Four GRE Study Activities that Students Love but Teachers Hate
Okay, the title shouldn’t describe them as activities that teachers hate, so much as activities that this teacher hates. I don’t hate them because they’re completely useless, but I hate them because they distract well-meaning and hard-working students. Studying for the GRE is time-consuming and hard enough without inefficient strategies.
There are certain study strategies that exasperated students have in common. When a student tells me that they’re following one of these strategies, the rest of the story is usually, and my score isn’t going up at all. Here are, in my opinion, the four big ones, and their better alternatives.
Binging on problems
This is a big one. Stories that start with, I did all the problems in the book or I bought an extra set of problems and did every single one usually end with but I’m not getting any better!
It’s not that doing all the problems in the book is a bad thing, but chances are if you’re doing that many problems, you aren’t giving them the time they deserve. Doing problems is a good way to assess what you know, but it’s actually not a great way to get better at doing problems. That comes when you review what you’ve done.
Wonder if you’re doing too many problems with not enough review? Go back and do 10 problems you did last week, timed. Do you remember how to tackle them? If so, you’re probably reviewing enough. If not, you might want to tackled fewer problems in more depth in order to see a better payout.
Overdosing on practice tests
When a student’s story starts, I’ve been taking a practice test every day it almost always ends badly. You aren’t going to magically get better at practice tests by taking them every day. That’s like trying to lose weight by weighing yourself each morning. It assesses where you stand and gives you information, but it doesn’t do anything to change your situation.
Before you take a practice test, ask yourself, Why am I doing this? If the honest answer is, I think my last score was a fluke, and I think this one will come out higher or I want all my practice to be in test form, since that’s what the real test is like, you should skip it.
Practice tests are good for 3 things. They’re good for practicing your testing skills, such as timing and guessing. They’re good for assessing where your score currently stands. And they’re good for diagnosing where you need to spend your time. That’s pretty much it. So you should be using each practice test for each of those things. Design a timing and guessing strategy, so that you can practice and hone it with each test. And then use the test to choose two or three areas that need attention and where studying will give you the most benefit. Don’t take another practice test until you feel that you’ve improved in those areas and you’re looking to assess whether your studying has paid off and what your new weaknesses are.
Reading the answers
When a student tells me that he or she is doing lots of problems but not seeing results, I always ask, are you reviewing them as you do them? If not, we have our problem right there. But if the answer is yes, the next question is, How are you reviewing them? And the danger zone answer is, I read the explanation in the book and make sure it makes sense to me.
Reading the answer to a problem is like learning to play the piano by watching someone else play the piano and thinking, Yeah, that sounded pretty good. You learn to play the piano by trying to play the piano. If my brief experience with piano lessons is any indication, it usually goes pretty badly the first time.
Let’s say you do a problem timed, and you take a guess. It’s not time to read the answer yet. Try the problem untimed first. Try to figure out what the problem is telling you, and what it’s asking you. Get as far as you can on your own. If you want to use other problems or the textbook as a reference, go ahead! This is the time to try to figure it out on your own. This is you learning to play your scales “ it’s okay if they’re clunky at first.
If you can figure it out, great! Try to define and articulate a take-away for yourself. If you get stuck, now you can look at the answer “ but just enough of it to get you unstuck. Then, close the answer and try to work on your own again. If you get stuck again, use the answer again as needed. In the end, you still want to try to define a take-away. And if you feel like you were too dependent on the answer, maybe revisit the problem in a couple days and see if what you learned stuck.
Flipping through flashcards
I am not a huge fan of flashcards. That’s not because they can’t be used well; they certainly can. Especially if you are spending time on public transportation each day, they provide you a chance to have GRE practice conveniently in time that would otherwise be wasted.
What I don’t like about flashcards is the way they’re frequently used. The read the front, then read the back strategy is really inefficient. You’d be better off just enjoying your commute and playing some Fruit Ninja. It’s the on-the-go version of reading the answers, and it doesn’t engage your mind, memory, or problem-solving skills.
If you’re going to use flashcards, make sure you’re interacting with them in an active way. You should be prompted by whatever’s on the front of the card to recall, learn, figure out, or remember something that will help you on the exam. It should be a lesson that applies beyond just one problem or question. Give yourself time to figure it out. If you can’t, and you need to check the back of the card, you’re not done! Go back to the front of the card and explain to yourself the lesson that card has to offer. Talk through it, and try to think about it in a different way. Don’t be afraid to write more information on the card.
In the end
Ultimately, you should be proud of yourself for any studying that you’re doing. Studying for the GRE is difficult and time-consuming, and it’s a big challenge you’ve taken on. So why not get the most out of your study time? It feels efficient to power through hundreds of questions, but it doesn’t usually have the same payout as working through fewer questions in a more thorough way.
You can only learn as fast as you can learn. So if it takes an hour to truly understand 6 problems, that’s a better use of your hour than powering through 20 problems on a superficial level. The only things that effect your score are the ones that stick, and the ones that stick are the ones you really learn.
So keep it up!