended Resources

Most materials can be found online. There are hundreds of shared Google Drives containing GRE
materials. It’s a good idea to view this guide on your PC. Create a folder and download the PDFs whose links are
provided in each section.
In GregMat’s website, the resources highlighted under “Must Have” are, well, must haves, especially the
three books by ETS – ETS Official Guide to the GRE, ETS Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions and ETS
Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions. Purchase all three together as a part of ETS Super Power Pack.
They’re also available in PDF format online: Official Guide, Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions, Quantitative
Reasoning Practice Questions. In addition to the ones in GregMat’s Website, some resources are suggested by us
under the respective sections of this guide.
If you practice from Princeton, Barron’s, Magoosh, Manhattan, do so with a grain of salt. Practicing quants
in these resources won’t hurt (Magoosh and Manhattan’s quants is actually pretty good) but practicing verbal
questions in any third party resource will mess you up. No company can replicate the method of setting verbal
questions like ETS does, so follow ONLY ETS Material for Verbal. Similarly, if you take mock tests from any
website other than ETS, it’s highly recommended that you skip the verbal sections completely since they do not
represent your ability to score in verbal.
IMPORTANT - Magoosh’s 6-month subscription costs $150. But from time to time, they offer the same plan at a
20% discount ($119). Those of you in 2nd and 3rd year, keep an eye out for this discount and purchase an account.
Then, request Magoosh to freeze your account. This way, your account’s validity won’t expire. Whenever you start
preparing for the GRE, you can reactivate your account and start utilizing Magoosh’s content.

3. General Tips
3.1 How long you should prepare?
This is a very subjective question. Some people prepare merely for a few weeks, some prepare for a
month, some for 3 months and some for 6 months. The success-failure rate cannot be determined by
extrapolating others’ results for yourself. The best way to set up a plan is to start by taking a mock test (go to
Section 7 to read about mock tests in detail). Take any third party mock test such as Magoosh, Manhattan,
Princeton Review etc., (only attempt quants sections, it’s a waste of time attempting the verbal and AWA sections)
or take PowerPrep Online – Practice Test 1, the first product mentioned in the table of that website. Since
PowerPrep is by ETS, you can take all three sections (Q,V,AWA) of the test and observe where you stand by
reviewing your score. From here, you can to setup a realizable goal, a study plan, a mix of mock tests and reviews.

3.2 When should you take the test?

We suggest you take the GRE as early as possible so that you can schedule a retake if necessary. This
means, preferably in your 6th semester or immediately after your 6th semester, and July-August, at the latest. The
earlier the better, since other parts of your application are far more important. Some students actually take the
test in their 5th semester, but that’s your call. Most universities don’t allow GRE test dates after November (eg., for

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Fall 2020, GRE dates during/after November 2019 are not allowed, rather the scores are discounted by the
university) so make sure you’re done with your GRE well beforehand.

3.3 Taking the test in Chennai

If you’re taking the test in Chennai, opt for the Kodambakkam center. Some of us didn’t like the
Tambaram center. One person from our batch was raising hands to ask for extra scratch paper and the test
convener didn’t even notice him for 2 minutes. Also, wear something free like tees and track pants to reduce the
check-in time at the center. Don’t wear something with too many pockets because they’ll check each of those
pockets. They tend to blast the AC at the center so consider wearing full-sleeve tees.
IMPORTANT – In the test center, they provide one booklet (called ‘Scratch Paper’) – a 4-sided rough sheet to work
out problems. If you’ve used the booklet completely, you can request for a replacement. But they will not give
you a second booklet to use along with the first. Therefore, make sure you change booklets in between sections
when the section timer isn’t running.

3.4 Reports
Score Report
About 10-15 days after you take the test, you will get your official score report, which looks like this, that
contains your essay scores and your percentiles. Your quant and verbal scores will appear immediately after you
finish taking the test but the percentiles of the Q, V scores arrives only in the score report.

Diagnostic Report
About 10-15 days after you take the test, you will get your diagnostic report, which looks like this. Learn
about the diagnostic service here. This is very useful data because you can analyze the sections in which you
wasted time solving questions and also realize your weak areas. Use this to diagnose yourself and make a better
plan for improvement and retake the test. Of course, taking the test once is $205 and that’s a lot of money. But
it’s no shame in taking it a second time if you believe you really have the aptitude to improve. We’ve seen some
people take the test 3-4 times with absolutely no shame at all.

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4. Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA)

4.1 About AWA
The GRE’s verbal sections (as you will soon come to realize) are hard to tackle. Whether you get a
good/bad score in verbal, a good score in AWA – preferably 4.5 or above – will definitely help your graduate
school application package. A score of 4 is a safe target. A lot of people skip preparing for the AWA completely,
pushing it to the very end of their prep. Don’t do that as you can actually score well in this section. Most seniors
will claim that a score of 4 is easy to obtain, but it’s better if you practice first and then make that judgment for
yourself.

In your actual test, your essays will be scored by

1. A human

2. The ETS e-rater (also the ScoreItNow! Service; skip to 14:35 of GregMat’s Complete breakdown video)
A human evaluator and the ETS e-rater scores each of your essays separately. If the human score disagrees with
the e-rater’s score, the human score is final, i.e., human score overrides e-rater’s score. Your issue essay is scored
from 0-6 and your argument essay is scored from 0-6. The average of these scores is your final AWA score, hence
it can be in steps of 0.5, like 3.5, 4, 4.5, etc.,. Note that you can never know your individual scores in issue and
argument as only the overall AWA score is displayed in your score report.

Among the two types of essays, the popular opinion is that the argument essay is easier to write than
the issue essay.

4.2 Scoring Guides and Prompts

First, learn the scoring guides for each of the essay types:

• Issue Essay Scoring Guide

• Argument Essay Scoring Guide

Then, check out some of the prompts listed here (just to get an idea):

• Pool of Issue Essay Topics

• Pool of Argument Essay Topics

Note: if you use any third party mock test, the prompts for both essays will be different from any of the prompts
mentioned in these pools (third party companies do not have rights to use the questions provided by ETS; if they
upload any ETS question, they get sued). Hence, it’s recommended that you skip the AWA sections completely in
any third party mock tests that you take.

Good news: the prompts you get during your actual test will be one of the prompts in the above links! But each
link has around 200-300 prompts and it’s not worth practicing that much. So how many essays should you
practice? That varies from person to person.

