Can’t get enough of Neil’s GRE wisdom? Few can. Fortunately, you can join him twice monthly for a free hour and a half study session in Mondays with Neil.

As a long-time instructor of all things standardized testing (GRE, GMAT, LSAT, SAT), I love reading books about math, logic, learning, skill acquisition, neurology, and psychology. Is important to me to stay up-to-date with anything that will help my students use their study time effectively. In this blog series, I’ll be bringing you book reviews and recommendations, as well as excerpts and summaries you can put into practice right away on your GRE journey. Read more

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

You know what’s really frustrating? Making a ridiculous math mistake on a GRE Quant problem, totally by accident, and never noticing it. Add a three-second sanity check to your GRE Quant routine, and you’ll be more likely to catch small mistakes before they turn into huge disasters. Read more

Can’t get enough of Neil’s GRE tips? Few can. Fortunately, you can join him twice monthly for a free hour and a half study session in Mondays with Neil.

In front of you sits a big stack of GRE vocab words you want to memorize. How do you get all of these words in your long-term memory as quickly and efficiently as possible? You could just try to cram things into your head through sheer force and repetition. But in my experience, that’s too slow, and students often learn the word-for-word definition without actually processing what the word really means. I’ve had more than one student tell me that “obsequious” means “servile” without knowing what “servile” means… Read more

Happy 2016! This is the year you get an awesome GRE score and are accepted to the graduate school of your dreams. Even if you’re reading this well into the year, or you’re half-way through your GRE prep, you could probably use some guidance, motivation and focus. Here are some New Year’s resolutions to get you started or re-started on your journey to a great GRE score. Read more

Do you remember, when you took exams in high school or college, being allowed to bring a one-page ‘cheat sheet’? I always spent days putting those cheat sheets together in my tiniest handwriting, summarizing an entire semester’s notes on a single page. The funny thing is, by the time I took the exam, I almost never needed to look at the cheat sheet I’d created. After spending all of that time creating it, I had practically memorized my notes. So, even if you can’t bring a cheat sheet with you to the GRE, you can still benefit from creating one. Synthesizing your notes and thoughts on a single page will give you the ‘big picture’ view of a topic, and will teach you what you do and don’t know. Read more

Several times a week my students ask me, “What’s the best way to study?” They’re worried that they’re doing things the wrong or slow way, or they’re working hard but not making the progress they want. I will say this: If you’re putting in the hours, the results will come, maybe not as quickly and easily as you’d like, but you’ll get there. However, I have discovered two common “types” of students who put in a lot of time and hard work with less than satisfactory results: Read more

In the previous article, we discussed two ways for non-native English speakers to excel at the vocabulary-based question types on the GRE. If English isn’t your first language, check out that article first, and try our two recommendations: keep a list of inconsistent or illogical English idioms, and focus on context as you learn vocabulary. Then, read onward for two more ideas! Read more

If English is your second (or third, or fourth!) language, you might find GRE Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence frustrating. However, you can still improve your performance, and you don’t need to study thousands of flashcards to do it. Here are a few ways to address your weaknesses and play to your strengths.

Fool me once…

English is counterintuitive, but native speakers never notice most of the inconsistencies. As a non-native speaker, you’re in a unique position to notice the quirks of English and turn them into useful lessons. Read more

“When I see this, I will do this”: a GRE study tool

“I know all of the rules, but I’m nowhere close to my goal score.”

“When I study, I understand everything right away. But when I took the actual GRE, I couldn’t make it happen.”

“I never know what to do when I see a Quant problem for the first time. If somebody tells me how to set the problem up, I can do it perfectly, but I can’t get started on my own.”

“I get overwhelmed by Verbal questions. I’ll think that my answer makes sense, but then I’ll review the problem and realize that there were a dozen different things I didn’t notice.”

If any of those statements ring true for you, you’re not alone. You’ve probably been studying for a while, or you at least have a good grasp on the basic math, logic, and vocabulary. But getting a great GRE score isn’t just about knowing the content. It’s also about always knowing what to do next. That’s what the “When I see this, I will do this” technique is for. Read more

When you take the GRE, you need a strategy for percentage problems that works every time. Here’s that strategy, in four easy steps.
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