PRACTICE, PRACTICE, QUALITY PRACTICE

This is one area that most of us fail to try. We know that it is prudent and absolutely necessary for us to work with solid prep examples and equally do several and complete practice tests, but we procrastinate, we delay, we hope it will solve itself out on the test day and that everything will be fine. GRE is not like that. The quality and consistency of your practice will show up in your score.

One thing I learnt the high scoring exam takers do (especially the Asians) is that they practice/do a lot of practice tests under a timed/exam-like condition and it shows in their high percentile score. Metaphorically, GRE (or GMAT) exam can be likened to a combination of 100 meters dash and several marathon laps. The 100 meters signifies your speed and accuracy while the marathon tests your stamina and staying strength. For you to do well in GRE, you can’t have either, you must be competent in BOTH.

People that have done the exam will tell you how draining the exam is especially towards the end of the exam when fatigue would have set in, candidates now more prone to mistakes. You surely don’t want to wait to find out this in the exam hall. Athletes improve their chance of doing well in the Olympics Finals (or other Competitions) if they PRACTICE and PRACTICE in a STADIUM that mimic the environment of the Olympic Competition. Practices tune them up for the finals, putting them in “the zone”. They go to the Olympic track/field to execute their strategy fine-tuned during their practice exercises.

Ashwini Nene (The Indian Lady that scored 340 - yes 340!!!! Q-170, V-170 Google it, it is on YouTube) said she knew she was going to score high because she has been scoring high in her PRACTICE TESTS!!! -i, e -UNDER A TIMED CONDITION, which means she must have consistently practiced for her to have the confidence, conviction and affirmation that she was going to do well in the exam. Her solid 7 months of preparation obviously produced a very big payoff. Her result could be seen as the outcome of natural ability boosted by diligent practice.
Replicating the exam condition before the test day means sitting on your desk in front of your Computer for around 4 hours solving 5 Complete 20 Verbal and 20 Quant questions in 3 to 2 combinations not forgetting the 1 hour of Essay and Argument writings(with only 10 minute break). That is you practicing on the track at your training pitch before the (Olympic) finals tuning up your speed and validating your staying stamina. That is the condition you will find yourself during the exam. If you go into the exam hall without doing so, YOU HAVE NOT “PRACTICED”.

There are GOOD and FREE Practice test (for people that do not want to/do not have money to buy Manhattan, Magoosh, Crunchprep or other paid tests).

My Practice Tests.
Listed below are the sequences of my planned Practice Test for my second attempt at GRE. (For other free tests, Google “Crunchprep free practice test” for up to 33 free practice tests).
1. Barron’s GRE – 2 Model Tests
2. Manhattan - Yes, when you register, you have access to 1 - One free Online Practice Test - www.manhattanprep.com/gre
3. Kaplan Practice test 1 - One free Online Practice Test – www.kaptest.com/gre
4. PowerPrep II – Untimed
5. ETS Official Guide 1st and 2nd Practice Tests
6. CrunchPrep -This is the site I got the information about the free practice tests - www.Crunchprep.com. The site is loaded with loaded
and informative information.
7. PowerPrep II_1 - Timed
8. PowerPrep II _2 – Timed

My Advice

1. Whether you need it or not, plan to write GRE or/and GMAT exam(s) as soon as you are through in school when you are fresh and still in academic mood (or better still, during your NYSC year when you should be able to set aside 4-6 months for focused preparation). It may come out to be a very good decision. It will add another dimension of knowledge to what you might already know. Study for GRE and GMAT very well and all those job aptitude test should be easier to handle.

2. If your know how to search very well, you can get all those materials at a minimal cost. Load those e-copies on your Smartphone. You will be amazed how much ground you will cover reading those materials on your “spare” time on the phone.

3. (If you are still in school or you know someone that will need to take the exam in the nearest future, advise them to) - Start preparing right from your final year. Download/Print out Barron’s 3500 or Manhattan word lists. Download the Vocabulary App from Magoosh. Start reviewing the vocabs on your phone, study it while waiting for the next lecturer to come in, during the adverts in the half time between Chelsea and Manchester United games, start playing with the apps like a game on your phone, before your know it, you will have gone through those vocabulary lists, math principles and formula/vocabs flashcards several times, it will have become part of you and you will be seeing a more nuanced definition of those vocabs. I played my vocab games during my BRT commute to and from work.

