GRE practice tests are beneficial for two primary reasons; they give you a sense of your current ability level and they emulate an actual exam experience. Our exams have always been good at the first reason. Now they’re even better at the second. As of May 12th, 2021, all Manhattan Prep GRE practice tests include an unscored experimental section just as most of the actual GREs do. What’s a GRE Experimental Section? There are 4 scored math and verbal sections (2 each) on every GRE. Most tests also include a fifth, unscored section, known as the experimental section. That section is mixed in wi ..read more

Studying for the GRE on your own? Load up your GRE study calendar right now—it’s time to get organized. GRE Studying: The Big Picture Start by filling in your test date. Not sure when you’ll take the test? Just pick a date that’s in the right ballpark. Plan to spend the two days before your test relaxing, mentally preparing for test day, and doing some light, easy review problems. Next, mark down any travel or commitments you have coming up. Be realistic about what will and won’t affect your ability to study. You don’t want your whole plan to revolve around studying hard during your beach tri ..read more

Any answer to the “what’s a good GRE score?” question should come with a disclaimer. Do you want a good GRE score for a PhD program in medieval history, or for an EMBA at your state university? Do you have weak college grades but ten years of work experience, or are you a current student with a 4.0 GPA? The real question to ask is “what’s a good GRE score for me?”—and the simple answer is, a good score is whatever score will impress the programs you’re applying to! But how good does your score need to be in order to do that? Most of my students are taking the GRE in order to get into MBA prog ..read more

The GRE (Graduate Record Examination) is a standardized test administered by testmaker ETS and used by graduate programs (including some business and law schools) to evaluate applicants. Taking the GRE is a standard step in the application process for most programs, and your score can hold considerable weight in your application. Admissions committees consider your GRE score, GPA, extracurriculars, and application materials to determine whether you qualify for graduate programs and whether you would be a good fit. The GRE was created in 1936, and first used by Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Pri ..read more

You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Ready to take the plunge? Check out our upcoming courses here. Problems involving work and rates can be a problem for many test-takers, but with a clear method to set them up and a little clever plugging in, you can learn to knock them out efficiently and accurately. Typical GRE work problems look like this: Working alone at her constant rate, Alicia can paint a room in 5 hours. Working alone at his constant rate, Bill can paint the same room in 6 hours. How many hours will it take the two of them ..read more

You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Crazy, right? Check out our upcoming courses here. You’ve been studying for the GRE for a while now, and you’ve taken at least two GRE practice tests. (If not, start with this article instead!) Last time, we started discussing how to review a GRE practice test at a high level. This time, we’ll go even further: you can learn something from every single question on your GRE practice test. Here’s how. How Do I See the Questions from My GRE Practice Test? If you’ve just taken a Manhattan Prep GRE pract ..read more

And what do they tell us about prepping for the GRE? Students often ask me, “Where can I find the most difficult questions on the GRE?” In this blog entry, I’ll show you the top three hardest GRE Math problems, ranked by percent of students who got them wrong. Before we get there, I should say: you don’t need to correctly answer questions like these to get a very, very good score on the GRE. This is a test that favors accuracy and consistency on mid-range questions over the ability to get the very hard ones. One can nab a score in the 90th percentile or above without getting any of the very h ..read more

Combinatorics—it’s a word none of us can say and none of us had ever heard of before we started studying for the GRE. It’s a fancy word that just means “the number of possibilities” or “all the ways something could go” (my definitions).  And once we do start to tackle it, we’re often stumped. Most books and online study tools teach us a formula that is deceptively simple. “Great!” we think. “I’m set!”  Then we get to a combinatorics problem on a practice test, and what happens? We get it wrong. The formula doesn’t work.  It’s a frustrating experience, and one I’m going to solve ..read more

Like many folks these days, I’m catching up on some TV shows, but I’m still teaching too. For anyone out there studying for the GMAT, LSAT, or GRE, there’s a valuable lesson that I want to share with you that I learned recently from, of all places, a TV show. It’s about the danger of failing to review your work, and the associated importance of keeping a detailed review log. That show is called “Masterchef,” hosted by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. Masterchef is a decent show all-around, but there’s one segment that I always love to watch: the one where Ramsay demonstra ..read more

What are the best ways to study vocabulary on the GRE? I’ve compiled my top strategies for getting the most out of your GRE Vocab prep. How many GRE Vocab words should you learn? I’m often asked, “How many new words should I learn?”  My answer: As many as you can. I think it’s hard to learn more than 70 words per week, or 10 per day. That’s an ambitious goal for anyone. If your test is 10 weeks away, you could theoretically learn 700 new words. If it’s three weeks away, you could learn 210. Again, this is an ambitious goal! It’s fine to go for less—30-50 per week is pretty standard. RELA ..read more