![\"Manhattan](\"\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2017\/06\/last-week-before-your-gre-what-to-do-chelsey-cooley.png\")
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You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Crazy, right? <\/i><\/b>Check out our upcoming courses here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n <\/i><\/b>It\u2019s the last week before your GRE! What should you do this week to maximize your odds of a great score?<\/span><\/p>\n Your goal is to do the best you can with what you have. <\/b>Don\u2019t question whether you\u2019ve studied enough. That leads to anxiety, and anxiety leads to behaviors that won\u2019t help you on test day. Suppose that you decide, with one week to go, that you need to start learning Combinatorics. Unfortunately, one week is only enough time to move Combinatorics into your <\/span>\u201cpurple zone\u201d or \u201cgreen zone\u201d<\/span><\/a>. Topics in those two zones won\u2019t help you very much on test day. <\/span><\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean you should be fatalistic about the test!<\/b> You can <\/span>absolutely<\/span><\/i> improve your score during the last week before your GRE. But, think about it like this. At every level of knowledge and ability, there\u2019s a whole range of different scores you could get on the GRE. At the low end, there\u2019s the score that you\u2019ll get if you get food poisoning the morning of your test. In the middle, there\u2019s your \u201caverage\u201d score\u2014the score that most people with your ability level will end up with. But there\u2019s also a high end of the range, that represents the score you\u2019ll earn if you\u2019re at the very top of your potential. Here\u2019s how you get yourself there.<\/span><\/p>\n Driving while using a cell phone is dangerous. That\u2019s true even if you\u2019re using a hands-free device. It\u2019s not just about having your hands off of the wheel or your eyes off of the road\u2014it\u2019s about our limited mental processing ability. Whenever you\u2019re using your cognitive resources for one thing (having a phone conversation), you\u2019re neglecting something else (driving safely). <\/span><\/p>\n How does that apply to the last week before your GRE? Well, for peak GRE performance, you\u2019ll need all of your mental resources. That means <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> expending those resources on:<\/span><\/p>\n The more of these things you handle during this week, the more mental capacity you\u2019ll have available during the test. Memorize your <\/span>GRE timing benchmarks<\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0Take a trip to your testing center and check out the parking and traffic situations. Do some research on your target schools and decide on your threshold for canceling a score. Read the <\/span>ETS\u2019s page on using the GRE calculator<\/span><\/a>. (Ever wondered what those C and CE buttons were for? Learn it now, and don\u2019t worry about it on test day!)<\/span><\/p>\n I already mentioned that you shouldn\u2019t try to learn <\/span>new<\/span><\/i> material this week. However, there are two things you should keep working on until shortly before your test. First, improve your ability to use what you already know. My favorite way of doing this is to solve problems that I\u2019ve already done before, with a timer. If you\u2019ve been keeping a problem log, now is the time to go through and review the entire thing! It\u2019s also a great time to review old vocabulary flashcards. Make sure you still remember all of the words you learned weeks or months ago. <\/span><\/p>\n Second, you can get faster and more comfortable with the basics. The last week before your GRE \u00a0is a great time to do simple math drills, for instance. Try some of the drills from Khan Academy, or play the arithmetic game at <\/span>http:\/\/arithmetic.zetamac.com<\/span><\/a>, or even look up some middle-school math worksheets to fill out. See if you can list all of the prime numbers up to 100, or try to factor all of the numbers up to 100 as quickly as you can. <\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s up to you whether you want to keep learning new vocabulary right until your test date. You won\u2019t get the full benefit of <\/span>spaced retrieval<\/span><\/a>. But, you could still learn 30 words or so during the final week. Just don\u2019t let it interfere with the more important work of reviewing and warming up. <\/span><\/p>\n Don\u2019t<\/span><\/i> take a practice test this week\u2014and definitely don\u2019t take one the day before your real test. (The only exception is if you\u2019ve never taken a practice test before, in which case you should take one as soon as possible.) In fact, consider the day before your test to be part of your warmup. Spend a little time studying, but don\u2019t do anything too strenuous\u2014and focus on resting and mentally preparing yourself. On the morning of your test, it\u2019s fine to do a <\/span>few<\/span><\/i> easy problems, or take one last look at your problem log. But remember that the GRE is a long test, and you\u2019re going to be worn out by the end. There\u2019s no reason to wear yourself out prematurely, and it might cause a drop in your performance on the later sections.<\/span><\/p>\n If you work on new problems during the last week before your GRE, do longer, timed sets of <\/span>mixed<\/span><\/i> problems. (This is a good time for the Practice Sections chapters of the <\/span>5lb. Book of GRE Practice Problems<\/span><\/a>.) Why? This will help you with two crucial test-day skills: decision-making and avoiding careless mistakes. Think about it this way: on the GRE, there are problems you can avoid missing, and problems you can\u2019t avoid missing. There\u2019s no way to avoid missing <\/span>some <\/span><\/i>GRE problems\u2014when you see one that\u2019s just too tough, the best decision is to make a guess and keep moving. When you do a timed set this week, your goal is to make that choice quickly and realistically, so you\u2019ll be ready to make it on test day. There are also some GRE problems that you might miss for avoidable reasons, such as misreading the question, mixing up two words, or ignoring a critical part of the sentence. One of your goals this week is to prepare yourself to avoid those careless mistakes. <\/span>Turn a critical eye to your mistakes<\/span><\/a>, and train yourself to avoid the most common ones. <\/span><\/p>\n Okay, are you ready? Here\u2019s your final-week checklist:<\/span><\/p>\n Good luck out there! Let us know how it goes, and let us know if you have any other suggestions for last-minute GRE preparation. ?<\/span><\/p>\n See that \u201cSUBSCRIBE\u201d button in the top right corner? Click on it to receive all our GRE blog updates straight to your inbox!<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Chelsey Cooley<\/a> You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Crazy, right? Check out our upcoming courses here. It\u2019s the last week before your GRE! What should you do this week to maximize your odds of a great score?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[474284,921840,6,7,449765,733451,733445],"tags":[1362438,1362344],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-studiers","category-gre-prep-2","category-gre-strategies","category-how-to-study","category-learning-science","category-life-hacks","category-study-tips-2","tag-last-week-before-your-gre","tag-last-minute-gre-prep"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10447"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10466,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10447\/revisions\/10466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10447"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n1. Take a (cognitive) load off.<\/b><\/h4>\n
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2. Warm up (but don\u2019t wear out.)<\/b><\/h4>\n
3. Don\u2019t miss the ones that you could get right.<\/b><\/h4>\n
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\n![\"Chelsey](\"https:\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/11\/chelsey-cooley-150x150.jpg\" "\\"Chelsey")
<\/a> is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Seattle, Washington.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/i><\/b>Chelsey always followed her heart when it came to her education. Luckily, her heart led her straight to the perfect background for GMAT and GRE teaching: she has undergraduate degrees in mathematics and history, a master\u2019s degree in linguistics, a 790 on the GMAT, and a perfect 170Q\/170V on the GRE.\u00a0<\/em><\/i>Check out Chelsey\u2019s upcoming GRE prep offerings here<\/a>.<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"