4. Start reading from today. It is easier said than done. It is also one of the areas you will later appreciate the forced improvements GRE/GMAT preparation will impose on you. There are many sites with very good content, like nytimes.com, the Economist, The Atlantic, Bloomberg View, Nigerian Guardian, back page of Thisday Newspaper, articles from aldaily.com. My favorites are soccernet.com (for Football News), theatlantic.com (for its free, high quality and wide range of topics) and bloombergview.com (for economics, business and current news issues). You can start today with those three sites. As you read, note any new word/vocabulary that you don’t know at all or don’t understand very well, check for their deeper meaning from the dictionary on your phone, Google it, use those words when you go to “Moremi” or “Mozambique” or come to “Awo Hall” and before you know it, those “hard” vocabs will be part of your “normal” everyday words.

5. As I did during my planned second attempt at the exam, if you have the time and you can, go through the materials more than once. Like any other activity, if you want to be good at it, spend extra time with it. As a particular Yoruba adage says; when a leaf stay glued to a soap long enough, it will become soap itself.

6. When you finally decide to write the exam, give yourself 3 months of concentrated focus and preparation. For those 3 months, draw up a plan for all the materials you are going to study to cover all areas of the exam. The plan will guild and help you not to stray off, force you to stay focused and to cover all basis. You can Google up a 3 month GRE plan, and then modify it. But do not water it down.

7. The core of your preparation should include the cocktail of the following materials:

Quantitative:
1. Barron’s - for review of the basic Math Concepts
2. Nova GRE Bible – for solid grounding of Math Concepts
3. Manhattan GRE 5 Lb Books - for copious examples and practice of Math Concepts
4. ETS Official GRE Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions – for Practice Questions
5. ETS Official Guide GRE - for Practice Questions and Mastering of known Concepts
6. ETS PowerPrep II Software – for Timed Practice and familiarity with the test interface

Verbal:
1. ETS Official GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions – for Intro
2. Magoosh Vocabulary App – for Vocabulary Building (and other products free/paid)
3. Barron’s 3500 Vocabs – If you have the strength, it won’t hurt you
4. Manhattan RC and Essay – Wonderful for Reading Comprehension and Essay Writing
5. ETS Big Book – the Old book is a treasure trove for practicing TC and Reading Concepts
6. ETS Official Guide -GRE -for Quality Practice Questions and Mastering of known Concepts
7. ETS PowerPrep II Software – for Timed Practice and more practice questions

Analytical Writing:
1. Manhattan RC- Essay and/or Kaplan should do.

2. Pick out at random 10 Questions from ETS published Pool of Issue Topics
(https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/analytical_writing/issue/pool) and PRACTICE with the
questions. You can start with untimed issue essay practice but do switch to timed practice for the last three or four practice
writings, a 30 minute task.

3. Pick out at random 10 Questions from ETS published Pool of Argument Topics
(https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/analytical_writing/argument/pool) and PRACTICE with the
questions. As stated above, you should start with untimed argument essay practice but switch to timed practice (30 minute
exercise) for the last three or four practice sessions.
Other Materials such as Kaplan, Gruber and Princeton may come in later, but the ones as listed above should form the core of your preparation materials. Even still, these other materials will be a walk in the park after mastering the concepts and examples in the above stated core materials.

7. Don’t limit yourself. Set the bar very high, aim to score 334, it will direct the direction and intensity of your preparation. If you fail to achieve your primary target of 334, you will score 324, which will be disappointing but not bad. And if you fail woefully, you will score 315. Now imagine if your original target score were 305.

8. My fear is that you are not going to prepare very well for the exam, that you are not going to do/practice more than 5 Timed Practice Test. Please disappoint my skepticism and practice not less than 8 timed practice tests. You will be glad you did. Mediocre effort will only produce a below average score. You surely don’t want to find out after your exam, after wasting your Time (albeit tepidly) and Money.

9. The higher the number of high quality questions your practiced with and understood deeply (like Barron’s, Nova, Manhattan, Magoosh, GMAT Official, all ETS Books and PowerPrep II), the more familiar the questions you will see on the test day, the more confidence you will have, the faster will be your solutions, the less will be your mistakes and the higher will be your score.

10. When you finally get the leg up there(fill in the gap….United States, P&G, ExxonMobil, Shell, Nairaland, XYZ Bank, Professor, Google, Apple, Goldman Sachs etc., etc.), make sure you help someone, whether with your knowledge, network, finance, experience or exposure. That is one thing we MUST all improve on.

