How long to study for the general GRE?

[browneyes124]

Hello!
I am a pre med student majoring in Behavioral Neuroscience and Biology. Because of certain things I have to take a gap year before medical school so I am thinking about doing a masters because even if I didn't have to take a gap year I'd still want to do a dual MD/ research degree. I haven't taken the GRE yet. I will apply for graduate school Fall of 2017 because I graduate the spring of 2018. Ive read alot of different programs and it seems like the general consensus is that you do not need to study that long for the GRE. I've been reading alot of peoples post who say that 2 weeks- 1 month is plenty of time. Is this true?
I've done alot of practice questions online and the only thing I think I need to really spend extra time on is the quantitative reasoning since I haven't had any math so far except for probs and stats since high school. I'm very good at english and comprehension so I don't see the verbal reasoning and analytical part being to big of a problem.
So how long to you guys think would be sufficient to study and do well? Also any recommendations on the type of material to use? I've heard the manhattan 5lbs book and magoosh is really good.

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[238460]

magoosh is indeed really good. and it depends on you and how you are confident in math and english. Also, look at the postbac schools you want to apply to for the min GRE score ...that should give you an idea of what kind of score to get and how long you need to study for(depending on how well you are doing on the practice test). Its not that bad. you can do it!

 

[Skyris]

I studied about a month and got a pretty good score. As stated above, take a practice test to see where you stand and go from there.

I used only Magoosh and the ETS PowerPrep practice tests. I love to throw away money and also paid ScoreItNow to have their robot read my essay. It was surprisingly competent. (And it's the same scoring algorithm they use on the real thing, such that if the human reader and the robot agree within a certain score threshold they won't bring in another human).

One piece of advice, practice for the AW. I think many people do absolutely zero studying for this because they are confident in their writing and miss out on an easily obtainable higher score. Even if you just do 2-3 practice essay drills under test conditions, you are far more prepared to quickly formulate an insightful essay, and ETS gives you the prompt bank they use and some sample essays to show you what they are looking for.

 

[bluebeardAT]

What's a decent score for a post-bac program then? What was your decent score if you don't mind me asking?

 

[browneyes124]

magoosh is indeed really good. and it depends on you and how you are confident in math and english. Also, look at the postbac schools you want to apply to for the min GRE score ...that should give you an idea of what kind of score to get and how long you need to study for(depending on how well you are doing on the practice test). Its not that bad. you can do it!

On all the graduate school websites I've looked on it just says GRE score and a minimum of a 3.0 gpa but never tells me an average gre score. Also I have asked some admission people and they all seem to say that an average is really hard to come up with a just a good score is what they want.... What does that mean?! That is not helpful!

 

[browneyes124]

I studied about a month and got a pretty good score. As stated above, take a practice test to see where you stand and go from there.

I used only Magoosh and the ETS PowerPrep practice tests. I love to throw away money and also paid ScoreItNow to have their robot read my essay. It was surprisingly competent. (And it's the same scoring algorithm they use on the real thing, such that if the human reader and the robot agree within a certain score threshold they won't bring in another human).

One piece of advice, practice for the AW. I think many people do absolutely zero studying for this because they are confident in their writing and miss out on an easily obtainable higher score. Even if you just do 2-3 practice essay drills under test conditions, you are far more prepared to quickly formulate an insightful essay, and ETS gives you the prompt bank they use and some sample essays to show you what they are looking for.

If I got average scores on the practice tests, do you think a month should be enough? Also how many hours a day did you study and did you use the recommended magoosh 1 month study plan?

 

[238460]

On all the graduate school websites I've looked on it just says GRE score and a minimum of a 3.0 gpa but never tells me an average gre score. Also I have asked some admission people and they all seem to say that an average is really hard to come up with a just a good score is what they want.... What does that mean?! That is not helpful!

You can try talking to another person and ask abt the avg GRE score accepted into the program...i would say no less than 150 on each section and depending on the school in the AW a 3 or above.

 

[Skyris]

What's a decent score for a post-bac program then? What was your decent score if you don't mind me asking?

Unfortunately, I have no idea, I opted to do my postbac work at CC's because the PT programs I'm interested in don't care. The average GRE score for admitted PT students is about 152V 152Q 4.0W, and I'd call average a "decent" score for PT school. I scored 165V 160Q 5.5AW.

Basically any Grad program I know of is going to be looking for you to score above 150V / 150Q / 3.5AW as kind of a baseline. At 155/155 you're getting into the 60th percentile and that's a "good enough" score to be competitive for many grad programs. Above 160 you're into the 80th percentile and I'd say that's a "good" score, but again, it depends. My 160Q would have been a low-end score for many Engineering programs.

If I got average scores on the practice tests, do you think a month should be enough? Also how many hours a day did you study and did you use the recommended magoosh 1 month study plan?

If your practice scores are reasonably close to your goal scores, yes, I'd say 1 month should be enough. I did not follow Magoosh's plan. My test was around August 20th last year, and I started studying more intensely around July 1st. I studied about 2-3 hours a day and skipped plenty of days when I just wasn't feeling it/had a headache/tired etc. I took practice tests throughout my studying. In June, before my studying, I took an ETS Powerprep practice test to diagnose where I was, and scored 162V 157Q (My goal was 160V 155Q so I was happy about that). Over the course of my studying I took two more Magoosh practice tests during July/early August, scoring:

1. 163V 156Q
2. 163V 154Q

About 4 days before my test date, I took the second ETS Powerprep test and scored 163V 158Q, and 2 days before my test I took my last Magoosh practice test (163V 157Q). I didn't do any studying the day before or the day of the test. During the 2-3 weeks leading up to the test, I also did numerous practice essays under timed conditions, including 3-5 minute "prompt-brainstorming" drills where I'd pick a prompt from the list and give myself a few minutes to brainstorm the outline of an essay. I felt this was immensely helpful when it came time to write on the test. I know my practice test scores didn't really improve over time, but I don't feel they reflected my preparation. Both the studying and doing practice tests in test conditions were very helpful.... I saw so many problems on the test I wouldn't have known without Magoosh (particularly on Quant).

Also I did many of the Magoosh GRE vocab flashcards (smartphone app). Some of those words showed up on my test.

 

[bluebeardAT]

This is good to know. Thanks for input.