4.3 Preparation
For those of you weak in English, head over to the Verbal Reasoning part of this guide and improve your
English grammar and vocabulary first. As you get better at grammar, you will be able to write a big chunky essay
significantly better. Trying to improve by writing essays directly is not a great idea, so start by first improving your
grammar and vocabulary.

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Those of you who write as a hobby will have an easier time writing these essays and adapting to
different prompts. You probably need lesser preparation.

For the rest of you who consider yourself somewhat okay with your English language skills, writing
essays for the first time after a long time might be a task. However, upon practice, there is a LOT of scope for
improvement, in which case you’ll need more preparation.
First, it’s important to learn how to write. ETS claims that they don’t require your essays to be of any
specified structure, but it’s easier to have one in mind before entering the test center. That way, your task will boil
down to forming sentences that follow that structure. Once again, GregMat comes to the rescue.

IMPORTANT - GregMat’s Issue Essay Structure – Step by Step

IMPORTANT - GregMat’s Argument Essay Structure – Step by Step

The easiest way to improve is to get yourself a friend or a classmate who has a fine grip on English as
their advice will help you a lot. Even one such person is enough to analyze your essays, suggest tips and
highlight points of improvement throughout the duration of your prep.
Note that the free PowerPrep tests do not score your essays. Only the paid PowerPrep tests score your
essays. Third party software such as Manhattan, Princeton will also score your essays but the software is different
from ETS; Princeton especially tends to overestimate and score liberally even for mediocre essays. The ETS
software is much different and if you really want to review your essays, you can try ETS ScoreItNow!, which is the
software that scores your essays in your actual GRE. This service is $20 and allows you to write up to 8 essays (4
issue, 4 argument) and scores you in each of them. Optionally, you can post your essays to the GRE Subreddit and
get it reviewed by fellow students and/or tutors who usually help students on the website (GregMat himself,
Vince Kotchian, Target Test Prep employees, etc.,). You can do the same on the GrePrepClub forum. Read Study
Plan 5 which contains a lot of great tips for the AWA.

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5. Verbal Reasoning
5.1 About Verbal
This is probably the hardest part of the GRE for us, being non-native English-speaking test takers. If
you’ve grown up reading voraciously, fear not because the verbal sections are going to be (somewhat of) a
smooth ride for you. If not, you probably have to put in a lot of effort to notice improvement. This part of the
document is going to be more favorable towards those whose English skills are average, so some of the tips here
will be obvious to you if you have a nice understanding of English, in which case, feel free to just skim through
Section 5.3, or skip it altogether.

IMPORTANT - for those of you whose English is weak, do not feel bad if you’re doing worse than your friends. GRE
prep, especially with the verbal section, tends to make people feel that way. Instead focus more on just
improving yourself and you’ll land in a better place from where you started.

5.2 Types of questions

In each verbal section you will have 20 questions. 10 are vocab-based and 10 are reading comprehensions.

• Vocab-based (10):

◦ Text Completion (TC) (6 out of 10 vocab-based)

◦ Sentence Equivalence (SE) (4 out of 10 vocab-based)

• Reading Comprehensions (RC)(10):

◦ Short (?)

◦ Long (?)

▪ where ? denotes that number of questions can vary from section to section

◦ Critical Reasoning (1-2 out of 10 RC, mostly)

IMPORTANT - Watch GregMat’s GRE Verbal Section Walkthrough: How I take the test – Part 1 and Part 2. The way
you attempt your verbal sections will be largely similar to his method.

We repeat, third party resources such as Magoosh, Manhattan 5lb and everything else are a big no-no as
far as GRE Verbal prep is considered. Stay away from everything except official ETS material. As a testimony, in
one person’s Magoosh account from our batch, the verbal score predictor indicated this person would score
between 144-149. They scored 157. Third party verbal sucks.

As you will soon see, GregMat is king for tackling GRE Verbal.

5.3 Improving Grammar and Vocabulary

5.3.1 Grammar
To determine what level of English (CEFR) you’re at, try working your way through The British Council’s
Exercises and Examples until you hit a rough patch, or you notice yourself making more mistakes. Otherwise, you
can also take a test to determine your CEFR English level using this free online tool. Once you determine your
English level (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2), find more examples to practice from Google. Some suggestions are
Cambridge’s Free English Learning Activities, University of Bristol, and Edufind.com. If you like reading from a
hard copy book, a good passed-down suggestion is Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis, although this
focuses more on vocabulary than grammar. At the time of writing this, it was Rs. 111/- in Amazon. Find and get
the best deal for yourself.

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5.3.2 Vocabulary
Run a basic test on yourself to gauge your vocab strength. A good suggestion is the Test your vocabulary
range section in Chapter 1 of Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis, which has 60 multiple choice questions.
This test places you in one of the five categories: below average, average, above average, excellent, superior. Do
not fret if you land in below average or average, you merely need to work hard to improve your vocabulary.

There are TWO things you’ll need to learn while mastering your vocabulary:
• The definition

• The connotation

The definition is simply the meaning of the word, but the connotation is its usage in positive/negative/neutral
situations. The following best exemplifies this:
Frugal: sparing or economical as regards money or food; avoiding waste

Miserly: (used of persons or behavior) characterized by or indicative of lack of generosity

Both these words mean the same thing, spending/using lesser of something. But frugal has a positive
connotation whereas miserly has a negative connotation. In sentences, you’d say:
Cody is frugal with his pocket money; he never spends any of it, so that he can watch his favorite movie at the
cinema at the end of every month.
Mr. Smith is frowned upon by his neighborhood, since he offers a miserly amount of candy to the kids during
Halloween.
Same meaning. Widely different connotations.

Therefore, any word list that you read, simply do not memorize the definitions. Really see the examples
provided. Magoosh GRE Flashcards app (app/play store) has many nice examples. One of the best is
Vocabulary.com, many of the examples are entertaining to read which makes this process fun.
If you’re in 2nd or 3rd year at the time of reading this, do yourself a favor by learning just 1 or 2 new words
every single day (from the word lists mentioned below). You’ll thank yourself for doing so when you take the GRE.
Try to incorporate these words into your usage, like when speaking with/texting your friends. You probably might
sound stupid and pretentious, but that’s okay. Trust the process.
But if you’re in your 4th year at the time of reading this and you find yourself short of time, rote learning
is the way to go. If you see a word nearly 15-20 times, the meaning of the word will be ingrained in your head.
At the very least, complete the following lists thoroughly:

• PowerScore Repeat Offenders (700 words)

• GregMat’s Test your Vocab Series on YouTube

◦ There’s an excel sheet containing all the words in each video of this playlist. You can print it out.

