Need help with preparing for the GRE® quant section

[Suchibansal]

Hi all,
I recently started preparing for the GRE. I took the ETS powerprep test to find out where I am currently before starting the preparation process. I scored a 710 on the verbal and only 540 on the quant.

I am wondering if someone could please give me advice on how to strenghten my quant score. I really need to raise that score and have about 2 months to prepare for the test. I am applying for a MPH and need a bare minimum of 650 on the quant.

I would appreciate getting some insights on how I should structure my study plan- how many practice problems should i be doing in a day, how often should i take a prac. test- how to review and effectively use the results from each test etc.

Thanks in advance for all your help!!

[Flynn9090]

Powerprep scores are not reliable at all! The scores they give you are way higher than what you will score on the actual test. I read somewhere that it requires 50 hours of study to achieve a combined score (600V 600Q) on the GRE. I would suggest buying a couple of GRE prep books.

[Suchibansal]

how much higher are they?

can someone give me tips for studying for the quant section.thx.

[Flynn9090]

from my own experience, they are about 150-200 points higher.

[Suchibansal]

k. thanks.

[Lk50df]

"I read somewhere that it requires 50 hours of study to achieve a combined score (600V 600Q) on the GRE." Um, it doesn't work that way. How well people do on the GRE isn't a direct correlation to the number of hours they spend prepping. It's quality, not quantity, that matters. You can spend 50 hours of somewhat productive time or 30 hours of really productive time and have the same result. No one knows. It depends on you, the individual.

I would plan on doing 2-3 hours of prep a night on weeknights if you can, and more time on weekends. I recommend practice questions during the week, one type at a time, and at least one full test each weekend. Review, review, review. Know why you got questions wrong before you move on. I can't stress that enough!

There are plenty of good materials...official guide for practice questions, official tests (Powerprep), Cracking the GRE, Word Smart for GRE...start with those. You can find the official stuff on www.gre.org, although the OG might be cheaper on Amazon. The others are on Amazon.

[Suchibansal]

Thank you so much! This is very helpful. I was wondering if solving practice exercises from Barrons would be okay, along with taking the actual tests from the ETS 10th publication? I have Kaplan as well but found Barron's to be much better... your thoughts?

Can you also comment on the accuracy of the ETS powerprep results? Are they a good indicator of the final score?

Thanks again!

[Sleepy_Sentinel]

hey suchi
my powerprep scores were 1600 and 1550(va-750).
my actual score was 1590(va-790)
i found powerprep extremely reliable as a score indicator. The standard and type of questions was the same as that of the GRE.
Kaplan,Princeton Review etc. gave me scores in the 1450-1550 range.They had some questions which were definitely not going to come on the GRE. I dont think these tests are very good in terms of a realistic level of questions.

[Suchibansal]

Thank you and congratulations on getting such a good score! I am glad to know that the powerprep is a reliable indicator.

Could you tell me which text and web based resources did you use ? thx again.

[Sleepy_Sentinel]

Hey suchi
For verbal I did barron's wordlist pretty well. It also helped that I knew something about suffixes and prefixes;they really help in guessing the meanings of words youve never heard of. I didnt really do anything for quant, so Im sorry I cant help you there.
I gave about 4-5 practice tests:Princeton, Kaplan and PowerPrep.
I did the paper tests(only VA) from the Barron's book too and found them helpful.
All the best

[Suchibansal]

You have been extremely helpful! Thank you so much for all your guidance. Hope it will work out for me!