How much time should you spend preparing for GRE?

Chris advises that students should prepare at least for six months before appearing for the GRE. This is especially important for students who are not native speakers of English. Chris reiterates that learning new words is not sufficient. He recommends what he calls ‘in-context reading’, which basically involves the regular reading and analysis of news articles appearing in the New York Times, New Yorker, The Smithsonian, etc. The language used in these articles is of high academic quality and gives the student a broader picture of the happenings in the world as well.

The use of ‘flash cards’ is a good way to improve one’s vocabulary. The Magoosh team has come out with a ‘Flash Card app’ that works on Android and i-OS and also has a web-version on their website. The application takes thousand of the most important/frequently used words and presents them in an easy to learn format. 

Chris also recommends using the official GRE-Preparation Guide issued by ETS; which serves as a vast repository of learning both for the verbal and the numerical reasoning sections. It is important that students maintain the tempo of learning and take up a GRE mock-test or practice-test every alternate week to monitor their progress and learning. The mock-tests will help students get ready for the actual test and will also improve their speed in answering the questions.

In the next video, Chris talks on how often students can take the GRE and the validity of the test scores.