◦ Recommended: There’s a Quizlet folder containing all the words in each video of this playlist.
Download Quizlet from the app/play store and create an account. Then, add this folder to your
account. This drastically aids the rote learning process.

• Do you like movies and TV shows? Duh. Learn from GregMat’s GRE Vocab Movie/TV Project

◦ Or his separate website for GRE words

◦ Or his YouTube playlists – Movie, TV

Optionally, you can learn words from:

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• Magoosh Vocab Builder OR Magoosh GRE Flashcards

• Membean Word List

5.4 Vocab-based Questions (TC & SE)

As mentioned before, ETS material is more than sufficient for the verbal sections. Focus most on

• ETS Official Guide to the GRE

◦ PDF available
• ETS GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions

◦ PDF available
Then, you can use

• ETS GRE Big Book – a list of 27 tests of the Old GRE

◦ For ease of use, you can shred this book into 27 individual PDFs for each of the 27 tests since
scrolling through 1000+ pages becomes annoying after a point. Try writing a python script using the
library PyPDF4. It’s a fun little exercise.

◦ If you don’t think it’s fun (who are you?), here’s a Google Drive of the split Big Book.
The sections and question types in the Big Book are slightly different, but you can simply focus on the Text
Completion and Reading Comprehension questions alone. The most important part about these questions is the
strategy of arriving at the answer. GregMat has many strategies in his website. They’re listed in order below.

IMPORTANT:
TC Strategies:

• Text Completion Toolkit

• Technique 1: Treat the sentence like a ‘math’ problem

◦ Technique 1 in practice

• Technique 2: The Block of 4

• Technique 3: Time Contrast

SE Strategy:

• The Pairing Strategy – GRE’s Weakness

Your ability to correctly employ these strategies depends on your vocab strength; the stronger your
vocab, the better you are at answering these questions. All these strategies are supremely useful if you learn
how/when to employ them. The most notable of them all is the Pairing Strategy, which makes Sentence
Equivalence one of the easier question types of the GRE Verbal Section. Text completions can be nasty at times,
but not as bad as Reading Comprehension. In a verbal section that’s 30 minutes long, a realizable milestone is
completing all TC and SE type questions in 10 minutes, so that you can focus more on the RC.

5.5 Reading Comprehension (RC)

Spoiler alert, this is genuinely the hardest part of GRE Verbal. Even the best test takers can struggle in
this section. Once again, focus most on ETS Official Guide to the GRE and ETS GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice
Questions books. If you’ve extinguished all the questions in both books, move on to ETS GRE Big Book and do

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the RC questions in each test. Optionally, you can use Superguide to Reading Comprehensions by American
Education Aids, which contains many (but not all) of the passages in ETS GRE Big Book, the advantage being that
this guide provides answers with explanations, whereas ETS GRE Big Book provides answers without
explanations. Once again, the strategy of solving these questions plays a huge role and once again, GregMat has
some of the best strategies to do exactly that.
IMPORTANT:

RC Strategies:

• Technique 1 – Simplifying the Passage

• Technique 2 – Simplifying on Steroids

• Technique 3 – The Most Important Words

◦ Practice – In action – Examples

• 6 Approaches to Long Passages that don’t really work

• Technique 4 – Dealing with Long Passages

• Time Contrast Strategy

• Three Reading strategies being used simultaneously

Practice makes perfect. As you move through the suggested resources, time yourself so that you can arrive at the
right answer faster.

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6. Quantitative Reasoning
6.1 About Quants
Although this guide has focused a lot on the Verbal and AWA sections, keep in mind that graduate
schools in Engineering really only need a competitive score in quants. Your preparation in this section should be
your #1 priority. As mentioned previously, quants consists of mathematics up to the 10 th std level and so the
concepts will not seem new to you. The tricky part is answering quick and answering correctly, both of which
depend on the method you use to solve each problem. Every problem has multiple ways of arriving at the
solution. But Quants in the GRE is especially designed in a way that one method of solving is faster than the rest.
Your task is to practice solving using the fastest possible method for each problem, which you acquire through
practice.

6.2 Types of Questions

Based on concepts, there are:
• Arithmetic

• Algebra

• Geometry

• Data Interpretation

Based on question types, there are:

• Quantitative Comparison (QC)

• Multiple Choice – Select One Answer Choice

• Multiple Choice – Select One or More Answer Choices

• Numeric Entry

In any quants section you’ll have 7-8 QC questions, 8-9 Multiple Choice (single answer) questions, 1-2 Multiple
Choice (one or more answers) questions and 1-2 Numeric Entry questions.

6.3 Preparation
To recollect your math concepts, there are many resources:

• Magoosh video lessons

• ETS Math Review

◦ This is Chapter 7 in ETS Official Guide to the GRE (third edition)

◦ There’s also a PDF available online
◦ GregMat’s ETS Math Review Walkthroughs available in his website
To practice questions, you have:

• ETS Official Guide to the GRE

◦ PDF available
• ETS Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions

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◦ PDF available
• Magoosh

• Manhattan 5lb

◦ PDF of older edition

• GMAT Official Guide

◦ PDF of older edition

• GMAT Quantitative Review

◦ PDF of older edition

Everyone from our batch firmly believe that you will be committing suicide trying to take up the GRE
without practicing Magoosh or Manhattan problems. Some preferred one over than the other. But having both is
a must.
Once again, there are many strategies you can employ to increase your problem-solving speed and
accuracy. Take notes as you watch the Magoosh video lessons. Some ideas and strategies they present are very
important. GregMat also has a couple of strategies for quants:

IMPORTANT:

• Technique 1 – Choosing Numbers

• Technique 2 – Periodically Stop

• Technique 3 – Run the Race Backwards

Make sure you read the solutions to each problem from all of these resources. A lot of students believe
that reviewing their mistakes and reading solutions was the game-changer that improved their quant scores. The
Sample Study Plans section consists of some students’ quant strategies. Almost all of them focus explicitly on
quants practice and what these people did to improve themselves. It’s highly recommended that you read their
experiences.

