Many top universities worldwide have made standardised tests, such as the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) and the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) an admission requirement for doctorate studies, MBA, and Master's programmes in several fields including life sciences, business, and engineering. Taking these tests strengthens one's application, even where the test scores are not mandatory prerequisites to gaining admission. This article discusses how to prepare for each section of the GRE to achieve your desired score while the next will discuss the same regarding the GMAT.
Sections of the GRE: The GRE tests various dimensions of one's critical thinking and reasoning abilities through the sections given in the table. The GRE is almost exclusively computer-based but select test centres (that lack the infrastructure to conduct it) offer the paper-based modality a few times a year. The two modalities vary slightly in terms of duration and number of questions.
Analytical Writing: This section consists of two separately timed tasks - 'Analyse an Issue Task' and 'Analyse an Argument Task'. The former comes with an issue statement making a claim followed by specific instructions. The candidate needs to dissect the claim from various lenses as this task apprises their ability to reason critically and clearly express thoughts about it in writing. The latter task presents a brief passage signifying an author's claims based on evidence and rationalisations. One has to follow instructions and prove their capability to scrutinise the given arguments.
"An effective way to prepare for this section is to go through resources containing sample answers to the same questions that received different scores. This helps identify the quality of writing one needs to aim for," says Kazi Raihan who took his GRE in 2020 and went to Simon Business School to pursue an MS in Business Analytics.
Verbal Reasoning: This section involves going through walls of descriptive prompts laden with rich vocabulary to answer questions having drawn inferences, identified nuances, and analysed the writers' perspectives. "Reading and digesting the lengthy passages fast and deciphering their key messages/summary is crucial to acing this section. This skill is best built up organically over time by having an exposure to standard English writing," says Kazi Raihan.
"Additionally, making flashcards to retain vocabulary helped me immensely; I made it a point to learn new words each day during my preparation. However, the GRE tests whether one grasps the connotation of words within a given context and not whether one can write word-meanings of random vocabulary," he recalls. Viewing vocabulary as a tool to better understand each passage's context and key message enables one to avoid confusion during the examination.
Quantitative Reasoning: The GRE Quantitative Reasoning is designed to assess one's comprehension of basic mathematical concepts and the ability to reason quantitatively to model and solve problems. These skills are tested across four areas: Algebra, Geometry, Arithmetic, and Data Analysis.
"This section is not about merely plugging in numbers into memorised formulae to arrive at an answer - it is about using the formulae as tools to deploy one's problem-solving abilities depending on the question types," says Nazmus Shakib, who is currently pursuing his MBA from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after securing a stellar GRE score.
"The MCQs come with options that can look like the right answers when they are not," he states. As such, candidates ought to draw diagrams to simplify the question or plug in numbers (or given MCQ options) into equations whenever appropriate to get more answers right. Using logic to answer questions in a few steps instead of opting for long-winded mathematical ways helps one achieve the same effect.
The experimental section: The GRE experimental section is an extra Verbal Reasoning or Quantitative Reasoning section that appears in the test but remains unscored and unindicated. That is, the number of questions correctly answered in this section does not impact one's final score and candidates have no way to know which of the sections is experimental throughout the test. The purpose of this section is to test the difficulty level of questions the test makers (Educational Testing Service, ETS) plan to use in the future.
Key resources: ETS offers comprehensive resources to enhance one's preparation including the "Official GRE Super Power Pack" and the "Official Guide to the GRE General Test". They also publish "Official GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions" and "Official GRE Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions" with complete explanations and useful tips.
"I relied on Gregmat for my preparation as they have excellent resources for all the sections. They even have one-month and two-month study plans for candidates looking for reliable plans to navigate themselves," says Nazmus Shakib. "Some Reddit communities help with resources that are useful but lesser known. For example, Reddit led me to a Chinese website with free helpful resources," he posits.
On the other hand, Kazi Raihan recommends the GRE Big Book, Kaplans, and McGraw Hills to accelerate one's preparation. "Aside from these resources, the most important thing is to take the official mocks by ETS - of which two PowerPrep mocks are absolutely free," he suggests.
Getting your desired score: Starting one's preparation with a diagnostic test to assess one's strengths and shortcomings helps outline how much time and effort one needs to reach their desired score. "Once that is sorted, consistent practice is key. More practice translates to increased speed during the test. Even if you know everything, not being fast enough would impact your score negatively," advises Kazi Raihan.
One cannot automatically be good at time management during the main test if they do not time themselves while taking mock tests.
Some questions in each section pose to be more knotty than the others. On being asked about ways to approach those questions, Nazmus Shakib says, "One has to identify and skip them for attempting later. It helps to remember that all questions within a section carry the same mark, so attempting the harder questions later saves time." In this regard, tracking mistakes made in each practice test and revisiting them to analyse the kinds of errors (silly mistakes vs errors due to lack of knowledge) equips candidates to secure higher scores.
Lastly, recreating the exam hall environment during practice tests yields high returns. One needs to manage their stamina throughout the examination by not exhausting all of their brain capacity in the initial sections of the test. Taking the designated breaks, having some snacks and water, and being well rested before the exam makes a difference that is often underrated.
The writer is a fourth-year BBA student at IBA (DU) majoring in Finance.
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