On my second attempt
I am yet to write the GRE for the second time.
When I was ready for the second attempt around March, I was having challenge getting a suitable test date for the test for around 1 ½ months. Trust me; test seats/spaces get filled up easily. Not long after, I was drafted into a project in my place of employment which seriously curtailed my time and intensity of preparation and having to write a mandatory and tough certification in my place of work, I painfully have to shelve writing the exam. Thus no 330 score in the bag yet.

I hope this write up will add a couple of points to your GRE score. Wishing you all the best in your future endeavours.
And back to the Original DanjaNinja thread "How To Achieve High Scores On The GRE by DanjaNinja" https://www.nairaland.com/1832477/how-achieve-high-scores-gre

I have gone through the post by DanjaNinja “How To Achieve High Scores On The GRE" and I can say that He is heavenly sent. And to all the people that have contributed to the thread, you are all wonderful. Anytime I get to know someone that wanted to write the GRE exam, I do always direct them to the thread on Nairaland.

How To Achieve High Scores On The GRE https://www.nairaland.com/1832477/how-achieve-high-scores-gre
The thread should be the first point of call. If you are contemplating or planning to write the exam and have not gone through that thread from the first page to the last (68 as at 9th of April, 2016), you will be missing out a lot on quality information, exam experience and perspective. Of recent, I decided to put my thought together and give my own little cent to anyone out there who could benefit from my own personal experience too. I could have just posted this write-up under DanjaNinja’s thread, but as you can see, this write-up is quite lengthy and it may be more beneficial if it is on a separate thread. In any case, the discussion will continue under the DanjaNinja’s thread "how-achieve-high-scores-gre".

From my interaction with a couple of guys at the centre where I did the test (GRE) at JKK in Lagos, it occurred to me that WE may not be pulling our weight when it comes to our GRE score objective. From what I gleaned from the interactions at the centre, it seems quite a number of guys do not know about DanjaNinja’s thread on Nairaland or even still, do not know the path to score “high” on the GRE. It should be noted that the GRE score is just but one of the criteria/requirements for graduate studies, other criteria include but not limited to ones grade in school, percentile position, statement of purpose, age (yes some applications especially MBA programs) and race/region/ethnicity(for diversity). These variables can be divided into the ones one have control over and the ones one can do nothing about. It is obviously prudent to improve one’s odds by maximizing the variables one have control over such as your GRE score and the Statement of Purpose.

About Myself
I am/was a relatively good student, studied Engineering, have been out of the university for some years, presently working but thinking of going back to school either for MSc or MBA programme.

My Motivation
It has always been of my thought that if I wanted to go to the United States to school, it should be one of the top schools out there, I mean the schools in the top 10 or at least top 20. A very high percentage of the International Students slots are regularly filled by the Asian Students (notably the Chinese, Indians and Koreans). Why not more of Seun Adedeji, Chima Chukwudi, Abubakar Muktar or Koffi Mensah?. Maybe we only need to increase the rung of the ladder of our target school a little bit higher. Because I wanted to go to such school, I started researching about their entry requirements, and unsurprisingly found out that high GRE score in the 320+ range is one of their requirements, some schools like MIT and Stanford even requiring around 330 score and above!!!. Thus I set my objective to score around 330 in the GRE exam.

My First Attempt
I once prepared for the GRE exam while in school, but did not take the exam, my textbook then was the Barron’s GRE textbook. Those were the days of 3500 Vocabulary word list, Synonyms and Antonyms. Also, I think the GRE prep helped me in the aptitude test of the company I am currently working with. When I decided to write the exam around November 2015, I pulled out my Barron’s text again and started reading. Nairaland search took me to the DanjaNinja's thread "how-achieve-high-scores-gre". As directed, I sent a mail to DanjaNinja and got all the materials in soft copies and started “jacking”. The values of the materials are INESTIMABLE. DanjaNinja, every day, your thread is opened, read, commented on, you and Seun (of Nairaland) will continually be blessed.
I have always had challenge with the Verbal part, so I focused much more on Verbal preparation (and it negatively affected my Quant score - more on that later). I browsed the net, read Magoosh Cruncprep and BrightLink blogs and practiced (not timed) during my off time at work and later in the day after work. After finally being able to write the exam on January 22, 2016 at JKK, I got a score of 320 (Q-160, V-160). Later my AWA came in at 4.
I was not happy especially on the final Quant Score because I instinctively knew I did very well on the First Quant section, probably got every question and had time to crosscheck. After the first quant section, I knew the second quant will be harder (adaptive), it was actually harder; word problems requiring either longer computation or better tactics. I also did not manage my time/pacing very well and it weighed down on my final quant score. When I did the analysis after the official score was released, what I knew was confirmed, I got 19 of the 20 math question of the first quant section, but only 12 of the 20 questions of the second quant questions. Ironically the reverse was the case for my Verbal: 12/20 for the first Verbal, 19/20 for the second Verbal. The score could "assist" in my admission into a good school, but I also knew I could have done better. The analysis and score breakdown was done with the GRE Diagnostic Service (if you are planning to take the exam the second time, make sure you use this service, it is free and comes with your online GRE account)
I was in a fix. Maybe additional 7 points i. e 327 (and another $199 @ 1$/N360) could get me into those higher ranked schools or even more funding or assistantship or full scholarship/fellowship in a very good programme. It was a dilemma, be Ok with 320? Or try again to combine another preparation with my hectic job plus Lagos Mainland to Island commuting.

