I recently took the GRE for the first time, had only three weeks to study (in my spare time--I work full-time), and never was great at standardized tests. Yeah, I did well enough on the SAT/ACT and the LSAT (way back when I flirted with the thought of law school...) but nothing to brag about.
I have to say that the GRE broke my record, though--I studied well, probably had some luck, but also think I was very careful and discerning with the materials I used and the way I managed my time. Although it was only three weeks of effort, I did feel pretty ready for the test. In fact, I was so ready, I had no motivation to study anymore. I was really bored with the material, even if I knew I still could have learned more and shored up a few of my weaker math areas.
I really wanted to share what worked for me so that others might have success first-time around with the GRE, too. If you find yourself in my position (taking it two weeks prior to the VMCAS deadline!) you only have one real shot, and it had better be a good one. I have to thank my roommate (Thanks, T!) for convincing me that I really could improve a verbal score by learning words. She was more than right.
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Everyone is an individual. Nevertheless, I am not a relativist. I believe there are bad study methods, good study methods, and better study methods simply based on how people learn and how the brain works. We don't know everything about our complex brains, but we do know some things. My experience as student and as a teacher has really reinforced what evidence currently suggests is 'better' when it comes to mastering material or preparing oneself for an academic hoop: connecting personally with material and engaging it in a way that mimics what our brain does naturally and subconsciously all the time.
My recommendations in no real order:
1. Do buy and read (at least the first 2/3) of the
GRE for Dummies book. This book is great for two main reasons: A. It tells you what to expect on the test (I did not use any software, especially because ETS' free stuff doesn't work on Macs). It helped me a lot to know that the first five questions are perhaps the most important and essentially set your score range more than the questions that follow them. It also was good to know that failing to answer questions was more costly than guessing. When I first started reading this book, I didn't realize just how valuable the verbal section test strategies are. They are excellent--Pay attention! Somewhere on another thread I read that someone had trouble with timing, esp. 'because antonym questions are so hard.' This book convinced me that antonym questions fall into two camps: you know 'em or you don't. There should be no time wasted on these questions!! That is just one example of the verbal advice in this book. Heed it--it's good stuff. After studying more and applying the strategies from Dummies, I agreed with the author on every single strategy. And I soon found myself speeding through the verbal section with loads of time left. I certainly applied that rule to the antonym questions. No more wasting time trying to reason it out when I had no clue what a word meant. It's a crap shoot. Roll the die and move on.
2. Learn words. I don't love that Barron book of 800 words book--
Essential Words for the GRE. (The format is a hindrance.) But this book my roommate gave me. I was skeptical because I thought there was no way I could learn that many words so quickly (I should clarify that most of the words you kind of know already, anyways, but would have a hard time defining succinctly). I also was skeptical that these words would show up on 'the real tests.' They do. Some other words not in the book do, too... but what are you gonna do? You can't learn every last English word out there. You just need some to help boost your score and plow through those darn antonym and analogy questions. The definitions are not stellar in this book. The order in which they appear--alphabetically--bleh! But crap--those words are useful. Turn them into individual flashcards. Mix 'em up. Play games and do word association exercises with them. Yeah, I know it sounds boring, but it's a lot less monotonous than going through them in a rote fashion, 800 looping around again and again. And forget trying to keep them organized by spelling as the book does... ENGAGE the material. Group them according to meaning, regroup them based on how well you do or don't know them, make sentences, draw comparisons... reorganize based on new categories. ( In other words, don't just memorize the meanings, although you do need to know those--try to think of them with the other words that have similar meanings.)
I used to teach foreign language and so I know about some more modern language-learning methods--what motivates a learner and what makes for lasting knowledge (not ephemeral) in the brain. As I said above, you gotta make a personal connection, and you need to learn things in context. A list of words in alphabetical order provides ZERO context... But once you start engaging with the words, they become more dynamic, and the subtle differences between words start to emerge. I had several groupings and re-groupings (I refined my categories if they were too large or broad... I divided them into sub-groups)-- Classifying and re-classifying things is what your brain does subconsciously as you go about solving problems in daily life, categorizing and storing information. Take advantage of your natural ability.
Here is what I mean: Some of my groupings were under these headings: The Natural World, Speech/Writing, Pleasure, Flattery, Admirable Traits, Stop/Go, Light/Clear/Transparent, etc.. The GRE Book for Dummies has good ideas on how to make word associations, too.
