3 Week Study Plan, Second Week

Plan for the Week

During the second week, you'll finish the tutorials, do more practice questions, and, at the end, take a second practice exam.

You'll need to spend at least 6 days in preparing for the GRE, spending 2 hours each day, for a total of 12 hours. Here is a sample plan for the second week of the three week plan:

• Day 1: Go over the Geometry, Data Analysis, and Quantitative Analysis Sections of the tutorials page. This will complete your math review. Do 8-10 practice questions for each of the geometry, data analysis, and Quantitative Analysis sections. Finish by studying a handful of new vocabulary words. By this time, too, there should be plenty of words that you can review and which you saw during the first week. See how many words you can master.
• Day 2: Go over the Sentence Completion and Reading Comprehension parts of the tutorials sections. The sentence completion questions tend to be some of the more straight-forward questions on the Verbal section, while the reading comprehension questions are often perceived as some of the more difficult. Again do approximately 10 problems for each of these sections in the practice questions part of MyGRETutor.com. Finish by studying some vocabulary words.
• Day 3: Again prepare for the essay section. In the first week you sampled some of the issue and argument essay topics, and this week do it again. This time, however, don't only brainstorm, but actually take your brainstorming notes and compose practice paragraphs.
• Day 4: Go over the essay tutorials sections. Note that there is quite a bit of information there regarding organization. Glance over the pool of essay topics that are available on the GRE website. Finish by looking at some new vocabulary words.
• Day 5: By this time you've completed all of the tutorials, and in preparation for the practice test on day 6, spend all of day 5 doing practice questions. Don't do one type of question, but instead cycle through the sections: do one arithmetic question, one algebra question, one data analysis questions, etc, and repeat the cycle for a full 1.5 hours. The questions that you'll see on the real GRE will also be drawn from all of these sections, so you want to sample the questions accordingly. Spend the last few minutes in the vocabulary section.
• Day 6: Take the second practice test. Yes. The FULL test, including the essay sections. It's crucial that you do the essay sections, because during the real test, you'll be required to finish the essays, and you want to get into the habit of doing the verbal and math sections AFTER you have written the two essays. Don't be surprised to find that the essays will be draining, but you must get used to the feeling because that is how it will be on test day.

Week Study Plan for Math Component of GRE

In week two you'll be reviewing the geometry, data analysis, and quantitative analysis sections. Of the five different math areas covered on the GRE, these three are the most challenging. On geometry questions, you'll be required to quickly see shortcuts; on the data analysis questions, you'll need to learn what information is important and which is not, and on the quantitative analysis questions, you'll need to know when to guess, when to estimate, and when NOT to select choice e: The answer cannot be determined.

Week Study Plan for Verbal Component of GRE

In this week, you'll complete the tutorials sections of the verbal part of the GRE. By this time you should also notice that most of the questions in the verbal part of the GRE -- aside from perhaps the reading comprehension questions -- are heavily dependent on vocabulary, and so if your vocabulary is good, then you should do fine, and vice versa. Therefore, keep up reviewing and studying new vocabulary words, and be sure to finish each day with vocabulary practice.

Week Study Plan for Essay Component of GRE

On day 3 of this week, you'll be studying the essay component of the GRE. Take several more sample issue and argument topics, and brainstorm on these -- and THEN also write several sample paragraphs. You'll do this on the real test, so this is ideal practice. Also focus on the style and organization that is required of good essays. The content of the essay is important, but the structure and your command of the English language are similarly as important.