Lev Lazinskiy

GRE Study Tips: Books, Apps, Websites

As I have been hinting at for the last few weeks I am currently deeply involved in studying for the GRE. Today I am going to talk about some of the steps that I am taking in order to better prepare myself for this exam. Now that I am mostly calm from the frustration I felt toward the exam as a whole, I am going to go about this more constructively and recommend some of the the things that have helped me get better prepared for this exam.

IMPORTANT TO NOTE: The GRE Exam is going to be changing very soon and most schools will stop accepting scores from the “old test” very soon. The test is coming out in Aug 2011. It is important to check deadlines with your school, and check out the GRE website for more information and to decide which test you should be taking.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120215154800/https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/know

I am going to be taking the “old test” so this study guide; although may soon be obsolete, will be useful for those who are planning to take the same test.

1. The Kaplan GRE 2010 Edition with the online companion is very useful in a general overview of the GRE after going through the book I feel more confident that although I may not know what to expect in regard to the individual question, I have a good overview of what the test will consists of. The online companion and the book may take some time to go through, but finishing this course will give you a lot of the confidence that may be the difference between an outstanding score and an average score.

2. The GRE website itself has tons of useful overviews and reviews for all of the sections of the test. There are much shorter than the KAPLAN book, but still provide a good general overview and a few extra questions.

3. Apps: If you have an iphone or a droid there are several apps that are great for studying. By far my favorite is the GRE:Smart Vocab by High Five Labs. It is a fun little app that focuses on building vocabulary, and although it has less words than I would have liked, it combines flash cards with a game environment where you actually move up with different colored belts, like Karate. I feel my vocabulary growing each time that I use it, and surprisingly am able to remember many words days and weeks after reviewing them for the first tme.

The other apps that I bought were all made by Testbank. Although these apps are not as “fun” as the Smart Vocab (They are black and white, very plain, very few questions, and all of the questions are in the same order every time.) It still gets the job done. They are cheap, 99cents a pop, but I think that I could have done without them. I would not recommend them because you could probably get better practice from the other resources listed above.

If you have any study tips, please feel free to share with the rest of us!

I am kind of jealous that the GMAT, MCAT, LSAT, all have little online clubs and communities that share tips, stories, strategies, etc. I feel like there is no such type of community for the GRE and it is a shame.