👍 It doesn't matter what your groupings are. (Again, it needs to be a personal association).
((On a side note: Once I had learned and engaged with hundreds of words, I realized that if these words are at all reflective of English vocabulary, we are a people/culture (historically) obsessed with a few things: deceit/trickery/fraud, flattery and kiss-ups, and slandering someone or speaking ill about something.
Paranoid, are we??? 
We've got a million words to express the nuances of those ideas. I had at least a good guess for words that surprised me on the test... since I knew what 'categories' these GRE words tended to fall into.))
3. Take math tests, score them and take notes so that you can see A. what you get wrong, or B., what takes you a long time. Target those areas for study. For me it was exponent rules, geometry, and then basic problem-solving strategies for more logic-based problems. I used a variety of books. None was really better than the other. I did like the geometry section in the Dummies book because I found it well-organized. When I took the actual test, I noticed that my Math section really had different questions than the published ETS book of old exams... so beware. Factorials came out and circle equations... I never saw those in the practice tests/books... Of, course, I should still remember that stuff from a few years ago, but I didn't appreciate being caught somewhat off guard.
4. For the Analytical writing part--I hardly studied. I did get a book by Petersen's:
GRE: Answers to the Real Essay Questions. I did not go through it in its entirety, though. I only read about the two types of writing exercises and practiced creating an outline of a couple of prompts, based, in part, on advice from the book. I tend to write a lot for work--basic reports/emails--nothing fancy--but I am very very careful about how I craft my message (I have ingrained the notion that you gotta be careful to communicate to your recipient exactly what you want to say... cuz it can come back to bite ya... particularly when it is written). I think I do a lot more self-editing and revising than my co-workers, so I suppose I practice often. It probably doesn't hurt that long ago I majored in history and had to write a ton, too. If you have not practiced much writing in a while, I would maybe spend a bit more time following the suggestions in this book. It's got great ideas for having a plan to craft your response. For test day, I would certainly have a skeleton outline (a formula!) ready to go in your head, and refresh yourself on transitional/linking phrases. I would probably shy away from practicing fully writing too many of these essays, though. I think it's possible to get similar topics on the actual GRE and that could be a risk. Go in with your basic formula and transitions--that way you can put together paragraphs that flow well despite the time limitation. Again, unless you really are unaccustomed to writing, that is about all I would do.
5. Time yourself every time you take a complete test section--Verbal or Quantitative. Write down how long it took you or how much time remained. You should get faster as you study/prepare. I never took a 'full length' test, which I know is a common recommendation. I just didn't think a three-hour jaunt was going to exhaust me. I don't think it made a difference in the end. I will say that having the analytical writing part first on the GRE is great. It got my mind and my hands all warmed up and ready for the V/Q sections, where you have to be 'on' from the very first moment the clock begins ticking. I give kudos to ETS for designing it that way. Most tests save the free response sections till the end when you are bored and moping about the fact that you ran out of time on a section or know you missed an easy question. Not so with the GRE. I also appreciated being given a choice of whether I wanted to take the experimental portion. Sure, I might have had a shot at winning 100 bucks... but I really just wanted to be done and get the heck out of there. I also don't think it's polite or quite fair to make people endure it thinking it could be scored. Why make people second guess any extra when they are already so nervous?? Thank you, ETS.
I only took the GRE once, and I know there is certainly luck involved. So is any of this advice worth following? All I can say is that as an older student/applicant with a background in some teaching, a bit of life experience (it really helps with reading comprehension, I think), and also two degrees-worth of college, I feel that I have gotten better at discerning what is worth one's effort when it comes to studying, and which techniques are less so. It's not about the number of total hours you spend studying, but about the quality of those hours. Above is a summary of what I did and what worked for me. I did do some other things, like trying to work through the Barron's GRE book, but did not feel I or that "work the book" method was being true to my form--it was not catering to age-old study strategy of catering to MY SPECIFIC NEEDS... so I 'went rogue' (thanks Sarah Palin) and used materials more as references, rather than study plans! Again, in just under three weeks, studying part-time (not every day, but regularly), I managed to score well--a 99% on both the Verbal and Analytical Writing, and an 82% on the Quantitative. I am more than happy with that.
I want to wish everyone good luck. Do not be afraid of the GRE. You CAN prepare for it and capitalize on the test's characteristics. I really feel that I did exploit the test format to score as high as I possibly could. Be thoughtful about the entire process and you will get more out of each hour you put in.