6.4 Has Quants become harder?

If you try solving the quants questions from the Big Book, you might think GRE was a joke back in the
day (pre-2002), simply because of how ridiculously easy the problems are. Even until 2014, if you took a free
PowerPrep Online test right before your actual test, your free PowerPrep scores would be pretty close to your
actual scores. Which is good because the PowerPrep mock tests are basically your best score predictors.
But since 2015, we think the test difficulty has increased. See the interpretative data here. A full 170 in
quants earns you the 96th percentile only, because 4% of all test takers are all scoring Q170. The GRE’s
experimental/research/ungraded section is used to determine if new questions set by ETS can be used in their
actual pool of quant/verbal questions (that appear in your graded sections). Due to the high number of people
acing the quants part of the test, there’s a chance that they also answered correctly in the
experimental/research/ungraded section, which would force ETS to set more difficult questions and use them in
your graded sections. This is, however, just a theory.

Most, if not all, students from our batch felt that the free PowerPrep tests were not as hard as our actual
tests. Those who took the paid PowerPrep Plus tests felt that these paid tests were somewhat closer to their
actual test’s difficulty, at least more difficult than the free PowerPrep tests. Therefore, it is highly suggested that
you practice a lot of problems that are rated “difficult” so that you don’t feel surprised by the level of difficulty of
the quant questions in your actual test.

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7. Mock Tests
7.1 Official Mock Tests
The most important mock tests are the ones offered by ETS. Tests you must take compulsorily are in red,
tests that we recommend you take are in green.

ETS Official Guide contains two tests:

• GRE Practice Test 1

• GRE Practice Test 2

ETS website has two free mock tests:

• PowerPrep Online – Practice Test 1

• PowerPrep Online – Practice Test 2

Create an account in ETS and “purchase” these tests from this link. They are free.
Paid Mock Tests by ETS:
• PowerPrep Plus Online – Practice Test 1

• PowerPrep Plus Online – Practice Test 2

• PowerPrep Plus Online – Practice Test 3

◦ Practice Test 3 is new, it came out in late 2018 or early 2019. If you plan to purchase only one
PowerPrep Plus test, buy this one.
Each of these tests are $40 a piece, so it’s costly. The tests are available in the same link mentioned above.

7.2 Third Party Mock tests

• Manhattan Free

• Manhattan 6 test series (6 month access) – $49

◦ 6 tests for $49 is a good deal.

◦ The quants sections of these tests are challenging. It’s very good practice.

◦ However, don’t do the verbal/AWA sections which are useless and unrepresentative of your
verbal/AWA performance .

• Magoosh Practice Tests

◦ Available after you purchase an account

◦ Once again, don’t bother doing any of the verbal questions in Magoosh’s pool of questions. They’re
silly hard and extremely useless practice.

• Princeton Review tests

◦ Study Plan 3 describes a way to unlock these tests for free

◦ Need we repeat? Skip verbal here as well.

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8. Sample Study Plans

This section contains personal experiences as well as advice from individual students who were kind
enough to explain their suggestions in detail. Some of these tips might differ from the what the document has
suggested until now, and that’s for good measure. This variance is what separates your study plan from your
friend’s study plan. Hence, try not to adopt these plans into your study directly, instead try to see if it works for
you first. Change your plan as you go. A lot of these tips might sound repetitive, but that’s okay. Read it
nevertheless, since each study plan is from a different person and their experience, however slightly different,
might help you.
For eg., In Study Plan 2, this person took their first PowerPrep after recollecting their math concepts and solving
a lot of problems. However, Section 3.1 (as well as Study Plans 3, 4, 6) suggests that you start your prep by
assessing yourself with a mock test. You can do either, it’s up to you.

8.1 Study Plan 1

• GregMat is the boss. Set exam date 60 days later then start prep. I used Magoosh quant lessons +
problems, Manhattan 5lb, Official Guide and other ETS books. If you want to be extra: GMAT and
Manhattan’s tests
• For Verbal, I used Big Book and Norman Lewis. I love Magoosh’s lists since they have a lot of high
frequency words.
• Your prep depends on where you start initially. For eg., in my first practice test itself I was getting 164 in
verbal. But my quants was 156 only. So my strategy will work for someone who’s like me.
• In the case of difficult quant questions, I don’t personally think they are hard IF you really understood
concepts. For that I will suggest that you really spend time with each lesson (Magoosh) understanding
the logic and the videos.

• I prepared quants topic-wise. Start a topic and immerse yourself in it. Do Magoosh videos problems and
Manhattan problems in succession. So that all concepts are extra strong and there’s no room for
confusion. Also I wrote down notes of tips and tricks in even problems I made silly mistakes in so that I
can revise material (such as Magoosh videos) without having to sit through it again.

• Looking at my notes and especially problems which I had made dumb mistakes in or solutions which I
had copied down from Magoosh/5lb. the day before my test really helped me. Because I was able to
catch my mistakes and correct them during the test.
• Data interpretation is hard for you? Do it at the end. Is Geometry your favorite? Breeze through it and try
to maximize your skill at it. If you were solving it at x speed, solve it at 2x. Also my advice is: use the
calculator for the data interpretation questions because it’s possible that you suck at calculations

• Another strategy for RC is that if it’s a long RC and you have NO TIME, the last one or two questions of
the set will be too easy and won’t require you to read the whole essay.

• Solve problems and READ SOLUTIONS because if you solved it in a complicated, time-consuming way,
it’s the wrong way. None of the problems are meant to be difficult. This is important. I read official guide
solutions, Magoosh video solutions, and Manhattan 5lb solutions because they use the simplest or
smartest way of solving and I could adopt that.

• You remember words because you use them in sentences. I don’t just see the word meanings. I see the
example sentences they give. This sticks. I also created funny mnemonics like this:

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• Also frequency of looking at certain words matters. If you made an effort, you’ll end up looking at the
most common words MANY TIMES. I actually practiced a lot for vocab if you aggregate the spread effort.
I made my consolidated list from GregMat, Magoosh, Princeton, Manhattan and PowerScore lists with
only the words I didn’t know.
• Most importantly, I rewrote my exam in a span of 20 days gap with next to no prep in between and got
wildly different marks simply because of the headspace I was in. For the first test I was very, very anxious
thinking that my future depended on it. But in my second test I was a lot more chill. This literally made
so, so, so much of a difference, even if you don’t consider my improved time management strategy.

