GRE is one of the most popular and widely accepted graduate entrance exams and fresh graduates, especially MBA aspirants are always on the lookout for newer and more effective solutions on how to crack GRE.
The GRE is one of the most popular and widely accepted graduate entrance exams and fresh graduates especially MBA aspirants are always on the lookout for newer and more effective solutions on how to crack GRE.
Conducted by the Educational Testing Service, the Graduate Record Examinations or GRE is a standardized test taken by candidates for admissions to graduate schools. Although the significance of GRE is more prevalent in the United States and Canada, it is also popular among students hailing from other countries commonly among those who wish to pursue higher education abroad. One of the most common reasons for students to appear for the GRE is that it is considered by many of the top business schools and management institutes as an eligibility criterion for MBA admissions. Students often prefer appearing for GRE instead of GMAT for MBA admissions due to certain differences between the two entrance exams.
GRE is considered to be a comparatively easier exam to tackle as compared to GMAT and students have been known to crack GRE in 1 month, but that is no reason for aspirants to slack on their preparations or put any less effort than they normally would for other entrance exams. The article below mentions important tips for aspirants to remember when preparing for GRE.
How to Crack GRE
Obtaining a high GRE score is dependent on a lot of factors like time spent on preparation, how well a student makes up their strategies to tackle the examination, how familiar the student is with the type of questions asked and many more.
Students must remember that it all boils down to how well you devise your preparation plans and effective they are in improving their performance when it comes to cracking the GRE. Follow the tips given below to give a boost to your GRE preparations.
Give Yourself Enough Time for Preparation
One of the most common beliefs among aspirants is that the preparation for GRE takes significantly less time than other entrance exams especially when it comes to MBA entrance exams. Students often come across cases of candidates cracking GRE in 2 months or even less and assume that they should also attempt to do the same.
It is important to realize that such instances are exceptions and not the norm and students should give themselves as much time as possible for preparations. The time and effort that is required to crack the GRE are totally subjective, some can accomplish cracking the GRE in just a few weeks while others may need significantly more preparation time to obtain a high score.
Make a Timetable
Preparations for GRE can be made a lot easier when students have a well-defined routine to follow. Students are bound to get confused and oscillate between topics and subjects back and forth without making any progress when they don’t have a proper timetable.
Making a timetable before beginning preparations and approaching every topic in an orderly fashion will not only help students get more out of their preparation time but also help them be confident about the topics already covered. It is advisable that students form their timetables in a fashion that helps them check their performance regularly along with making improvements to areas where they are lacking at the same time.
Use a Wide Range of Study Material
Students often confine their preparations to a small range of study material when it comes to GRE. If a student’s knowledge and experience are limited to a certain degree, any question beyond their preparation will affect their performance and score drastically.
In order to gather more experience and students should increase and also use a variety of study material during their preparations. Studying and practising questions from study material meant for other more tough entrance exams whose syllabus and topics are similar can help students in tackling questions for GRE more easily.
Identify Scoring Topics
The GRE consists of three sections which are Analytical Writing, Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning and among these three sections a wide range of topics are covered. Students should know the syllabus and identify the topics where their skills and abilities are more refined than others. Knowledge of topics that are more scoring than others will help students prioritize such topics during their preparations and help them form a more effective preparation plan and exam strategy.
Syllabus for GRE
The Analytical Writing section of GRE consists of two tasks:
- Analyzing an Argument
- Analyzing an Issue
A student has to showcase their abilities in critical thinking, analytical writing, articulating and supporting complex ideas, constructing and evaluating arguments, etc. The topics covered by the verbal and quantitative reasoning sections in GRE are:
| Verbal Reasoning | Quantitative Reasoning | |
|---|---|---|
| Basic Sentence structure: Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives | Circles | Coordinate Geometry |
| Idioms & Idiomatic Expressions | Lines and Angles | Triangles |
| Modifiers | Order of Operations | Volume and Surface Area |
| Parallelism | Percentage | Number properties |
| Pronoun Agreement | Permutation & Combination | Linear Equations |
| Subject-Verb Agreement | Polygons | Quadrilaterals |
| Verb Tense | Probability | Pipes, Cisterns, Time and Work |
| -- | Quadratic Equations | Set Theory |
| -- | Ratios and Proportions | Profit and Loss |
| -- | Simple and Compound Interest | Speed, Time and Distance |
| -- | Statistics | Powers and Roots |
Improve your Speed
It is important to remember that GRE has a sectional time limit and students need to be quick with their answers to every question. Students need to keep track of how much time they take to answer a certain question and always try to improve lower that time, being quick with your answers helps save more time for questions that are more complex and time-consuming.
In order to improve speed, students have to practice daily and take the help of sample question papers and previous year question papers. Taking mock tests on a regular basis will also help students know where they are taking more time than needed and improve on the same.
When the preparation is right and a student is confident about giving the GRE, cracking the GRE is quite achievable. In order to gather that amount of confidence, students need to put enough time and dedication into preparations, revisions, coming up with strategies to tackle problematic questions. All the points mentioned above along with the knowledge of what works best for a particular student can easily fetch a great GRE score.
