1.5 year journey 309 -> 328

Man, where to begin. Words can't express how glad I am to be done with this test. My split was 160V/168Q. Nothing impressive compared to some of the "I got a 330 in 1 month, here's how" folks. But I’m proud of the work I did.

My first practice test was PP1 in early 2021. I studied a little but I hadn't yet discovered our lord and savior u/gregmat. I think I went through the ETS math review guide and some random vocab list.

Timeline

  1. Early 2021: first practice test 153V/156Q (309).
  2. I worked through u/gregmat's 1 month plan in 2-3 months. Did some practice tests. Basically all of the official ones… I wouldn’t advise this this early.
  3. Mid 2021: first official test 158V/164Q (322). I’m not sure what I was expecting. I was more or less pleased but I knew I wanted to take it again.
  4. Work got busy, so I took a break.
  5. Late 2021 is when I started studying again. I re-took some of the official practice tests. I wasn’t really sure what to do after u/gregmat's 1 month plan, so I kind of winged it.
    1. Vocab: I started using Anki for vocab since the beginning of my prep. I made it through PrepScholar 357, PowerScore 700, u/gregmat's list, and u/Vince_Kotchian's app. Lots of overlap.
    2. RC: old GRE big book.
    3. Quant: I maintained an error log since the beginning of my prep, so I reviewed this. I did some of the harder questions in the old GRE big book. Once those were easy, I did random stuff on u/gregmat's site. I did some of the following playlists: Test Your Quant Concepts, Power Hour, and Medium & Difficult Quant practice.
    4. AWA: I committed u/gregmat's outlines to memory and never really practiced. I'm a decent writer. The key here is the art of rambling.
  6. Mid 2022: second official test 158V/161Q (319). What the flip. In hindsight, I walked into this test too confident and lax. I assumed I would beat my previous score easily and that I was in 330 territory. Nope.
  7. Time to recalibrate.
    1. I re-did most of u/gregmat's 1 month plan in 2 weeks. I condensed it quite a bit. I skipped over parts I thought I was good in.
    2. I did all of the Manhattan 5 lb book. I hadn’t touched it until this point. This book was a reality check for me. I realized I wasn't as strong in my foundations as I thought I was. I noted questions that I got wrong and added them to my error log.
    3. I did the Manhattan QC/Data Interpretation workbook and some of the Manhattan Word Problems workbook.
    4. I did most of the old GRE big book tests for TC/SE and RC. I also did some sessions of u/gregmat's So You Think You Know Words. These were fun.
    5. Continued reviewing vocab. At this point, I weirdly enjoy it.
    6. Since I had done all of the official practice tests at least twice already, I did some third-party tests. I took a test from Princeton Review, Kaplan, and Manhattan Prep. These weren't the best but my aim was to practice being bored for 3+ hours.
    7. The biggest change I made was timed practice. For quant, I’d do sets of 20 questions in 30 minutes. Or sets of 10 questions in 15 minutes. For verbal, I tried not zoning out while reading the passages. Active reading is key.
  8. Now/late 2022: 160V/168Q (328). Hallelujah.

Takeaways

  • If you’re aiming for 320+, expect this journey to take at least a year. Unless you’re naturally gifted at test taking. But you probably wouldn’t be reading this far into the post if you were.
  • If you want a high score in quant, you essentially need to be perfect. I thought I got 40/40 on my last test but evidently I got 2 wrong. You want to be perfect or near perfect in your practice tests. If you’re in the 165 range, you won’t accidentally stumble onto a 168. If you got a 170 on practice test, the real deal could have 2-3 questions that trip you up.
  • Have an error log and review it. Don’t just remember the answer, recall the process.
  • Anki makes spaced repetition super easy. Do vocab early and often.
  • The GRE sucks, but it's not all in vain. I know so much vocab that I can pretty much pick up any book from the Classic Literature section of the library and devour it. I also crush the math section of trivia night with friends.

Well, that's it folks. Thanks again u/gregmat and u/Vince_Kotchian. Happy to answer any questions.