{"id":10139,"date":"2017-03-22T16:49:12","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T16:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/?p=10139"},"modified":"2019-08-30T16:38:55","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T16:38:55","slug":"how-much-do-i-have-to-learn-to-beat-the-gre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/blog\/how-much-do-i-have-to-learn-to-beat-the-gre\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much Do I Have to Learn to Beat the GRE?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Manhattan<\/p>\n

Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free? We\u2019re not kidding! <\/i><\/b>Check out our upcoming courses here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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<\/i><\/b>Not as much as you might think. However, it\u2019ll still take time, hard work, and a change in mindset. A lot of the learning you have to do to beat the GRE won\u2019t look like what you\u2019re used to. Sure, you\u2019ll spend some time reading books and taking notes. But you\u2019ll also need to study and think in ways that go against what you may have learned in school. <\/span><\/p>\n

The GRE isn\u2019t a perfect test. For instance, the research is split on whether it predicts how well you\u2019ll do in graduate school. However, people who say that the GRE \u201cdoesn\u2019t test anything\u201d or \u201conly tests how well you take tests\u201d aren\u2019t quite right, either. There are certain skills that, if developed, will consistently help you do well on the GRE. And these skills <\/span>are <\/span><\/i>learnable. One of them is the ability to use your content knowledge under pressure. <\/span><\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need to know very <\/span>much<\/span><\/i> content for the GRE\u2014you can get everything you need from the <\/span>Manhattan Prep GRE Strategy Guides<\/span><\/a>. However, I often work with students who know the content but still aren\u2019t scoring well. That\u2019s where \u201coverlearning\u201d comes in. Picture every \u201cGRE fact\u201d as a point on the following diagram:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Manhattan<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re just starting out, there might be a lot of topics in the blue or purple areas. That\u2019s fine\u2014you don\u2019t really \u201cget it,\u201d and you\u2019re aware of that. However, once you start learning, you\u2019ll move some topics into the green or orange areas. You might even move a few into the red areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Manhattan<\/p>\n

A lot of my students take a practice test at this point, and realize that they aren\u2019t doing that much better. They think to themselves, \u201cwow, I must still have a lot to learn.\u201d They might start to look into the more obscure GRE content: super-tough vocabulary, combinatorics, 3-dimensional geometry, and so on. <\/span>And that\u2019s the wrong move.<\/b> You didn\u2019t score poorly on that practice test because there\u2019s something you haven\u2019t studied yet. You scored poorly because, even though you \u201cget it\u201d now, <\/span>the GRE isn\u2019t a test of \u201cgetting it.\u201d <\/b>It doesn\u2019t reward students who can understand a lot of very difficult material. It rewards students who can <\/span>use<\/span><\/i> a relatively small amount of relatively easy material, under very difficult, very stressful circumstances, with no external support. <\/span><\/p>\n

Adding more and more skills into the green and purple areas won\u2019t help you gain points. But that\u2019s what you\u2019re doing when you start studying the more complex stuff in hopes of improving a low score.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Manhattan<\/p>\n

Instead, you want to take the skills that are already there, and move them into the red areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Manhattan<\/p>\n

In class, we refer to this as \u201coverlearning.\u201d You\u2019re studying things that you already know, sometimes things you already know quite well. You\u2019re not doing it because you\u2019re hoping to learn something new; you\u2019re doing it in order to prepare yourself to perform under pressure. Don\u2019t just study a topic until you \u201cget it\u201d\u2014study it until it\u2019s totally automatic. <\/span><\/p>\n

That means you might find yourself studying topics that feel easy. You might start to feel like you aren\u2019t learning anything. That\u2019s not actually the case, though. Think about the last time you got an easy problem wrong on the GRE. You probably didn\u2019t miss it because there was something you had never learned. You missed it because you didn\u2019t perform well under pressure.<\/span><\/p>\n

One important note: you can\u2019t move a skill into the red area instantly. When you\u2019ve first learned something, even if you feel confident about it, you probably won\u2019t be able to move it up more than a few levels in one study session. That\u2019s a good argument for revisiting old topics over and over. It\u2019s also a good reason not to learn brand new content in the week before your official test. You might be able to add new material to the purple and green areas, but you\u2019d be better off spending your time moving things from the orange area into the red ones. <\/span><\/p>\n

Here are some ways to study GRE topics you already \u201cget,\u201d while keeping yourself interested:<\/span><\/p>\n