8.2 Study Plan 2

Quants:

Stage 1
I looked at all videos from Magoosh chapter by chapter. Once was I done watching the videos of the chapter, I
solved ALL of the questions Magoosh had on that particular chapter to sort of cement whatever he was talking
about in the videos.

Stage 2
GRE official and supplementary sums. The official sums are going to look a little different from the Magoosh
sums and you may feel a little disoriented with respect to the pattern. But this is important as you will get a feel
for what the actual GRE will look like (not in terms of difficulty, in terms of the types of questions asked)

Stage 3
Manhattan Prep. THE most important step. After completing Magoosh and official GRE, Manhattan prep is going
to look ridiculously easy to you. BUT it is incredibly helpful in increasing your speed and your readiness and the
type of questions asked in Manhattan are more similar to the actual GRE than Magoosh. Solve all problems in it.
It is also important that you start with Magoosh and then solve Manhattan. If you are going to start with the
relatively easy level of Manhattan, you are going to look at Magoosh problems and freak out. Cannot stress
Manhattan enough. Magoosh prep will get you to 155+, but Manhattan will only get you past 165.
Stage 4

Time management. Now is when I started worrying about time. I was overconfident in my time management
skills and took PowerPrep 1 right after completing the previous stage and got a low score on a test that's
supposed to be easy. I'd suggest that you do a little more before taking your first PowerPrep.

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1. Go through Manhattan again. Always remember to go through his solutions because some of them are very
smart and efficient. You can avoid topics you are fairly sure about, but make sure you solve most of the sums
again.
2. Magoosh sums again. I couldn't complete all of the sums, but I did about 75% of it again. What really helped
me was that I solved these sums in the form of section tests. The familiarity of most Magoosh sums would've left
your brain by now. I solved about 5-6 section tests per day. This will really give you an idea of how you should
manage your time, to estimate how much time a sum will require, what you're strong at and in general find what
works for you.

Stage 5
Practice tests. 3 PowerPreps and a Manhattan should be more than enough. You can start doing practice tests
along with the previous stage (once you've covered some ground in the previous stage)
As a side note, about 4 days before the exam, I hadn't taken any practice tests. I thought that the quants section
was from 0-170 (when it’s scored from 130-170) and had done one round of Manhattan. I definitely felt
unprepared. In case you do too, and you are able to identify a good reason for feeling unprepared, postpone your
exam. I did, by 10 days , and it made all the difference.
Verbal:

Vocab: start early especially if your memory sucks. No matter how many books you’ve read in your life, this is
sadly a memory game. I followed GregMat’s word list and it worked for me. I studied mainly from Magoosh
flashcards and Quizlet (GregMat’s list in Quizlet form on his website) as I couldn't stand lists. Finally, I printed all
of them into a sheet of paper to revise, like this:

Found it very helpful. Also make sure you read a sample sentence along with the word to understand the context.

Do not drown in Vocab. It is only a small part. For RC, most of GRE’s reasoning is going to look straight up wrong
to you. But attuning yourself to the way the GRE fellow (test maker) thinks is what matters here. GregMat’s video
on breaking up RCs into functional components (video titled “simplifying on steroids”) is great and I highly
suggest that as it worked for me. He has a bunch of other strategies too and you can try them out. Make sure you
don't get lost in strategies and actually spend time solving problems.
First, I completed official GRE guide and supplementary verbal. Did not use Magoosh. Big book was instrumental
to my reasonable success in RCs. It will help you find patterns in GRE questions and the type of answers they
expect. I solved about 10-15 tests from the Big Book.

And I remembered a lot of words using private mnemonics. Helpful for people who have bad memory.

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Most importantly, if you screw up the first section in math, do not lose hope. The second section will be a little
easier. Take time in your break to give yourself a little pep talk. All is not lost. Do not get demoralized by a bad
first section. For English, see it is as a no-pressure break between two math sections. Helped me think clearly.

8.3 Study Plan 3

This is only for quants.

Important points to note from the test:

• Most of the GRE quant is based on 10th mathematics; a mock test should allow you to see if you’re
familiar with those concepts. If some sums in the mock test take you a while to solve, it’s okay as you
will have time to improve your speed. What is important is that you assess the places where you made
mistakes and took more time to solve – brush up on those topics, revisiting the same from time to time.
• Set realistic goals after the test. You will be able to boost your score by approximately ten marks, but
that doesn’t mean if you score 160 on the mock, it guarantees you a 170. Going from 150 to 160 is easy,
but from 160 to 170 requires a lot of practice.

• Take a mock test to see where you stand. There are many mock tests available. You can unlock Princeton
Review’s mock tests by doing the following:

◦ PRINCETON … 6 online tests along with AWA ... detailed explanatory answers… … log on to
www.princetonreview.com … At the bottom right of the homepage, it gives you an option of
“Register a book” … Just put the ISBN # 9781101919699 (you might have to do this twice !)…
Follow the steps & make your profile… Click on Cracking the GRE- Premium edition 2017 … It gives
you access to 6 online tests… Princeton tests are comparatively easier than other tests

Preparation:
• First of all, choose where to prepare from. Do not keep wandering from one source to another. If you
wish to prepare from multiple sources, finish one source first, then move on to the next.
• Magoosh & Manhattan 5lb book is really good for quant and has a good collection of hard problems
likely to occur in the GRE.
• Focus on the techniques used to solve the problem faster. It all boils down to how quickly you complete
the easy/medium questions so that you have time to think about the hard problems.
• Use the on-screen calculator during preparation to emulate test scenarios; but actually avoid using the
calculator as much as possible since it’s a headache. Remember, if you feel that a problem requires a lot
of calculation, then your approach towards the problem is wrong. GRE tests your aptitude not your
calculation skills.
• Take ample mock tests (4-5) to assess your end score. ETS provides 2 free mock tests (PowerPrep free
tests). The GRE quants have gotten harder this year and it is not as easy as it was to score a 170 or 165+,
so even a good score on the mocks does not guarantee a good score on the final day. Hence, keep
practicing and look out for the silly errors you make.
• On the whole, 10-15 days should be ample for your GRE preparation, but make sure to concentrate
properly during that period.