My Shortcoming in the First Attempt.
My primary shortcoming is not unique to me. It is what many exam takers can relate to. Though I read for the exam, I did not PRACTICE for the exam. I will explain more on the “practice” stuff later and what is really meant to practice for the exam. On my first attempt, I did not take any full practice test, even the freely available ETS Power Prep software. I was having issues with the software on my system and was only able to work around it a day to the exam. Having a good knowledge of the exam software interface though really helped.

On My Second Attempt
My target was to add 6 points to my Quant score to get it to 166 (from the initial 160) and 4 points to my initial Verbal Score of 160 to get it to 164 for a total score of 330.

The reasons why I decided then to take test the second time (with accompanying money and time resources) was:
1. Not being under pressure then to meeting any admission deadline which was months away.
2. A higher score might assist in my application to a top grade MBA programme (why not Harvard , Sloan, Stanford, Booth or
other top ranked prestigious programmes).
3. If I decide to use the score for MSc/PhD programme, it could get me extra dollars in form of funding.
4. If I do well and make up my mind to post my experience and result on Nairaland, it might inspire my fellow
ladies/gentlemen/guys, that those higher scores are not meant only for the Asians (Narendras, Kapurs, Chen Zhuangs) and that
if we prepare ourselves very well and do our homework, we can have more of us greeting ourselves "How Far", “Bawo ni” on
the streets of Boston and California, and in lecture halls of those great schools.

My Strategy
As I stated earlier, my intention was to increase my 320 score to around 330, so I started doing Google searches such as "How to score 170 in Quant", "How to score high on GRE Verbal", "How to score 330 in GRE". I started visiting blogs to learn how those who have achieved it got it done.

For my Math Strategy, after reading various postings on blogs, quora and reddit, I decided to go through and master the content and strategy of the following Books.
1. Barron’s (1 time - It has been the foundation of my GRE Study. The plan is to re-learn the basics, and master the foundational
principles over again.)
2. Official GRE Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions (Working through all the questions 2 times)
3. Official Guide GRE (Math Section -Working through all the questions 2 times)
4. Manhattan GRE Prep Guilds- The Math Sections (A thorough work-through of the text at least 2 times and with more focus on some
topics I usually struggle with). In retrospect, anybody that attempt GRE Quant exam without these guides will be doing a disfavor to
himself/herself
5. Nova Math Guide (1 pass) - A superb work materials with copious examples
6. GMAT Official Guide (2 times). To take care of my weakness/mistakes with hard/tricky math word problems

For my Verbal Prep
1. The Official Guide to the GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions (2 times)
2. Official Guide GRE (Verbal Section - 2 times)
3. Old GRE Big Book with 27 tests (to practice as many Reading Comprehensions and Sentence Completion questions as possible). The
more one practices, the more one will be in tune with the convoluted and sometimes tricky ways GRE construct their sentences and
questions.

For my Analytical Writing Prep
1. As in my first attempt, I followed DanjaNinja directive on using the Kaplan template which was Ok, but also on the second attempt, I
added Manhattan RC and Essay Guide to it, especially on the tactics for smoking out flaws in Analyze Argument Task.

The essence of the repetition and reading those materials at least 2 times is that it enable one to start thinking like those GRE guys that set the question, knowing more of their method and tricks, insight on how to solve the questions faster and probably a few more points to the final score.

Practice Tests
The plan for me was to do a minimum of 5 Practice Tests. (If it is your first attempt on the exam, you should plan to do up 15 Practice tests and not fewer than 10).
The concluding part of this write-up can be found in the topic :How I scored 330 in the GRE Exam (Part 2)
https://www.nairaland.com/3478283/how-scored-330-gre-exam