GRE Study Plan

GRE Study Plan

• First, you need to know your current skill level and how much you can score with the practice test.
• To determine your current skill level, take a practice test using Power Prep for GRE. Lets assume you got 900 in practice test.
• Next determine how much you want to score in GRE (Be Realistic). It would be nice to score 1600/1600, but you only certain amount of time to study.
• Your GRE Study plan will depend on the following

Type of university you want to attend

Score you want to get – Target Score.

• So, lets assume you decided on a Target Score of  1200. Next you have to plan your course of action to reach the target.
• Make a detailed note of your strengths and weakness from the practice test. To improve your scores, you have to work on your weakness.
• Determine your learning style.

Would you like to spend fixed time every day

like to work with another friend preparing for exams

Spend fixed time 2 days in a week, ..

• To reach the target score of 1200 in GRE Test,  amount of time you have to spend has to be calculated based on

your learning style

time you plan to spend daily

University deadlines

when you plan to write GRE [ How to Register for GRE]

• If you have only 2 months and I need to score 1200 and can spend only 1 hour per week, then you can expect to score in GRE between  900 to 1000.
• GRE Study Materials: Make sure you have enough and right test preparation materials. If you plan to study for 3 months, then you need to have study materials for 3 months.
• Have a notebook to track your performance.
• Spend allocated according to the plan. Work on your weak areas ( Verbal Words, Maths Algebra,..).
• After completing the GRE practice test, make sure you spend more time analysis the mistakes. If you spent 2 hours taking the test, spend atleast 3 hours to analyze the mistakes. Instead if you spend 30 mins to just see the right answers, you are not improving your weak areas.
• Make a note of the mistakes you made and revise them weekly. So, you will not repeat the same mistakes again.
• Don’t forget to spend time to practice tests in strong areas of GRE Test.
• You need to have checkpoint to track your progress. If you have 4 months to study and need to improve 200 points, then every month your score has to improve towards the target score.
• By end of 2 months if you are still scoring 900, then you have to blame yourself. Go back to the study plan and see if you are really followed the plan or just being ad-hoc and not self-disciplined enough to follow the plan.
• If you learned new strategies for a section, during practice tests, you have to get the right answers. If you spent 1 week to improve on a section and then end up getting many incorrect answers, then you just wasted 1 week of your preparation time.
• For Example if you are weak in GRE Reading Comprehension and you spent 1 week in learning new strategies and if you still get it wrong, then try new strategies. Solve 25 RC’s per day. Live and sleep RC’s, you will get it.
• You MUST stick to your study plan and follow it strictly. You need to have self-discipline to follow the plan and that what differentiates from people who just have BIG dreams and Achievers.  You might get a tempting invite from friends to go to movie, during your study time and you will decide – “I will go to movies and will make it up next day”. If you can really make it up, then you are good to enjoy the time. If not, you can just yourself  as Just another loser, who is not going to be successful high GRE Score.

Your GRE Study Plan

If you are in the process of preparing for GRE, post your plan and get inputs from other readers, if you have right target and enough time to reach the target GRE Score.