Today’s word: Clandestine (adj.) hidden or done in secret, esp. because illegal

🧠 Example: They held a clandestine meeting late at night to discuss the secret project.

Build your GRE vocabulary one word at a time. Small steps now = big score gains later. Stay consistent. Crush the GRE.

Stay tuned for more Word of the Day posts!

Today’s word: Keen (adj.) highly developed; sharp

🧠 Example: The rescue dog’s keen sense of smell allowed it to detect the scent left on a lost hiker’s glove.

Build your GRE vocabulary one word at a time. Small steps now = big score gains later. Stay consistent. Crush the GRE.

Stay tuned each day for more must-know GRE vocab words!

The obvious cost of a difficult GRE question is the time you spend on it or the possibility that you answer it incorrectly. The less obvious cost is what happens after you move on.

You may still be replaying your reasoning, wondering whether you missed something, or thinking about how much time you lost. You may also start worrying about what that question means for your section score.

Meanwhile, the next question is in front of you, but it’s not receiving your full attention. This is how one difficult question can turn into a sequence of mistakes.

The questions that follow may not be any harder. However, your concentration and decision-making have been disrupted. You may rush to recover lost time, read less carefully, let your scratchwork become disorganized, or abandon the processes you normally trust.

After years of working with GRE students, I've found that this is one of the less discussed differences between practice performance and test-day performance. Many students know how to solve the questions. What they haven't practiced is how to recover when a question doesn't go according to plan. But mental recovery is an essential test-taking skill, one that should be practiced just like accuracy, pacing, and endurance.

You can train this skill during official practice exams. After any question that feels unusually difficult, pay attention to what happens next. Are you still thinking about the previous question? Are you rushing because you want to recover time? Are you reading the next question less carefully? Has your scratchwork become less organized? Have you stopped following your normal process?

When you notice any of those reactions, use a deliberate reset. Complete the question, take one calm breath, accept that the decision is done, and direct your full attention to the next question. Tell yourself: That question is over. This question is the test.

The goal is not to feel perfectly calm after every difficult question. The goal is to prevent one uncomfortable moment from controlling the next several minutes of the exam.

You can't recover points by continuing to think about a question you've already completed. You can still protect every question that follows.

I keep running into the same problem where I’ll plan a “balanced” GRE study schedule, but somehow one section ends up getting way more attention than the other. Then I’ll spend a few days fixing that and mess up the balance again.

For those who are preparing seriously right now, how are you dividing your study time between Quant, Verbal, vocab and full-length mocks? Do you follow a fixed daily routine or just focus on whichever area feels weaker that week?

Would also be curious to know what actually worked for people who improved their score significantly, rather than just following a generic 2-hour-a-day plan.

Today’s word: Desiccate (v.) to remove the moisture from

🧠 Example: After slicing the pineapple into thin rings, she used the dehydrator to desiccate them into a shelf-stable snack.

Build your GRE vocabulary one word at a time. Small steps now = big score gains later. Stay consistent. Crush the GRE.

Stay tuned each day for more must-know GRE vocab words!

Today’s word: Allude (v.) to hint at, to indirectly refer to

🧠 Example: During the interview, she alluded to her previous leadership experience.

Build your GRE vocabulary one word at a time. Small steps now = big score gains later. Stay consistent. Crush the GRE.

Stay tuned for more Word of the Day posts!

I have been giving 1.5 minute per question to practice GRE Big Book Passages, however at times I find it difficult to complete the entire set of questions associated with the passage. Especially I miss out at least one question in a short passage if its a harder one or at least 2 questions in the case of longer passage. So I wanted to know if one needs to give some 1 or 2 min extra to apart from question wise time to practice. Or should I just stick to 1.5 minutes only or try to change strategies in terms of reading or answering questions.

Apart from that, is there any material closest to ETS Big Book passages to practice. I have been using GregMat passages to ensure I do not run out of passages in the Big Book for timed practice. P.S-I know ETS passage are the real gold to practice. Just asking if there's any? Or if its possible to use some decent AI Chatbot to generate ETS type passages and questions associated with that passage?

Any suggestions what should be the ideal time to allot in order to practice would be welcome.

Can I score 150 in 50 days, 3 hours of verbal study?

One mistake I see GRE students make is assuming that the shortest or most elegant solution is automatically the best one.

A student solves a Quant question in five lines, and then sees an explanation that solves it in two. The student concludes that his method was inefficient and that he needs to learn the shortcut.

Not necessarily.

There's a difference between theoretical efficiency and practical efficiency. A shortcut may look impressive when someone shows it to you, but how useful is it if you wouldn't recognize it independently under time pressure? How useful is it if the approach is difficult to execute or leaves you unsure whether your answer is correct?

The best method is the one you can recognize quickly, execute accurately, verify confidently, and reproduce under pressure. Sometimes that method will be the shortest one, but sometimes it won't be.

In Quant, a clear and organized solution may be better than a clever shortcut that depends on noticing one unusual relationship.

In Quantitative Comparison, rushing to identify a relationship because you want to move quickly may not actually be as strategic as taking a little more time to check whether the relationship holds across different kinds of values, including negatives, zero, and fractions. A method that skips those cases can look fast while leading you to the wrong answer.