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Test day:
• Keep your cool. This is the most important thing one must take into account. If you panic, you lose
concentration and you won’t be astute enough the spot any errors in your approach.
• Do not lose hope if one section goes bad as there is a good chance that it might be an experimental
section. However, do not assume/predict which section is experimental and attempt each section as if it
counts towards your score. Take a deep breath after the section and move on.

• Do not waste time if you get stuck on one problem. If you feel you don’t have the right approach for the
problem, mark it and move on. Complete all the other questions and get back to the problem you are
facing difficulty with. The fact that you have completed all other problems by itself would give you
confidence in approaching the problem that had previously troubled you.

• I reiterate: KEEP YOUR COOL.

8.4 Study Plan 4

Materials used: Magoosh account and Magoosh GRE flash cards (available in Play store)

Preparation Time: One month

Suggestions:

• Make sure to take a diagnostic test before starting your preparations to know the areas that you are
weak and strong.

• Strengthen your weak areas first and then go your strong areas which can be completed fast.

• Do not start your prep one year or more than 3 months prior to writing your GRE. You will not be
focused in your preparation as you will have to balance regular classes as well. It will just be a waste of
time. At the end, you will feel that the only productive time that was utilized was just one month prior to
writing GRE.
• If you can dedicate a whole month for preparation that would do. If you have to do other activities in
parallel, 2-3 months would be sufficient.
• In my opinion, the best time to take GRE would be between May-September since you will get your
summer break by then and you can dedicate yourself towards prep.
Quants Preparation:

• This is the most important section in GRE. Your quants score matters more than your verbal score. It is
always advisable to have a score above 160.

• GRE quants section is basically 10th and 12th grade Mathematics. The questions are pretty simple but
tricky because of how they are worded. If you are going wrong in any question, that will be mainly due to
silly mistakes. So you need to be very careful while attending them.
• Make sure your fundamental concepts are strong.

• The sections in GRE are adaptive. So if you perform really well in the first quants section the next
section is going to be harder. Since the questions are pretty simple, the thing that would be challenging
is finishing on time. Eg., there will be word problems that go for five to six lines, so you will find it
difficult to extract important information which leads to loss of time.

• Practice questions with a timer. Use shortcuts to increase your pace while solving problems. Take weekly
tests to continuously monitor your progress.

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Verbal Preparation:
• Flashcards are really useful to learn GRE words. The words that are tested in GRE are not daily usage
words. So one might find it hard to master. But it depends on the vocabulary of each person.
• Do not mug up words. If you do that you are more likely to forget them. Memorize the words by reading
the meanings given in the flashcards. For better remembrance, try using these words while speaking to
someone or while texting.

• The questions asked in verbal section will mainly revolve around the words learnt. So make sure you are
strong at it.

AWA Preparation:
• This section is scored for a total of 6 points. The advisable score would be 4 or above.

• Ensure that your essay is well organized. Divide your ideas into paragraphs. It is not necessary that you
need to have more points to score more. It is sufficient that you discuss 3 or 6 points in three distinct
paragraphs (elaborate 1 or 2 points per paragraph) apart from the introduction and conclusion.
• This section doesn’t require much preparation. 3-4 hours would be enough.

• Note: A good GRE score alone is not sufficient to get admits from top universities. Your entire profile
matters. So don’t spend most of your time in this. Even if you don’t score as you had expected, don’t
worry too much about it. GRE score is just a filtering criterion.

8.5 Study Plan 5

My plan was focused more on Verbal than on Quants. This is because, before starting my prep, I noticed that my
vocabulary was sub-par and I needed to up my game for GRE’s Verbal. This screwed up my quant practice and I
messed up scoring well in quants in my actual test. If you use my verbal tips, make sure you also prioritize your
quants as much as possible.
Verbal:

I spent a good one month simply just rote learning vocab. I did anywhere from 20-50 words per day and some
days, even more. The only reason I remembered most of these words was because:

• I made my own list on Quizlet. Typing each word was a very boring process but it made me remember
the words due to the high frequency of seeing them everyday.

• I read examples for each word, noticing the difference in connotations – IMPORTANT

• I reviewed words every morning after waking up (best time to put your memory to test). I’d learn 20 new
words and review 10 words I read the previous day. The numbers may vary but the idea is the same.
I made my list primarily from PowerScore 700 and GregMat’s new list, followed by some words from the Magoosh
apps. After I hit about 1200 words, I started noticing a lot of difference in my verbal test taking ability. I was
getting more and more TC and SE type questions correct.

My accuracy in RC, however, was erratic. I think Big Book RC questions did me a huge favor. GregMat’s strategies
really helped my time management skills.

One thing I noticed was that, my scores in verbal from the free PowerPrep tests almost exactly predicted my
verbal score in the actual test. So I highly recommend you use the PowerPrep tests to assess/predict your verbal
score range.

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AWA:
• I wrote 4 sets of essays in total, improving every time as I progressed. I found argument essays easier
than issue, because who doesn’t like complaining about something filled with errors?
• GregMat has a lot of example videos of essays written by him and some of his students. These videos
gave me a good idea on writing my own essays. I also religiously stuck to GregMat’s essay templates.
Forming sentences in difference voices (active/passive) and different tenses comes easy to me. So his
template was a godsend and I merely had to structure my sentences properly.
• I’d spend the first 3-5 minutes jotting down the 3 topic sentences (ref: GregMat’s templates) that I
should elaborate on. Before the timer (that’s counting down) hits the 27-26 minute mark, I start typing.
• Word count: My first set of essays were around 380-400 words, second set 450-500, third set 500-550,
fourth set 550+ and in my actual test, I guesstimate that hit the 600+ mark in both issue and argument. I
will admit, typing 600 words in 30 minutes is a mammoth task.

• Note that it’s quite hard increasing your word count unless you can quickly come up with ideas on the
spot.

• Also note that word count is not all that matters to improve your AWA score. You can write a high-quality
essay in 450 words too.

