GRE Success Story 320

My GRE scores are 320 (169 Q and 151 V).

Duration: 2 months

Though these GRE scores are not fetching me admits to my dream business schools but sharing my GRE story – hoping to be helpful to some of you.

For Verbal:

Two things I would like to share:

1.  Fear To tackle verbal: I am always scared to tackle verbal, I perform well at home but at the real exam, I suck. Not sure about the reason, I just give up. But before the exam, I saw a video on fear…It was rightly told that fear is something that does not exist and is only because you overthink. So when it does not exist you cannot remove it but rather laugh at it, because you are afraid of something that does not exist. So be peaceful, when you get nervous or scared during the exam just laugh at yourself- how can you remove something that does not exist.

2. Another thing is this exam is right to hold your feet on the ground. So when you feel you are answering right or you get excited, you hit a bump. It hits on your head and because of your excitement or ego, you don’t wanna let it go. You spend more than 2 mins or so and get nervous for the rest and screw up.  So time your questions. Divide the time schedule into 9 questions in 14 mins. Then recheck the clock. It’s like you need to have that pace and rush. So during practice implement it. Not during first practice but yes after 3 weeks of practice. make sure you solve in 1 minute or skip it. Take guess move on. Make it a habit but remember only if you score 60% on your practice implement it.

For Math:

Math has been a strength always. But you have to make sure to be careful. Like above be careful, there can be a bump anytime anywhere.

I practiced Manhattan 5lb not of much help because they were easy. Instead, Scholar Den Questions were of the same difficulty level as the real GRE.

Don’t blindly jump to solving. When the question is given spend 20 secs and try to understand the trick. I am sure many of them jump to solving without thinking.

Another most important GRE question is meant to be solved in under 2 minutes. Don’t expect questions to be longer than 3 minutes, if that is the case then either your approach is wrong or you didn’t understand the question properly. 

For DA, mostly 1 or 2 questions are puzzling in words. So when you approach DI, understand the pattern- he will ask you two types

1.) Calculations are on LHS and RHS. 

This means you have to note down the values correctly on LHS (STAY CONCENTRATED and NOTE DOWN correctly ….read and note down, don’t do both at once. Understand carefully first read, understand and write down and solve…then solve on left…Don’t do it simultaneously…All understand word problems correctly)

2.) Calculations only on RHS.

Sometimes you will be doubtful about how can the calculations be so easy. It is possible. Easy calculations on one side only.

On Extra Section:

On quant when I got my first section, It was very tough. I was shocked. The calculations were very tough. Lengthy and crazy. Questions were typically worded. I realized that these questions are from an extra section – so I relaxed, guessed, and moved on.

So try to understand the GRE questions pattern correctly. 

Good luck guys.