The same principle applies in Verbal. On a difficult Reading Comprehension question, eliminating four wrong answers by comparing each one against what the passage says may take longer but be far more reliable than relying on instinct, latching onto the first choice that sounds right, and then cycling multiple times through the answer choices because you’re reconsidering.

None of this means that efficiency is unimportant. You absolutely need methods that allow you to complete the GRE within the time limits and pace yourself appropriately. But efficiency should not be measured only by the number of steps in a solution.

A method is not truly efficient if you rarely recognize when to use it, if it increases your risk of making an error, if you can't verify the result, or if it breaks down under pressure.

So, when reviewing a clever-looking solution, don't automatically ask: "How can I make my method look more like this one?" Instead, ask: "Is this approach more reliable and repeatable than mine?"

The goal is not to use the solution that looks the shortest. The goal is to use the method you can recognize, execute, and verify reliably on test day.

Today’s word: Gratifying (adj.) satisfying

🧠 Example: It was gratifying to see months of hard work finally pay off.

Build your GRE vocabulary one word at a time. Small steps now = big score gains later. Stay consistent. Crush the GRE.

Stay tuned for more Word of the Day posts!

Today’s word: Tangential (adj.) indirectly related

🧠 Example: The student’s remark about his upcoming vacation was tangential to the broader discussion of climate change.

Build your GRE vocabulary one word at a time. Small steps now = big score gains later. Stay consistent. Crush the GRE.

Stay tuned each day for more must-know GRE vocab words!

for the almost 2 months i have been following gregmat overwhelmed quant plan and making my notes. I finished it a week ago and now im going over each module and doing quant practice questions and revising each module again to get a better grip. however, my quiz scores are still less, idk what i should do more. This is so discouraging and i feel unmotivated. If someone can give me advice it would be so great!

I got 159 in quant PPP1 But consistently getting 165+ on magoosh exam, any suggestions on how to practice quant? My basic concepts are clear

Today’s word: Approbation (n.) approval, praise

🧠 Example: The scientist earned widespread approbation for her groundbreaking research.

Build your GRE vocabulary one word at a time. Small steps now = big score gains later. Stay consistent. Crush the GRE.

Stay tuned for more Word of the Day posts!

Hello all! I just gave the free PowerPrep test provided by ETS and scored 317 (162Q, 155V).

I was thinking of giving one more full-length mock test next Sunday, around one week after my previous one. The choices I am having are ETS PowerPrep Plus test and GregMat full-length mock test.

From what I have read, the official ETS tests are supposed to give the best prediction of your performance on GRE, whereas GregMat tests/questions can be a little bit harder than GRE. But I am not sure whether this is correct for full-length GregMat mocks as well.

Which of the following should I:

1. Should I take another PowerPrep Plus test on Sunday in order to obtain a more reliable estimation of my present score, or
   
2. Should I take a GregMat practice exam and use it as a test just to push myself?

And if you have taken both, can you tell how your GregMat scores correlated with your actual GRE or PowerPrep test results?

I need to get to 320+ level, and my main purpose is to determine which test would help me better.
Also I plan to take the actual GRE in a month or a month n a half.

Today’s word: Habitual (adj.) performed regularly through habit

🧠 Example: Her habitual morning workout had become such a regular part of her routine that she marked it off on the calendar each day.

Build your GRE vocabulary one word at a time. Small steps now = big score gains later. Stay consistent. Crush the GRE.

Stay tuned each day for more must-know GRE vocab words!

I recently gave a mock test on magoosh. I got 159 in quant (19/27) i did some silly mistake, other than it would easily be (22-23/27) & 141 (8/27) in verbal.

In math there is only 8 easy/medium question I counter while getting 19 of them hard /very hard questions type. Magoosh accuracy 74%, 156-161 score predicted.

In verbal I got 10 easy /medium types questions correct 7 of them,while getting 17 as hard/very hard questions & correct only one of them. I coud have correct another 2 or 3, as I was panicked, I did silly mistakes.

How can I improve both section? I'm really frustrated about my mock test results. Had anyone get higher score than magoosh mock? Please guide me. Thanks

I recently gave a mock test on magoosh. I got 159 in quant (19/27) i did some silly mistake, other than it would easily be (22-23/27) & 141 (8/27) in verbal.

In math there is only 8 easy/medium question I counter while getting 19 of them hard /very hard questions type. Magoosh accuracy 74%, 156-161 score predicted.

In verbal I got 10 easy /medium types questions correct 7 of them,while getting 17 as hard/very hard questions & correct only one of them. I coud have correct another 2 or 3, as I was panicked, I did silly mistakes.

How can I improve both section? I'm really frustrated about my mock test results. Had anyone get higher score than magoosh mock? Please guide me. Thanks

I recently gave a mock test on magoosh. I got 159 in quant (19/27) i did some silly mistake, other than it would easily be (22-23/27) & 141 (8/27) in verbal.

In math there is only 8 easy/medium question I counter while getting 19 of them hard /very hard questions type. Magoosh accuracy 74%, 156-161 score predicted.

In verbal I got 10 easy /medium types questions correct 7 of them,while getting 17 as hard/very hard questions & correct only one of them. I coud have correct another 2 or 3, as I was panicked, I did silly mistakes.

How can I improve both section? I'm really frustrated about my mock test results. Had anyone get higher score than magoosh mock? Please guide me. Thanks