• One mistake I made was that during prep, I practiced typing in my laptop which has an island-style
keyboard. In the test center, they provide mechanical keyboards (the normal ones you see in computer
labs). So on test day, I think fate was laughing at me struggling to type each word fully correctly on the
first try... I kept trailing off typing nonsense in the first 15 minutes. After that, this nightmare sort of
faded away.
• AWA is the only section in the GRE reviewed by a human (+ the software); quant and verbal is scored by
the test software only.
• While writing your essays, keep a shrewd eye out especially for grammar. Bad grammar is penalized the
most. Punctuation is secondary, followed by your argument’s strength and your ability to deliver your
ideas in a cohesive manner. Use transition words like firstly, secondly, however, etc., They might sound
cliché but they do the trick.
• If you make a spelling mistake once, it will most likely be ignored. But if you use that word multiple
times in the essay and you make the same spelling mistake every time, that’s a penalty to your score.
• To score a 4, it’s actually easy if you write decently enough, say, like how I’m writing these suggestions
right now.
• To get a 4.5 or a 5, you need to put extra effort into conveying very meaningful and strong arguments,
backed by complementary vocabulary (use the words you recently learned!) and cohesiveness of
consecutive sentences.

• If you focus more on the argument than the issue, and you write an okay-ish issue essay, it’s very
possible to get a 4.5. And if you can put in extra effort for issue essay as well, you’re en route to a 5 or
5.5. I don’t know how to get a 6. Ask GregMat how he did it.
• Overall, the AWA section can be taken lightly unless your fate is unfortunate and decides you must write
for 30 minutes about an esoteric topic related to literature, history or arts. This problem is only in issue
essay.

• Skim through the various questions in the ETS pool of issue topics and prepare a few ideas for prompts
related to history, art, or law. Topics related to science and education are the most frequently asked
prompts and that shouldn’t be too hard to write about.

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8.6 Study Plan 6

Quants:
Magoosh Premium account is pretty good and matches the difficulty level that you should expect in your actual
GRE. (Don't panic over the very hard questions in certain topics like geometry, because they are quite overboard).
Verbal:

• If you feel the need to improve your vocabulary – go for Magoosh GRE Vocabulary Flashcards (Mobile
App – which you can use for free) over Membean (that Princeton gives). Membean is very time
consuming and will take up the bulk of your GRE preparation time, which is not worth it.
• Try to get your verbal section to a decent score and push your quants to help you in getting a better
total score in GRE. Spend more time on quants over verbal because practice won't help you improve your
verbal scores to a great extent, but drastic improvements can be made on the quant score with a
focused practice in your weak areas.
Practice tests:

• A smart way of taking GRE practice tests without spending much money would be to take the free
practice tests that GRE prep websites give. Every GRE prep website will provide one practice test for free,
use those.
◦ Manhattan Prep(1) + Princeton Review(1) + Kaplan Test prep(1) + Magoosh Premium(2) + ETS
practice tests(2) = 7 Practice tests (which is a good number)
• Diagnostic test: Take one test right at the start, before you start your preparations – to know the areas
you are weak in and focus in those areas in your preparation.
• Take the rest of the tests at regular intervals to see if you are making any progress.

• Note: Manhattan and Kaplan practice tests are pretty close to what you get in your actual GRE, Magoosh
practice tests would be a little tougher than the actual GRE, Princeton is quite easy compared to the rest
(use it as Diagnostic test maybe) and use the ETS practice tests to get yourself familiar with the test
interface. Quants is very easy (in ETS PowerPrep) compared to the actual GRE, and verbal section is
perfect - exactly what you should be expecting in your actual GRE verbal.

8.7 Study Plan 7

Firstly I think it's important to know where you're at so you can decide how you want to prepare. I'd also
suggest taking the first mock after going through the math section in Magoosh/any appropriate resource once,
because while it is just basic math, you'll be surprised at how much AU has lessened your ability to think. If you
do well on the math section, then you can probably spend just the last week practicing math to get faster and
reduce your error rate. If not, you'll probably have to spend more time practicing, so plan accordingly.

And for verbal, you probably already know where you stand. If you read a lot of books growing up, like I
did, you might be alright with the vocab/sentence equivalence part but the RCs require something slightly
different. You'll have to get accustomed to the way they want you to think, instead of coming to your own
conclusions.

Personally I found the ETS mock tests - unpaid and paid, more representative of the actual GRE than
ETS's own preparatory guides. Manhattan's math book (5lb) was also pretty useful in increasing speed.

Lastly I'd like to say that it really isn't a big deal. Just go into it thinking it's another AU exam and you'll
be fine.

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8.8 Study Plan 8

DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON MANYA,PRINCETON REVIEW, JAMBOREE OR ANY OTHER GRE COACHING
CLASSES. THEY ARE A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME. INSTEAD SPEND IT ON SOMETHING BETTER.

The preparation for GRE varies from one person to another and one person can’t really follow the study plan of
another person. But others’ study plans are really valuable guidelines which enable you to make a study plan of
your own. The most important thing with respect to the mindset is that comparison with your friends is not
healthy as they have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Dedicated preparation for about 40-45 days is more than sufficient to get a good score on the GRE.
QUANTS:

• Talking about quants, Magoosh is the best.

• Get a Magoosh account and see all their videos and use their dashboard and take custom practice tests
wisely. Basically, Magoosh prepares you for the worst possible GRE, i.e., prepares you for the hardest GRE
exam. The questions in Magoosh are a bit harder than the actual GRE questions, but are of really good
practice.
• Do not solve all questions topic wise in the Magoosh portal. Solve the mandatory 5 question quiz in
each topic and then start taking timed section tests. Doing so will give you a real feel of the Quants
Section and also helps you in time management.

• Do not use the calculator unless it is absolutely necessary. GRE doesn’t test you on long calculations in
most of the cases. For questions related to Simple Interest, Compound Interest and Data Interpretation,
you can use the calculator.
• Try to approach questions more logically by eliminating the options. You needn’t have to solve each and
every question in the GRE to get the correct answer. Using the options saves you a lot of time.
• The first 8 questions in the section will be QC. Have a set checkpoint at about 10 minutes for these
questions. Beyond that, irrespective of how much ever is left in those 8 questions, proceed to the
subsequent questions and then come back to these at the end. It is easier to solve QC at the end rather
than a statistics or a DI question.
• Analysis of the incorrect questions is very much important as that’s the time you can rectify you mistake
and ensure that doesn’t get repeated.
• Make use of the two mock tests given by Magoosh. The question pool is limited, so do not exhaust all
the questions before you write the Magoosh mock test. Do minimum practice, then take the mock test
and then exhaust all the practice questions.

