What is the best tool in helping prepare for the GRE?
November 21st, 2009 | 
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Looking for info on gre preparation classes, gre preparation courses,gre test course and more?
Hi and welcome to my blog,
I opened this blog to help anyone who is preparing for his GRE exam.
I remember myself when I started - I was so lost and in such a panic.
Luckily I got this great Gre guide that helped me a lot
So study hard and good luck!
I’m taking the GRE in a month. I have looked at a few study guides from the library, and browsed through an online practice test. I haven’t been in school for almost 10 years now, and I can’t remember any of the math I once knew–I’ll be fine on the verbal portion of the test, but I really need help with the quantitative section. Anyone have any recommendations?
Posted in gre guide | 
Tags: 10 years, math, practice test, quantitative section, study guides, taking the gre, verbal portion
I bought a Princeton Review book which was pretty good. They have great online resources to take practice tests. It’s important to practice taking the test on a computer (not paper) since that is what you will do for the GRE.
The most important things you need for the quantitative section is geometry and algebra, plus a little trig.
The important thing to think about is that if you are not going into an area that emphasizes the quantitative section (i.e. if you are applying for an English masters program) your score won’t be that important to them. You ten years of experience outside of school will reflect much more.
I took a Kaplan prep course, as I was in the same situation as you are. My math score was really helped by what I learned (I actually had a 350 in math on the SAT!), so I had a much higher total score on the GRE and got into grad school without a problem.
I hadn’t done any math for years so I started with the book Math Review for Standardized Tests. It has diagnostic quizzes so that I could quickly figure out what areas of math I needed to brush up on. After that, I started doing lots of practice tests and analyzing problem areas. The GRE Bible is an excellent resource. While the program has a lot of bugs it’s very comprehensive and the CAT tests in it are good practice. Also, for a non-intimidating guide to GRE math approaches, Barron’s is a very good book. It can work really well to do a layered approach where you saturate yourself in math study, then take tests to discern weaknesses, then study again, and then return to tests. And if you run into any problems you can’t solve or understand there are GRE forums online where you can post the problem so that someone can post a solution there for you. GRE testmagic has a good forum for asking questions like that, and even has a quantitative section.