GENERAL:
• Write a minimum of 8 mock tests. ETS provides you with two free mock tests. Write it at the very end as
they are the closest to what you see in GRE.
• You shouldn’t stop it with just writing mock tests – analyze your answers thoroughly. This is the only way
in which you can improve.
• Do not look at the score you get in the mock tests. Rather look at the number of questions you got
correct. Because the software used for score calculation by ETS is different from the actual test i.e., it
might estimate +/- few points from what the actual test might estimate.

• Stay calm and cool on the day of the exam. Do not do something new the day before the exam. Just relax
and have good sleep.

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9. About GRE and Universities

9.1 What are safe GRE scores to aim for?
The scores that get you into your desired university are the scores you should aim for. Most universities
provide the average GRE score of their immediately previous academic year. Some provide admissions statistics
over the last 5 or so years, which can give you information about their student body’s average GRE score.
As an example, look at Georgia Tech’s Overall Average GRE for Fall 2019 at the bottom of the page or
UCLA’s ECE Fall 2018 Average.
Hence, for applying to top 50 universities in the US, we suggest that your safe score targets should be:

• >= 57th percentile in AWA (roughly 3.5-4 out of 6),

• >= 50th percentile in Verbal (roughly around 153/170) and

• >= 75th percentile in Quants (roughly around 160/170).

Percentiles referred from this table provided by ETS. As you go up the university rankings, the average
Quant score of their student body/classroom increases. This is why we encourage you to focus more on your
Quants over your Verbal, so that a weak Quant score is not the reason your application gets rejected at some of
the top schools. However, if you’re aiming for universities ranked from 20-50 or so, your GRE quant score is
probably not going to impede your chances of admission.

9.2 How to search for universities?

At the beginning, you’ll probably have no clue about what universities exist in the US and which of them
are good. Don’t worry. In our batch, everyone was no different at the start. We suggest you use USNews which
shows the rankings, average GRE scores, ethnicity of student body, and a wealth of other information. However,
all these features would be locked and the USNews website will ask you to purchase their Grad School Compass.
It costs $30 for a year. Some of us embraced our cheap nature by sharing one account among 6-7 people, each of
us paying a mere Rs. 200-300/- only. So it’s a good idea to get some of your friends in on this. This is a very
trustworthy resource and we highly recommend that you use it.
Besides USNews, you have QS World University Rankings, which is completely free of cost. But this is not
updated as much as USNews. You also have the infamous website Yocket, which is also free of cost. Be very
careful dealing with Yocket. You can maybe search for universities but draw the line there. Yocket also has
admit/reject profiles of students and we’ve noticed that a some people spread lies about their own profiles as a
prank. Hence, remain skeptical when you use Yocket. Don’t believe in anything you see, completely.

The previous resources evaluate university ranking by using the data provided by the universities
themselves. This is helpful to an extent, but what is more helpful is qualitative rankings – CSRankings. It’s
qualitative because this ranking system uses the research conducted by professors in each university to rank the
universities. This is extremely helpful for finding people of interest that you would like to work under. Watch the
video attached in the website to understand how to use it. Unfortunately, as you might have guessed, this is only
useful if you’re applying to the CS department for higher studies. The good news is that some faculty in many
universities overlap, i.e., they work with both the ECE and CS departments. Look for these overlaps when you
search for universities.

After you’ve seen the universities, the best way to get information about what they do is by going
through the official websites of each university. Most probably, each department of a university will have its own
website. Go through the Research part of those websites to glean some information about the work done at the
particular university’s department. For eg., Georgia Tech – ECE Research – Technical Interest Groups, uMichigan
ECE Research Areas, uWisconsin-Madison – ECE Research.

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 GRE Guide by TechClubSSN

9.3 How do your GRE scores reach the universities you’re applying to?
Sending your GRE scores to universities is probably the most egregious part of your university
applications. Your test fee includes the cost of sending your scores to 4 universities. It is very important that you
do all your university selection well beforehand (ref: Section 9.2) and be ready to send your scores to 4 of your
list of universities. It is enough if you remember the university name and the state in which it is located.
Optionally, you can go to your desired university’s website and check the GRE Institution/Department codes. For
eg., You’ll find GRE codes in each of these links: Georgia Tech – ECE Department, North Carolina State – ECE
Department, UC San Diego – ECE Department, uMaryland, College Park – ECE Department. Immediately after you
finish writing the test, you will be instructed to report your scores. In the screen that follows, it will allow you to
enter these codes (or) search for each university’s name.
Note: If you fail to send scores immediately after the test, you will have to pay $27 to send your score to one
university. Meaning the part of your test fee that allows you to send scores to 4 universities is no longer valid. You’ll
be wasting your money, approximately $108.

If you successfully send your scores to 4 universities on your test day, and overall you’re applying to 10
universities, you will have to spend (10-4) * $27 or 6 * $27 to send your scores to the other 6 universities you’re
applying to. You can send scores to the other 6 universities through your ETS GRE account. Everyone hates this,
but the system doesn’t look like it’s going to change. Your best money saving strategy is utilizing your test cost
and sending scores to 4 universities immediately after taking the test.

10. Concluding Remarks

The GRE ranks you using percentiles due to which there’s a good chance that you might feel
demotivated in the process of studying by seeing that some of your friends are performing better than you. That’s
the last thing you should feel. The GRE is just a test. Don’t beat yourself up over it. If you’re inherently a bad test
taker, you cannot blame yourself. Just try to do your best job. If you screwed up the first time, analyze your
diagnostic report and retake the test. About 4-5 students from our batch took the test twice (out of nearly 10-14
that are applying to MS) but it helped them reach the score they wanted/deserved. So plan ahead and take your
first attempt early on in your schedule, so that if the situation arises and you need to retake, you’ll still have
ample time to do so without affecting the rest of your grad school application schedule.
The GRE is simply an eliminator that’s used in the very first part of admission decisions. If you can’t make
your GRE score shine, try to focus more on your letters of recommendation and statement of purpose – these two
documents are golden tickets to you entering your desired universities and they explain a lot more about you
than your GRE score does. Unlike the GRE, these documents are also the parts of the application that decide
whether you’ll be given an admit/reject towards the end of admission decisions. Therefore, prioritize these
documents if you get an unhappy GRE score.
We hope you found this guide useful. If you have any queries, feel free to mail us at techclub@ssn.edu.in
and we will try our best to answer all of your questions.

All the best!

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