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So you\u2019re taking the GRE in a couple of days and you have no idea where to start. It\u2019s not an ideal situation, but it\u2019s where you find yourself. What do you do?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n First, take a practice test. You can take a <\/span>free practice test<\/span><\/a> on our website. If you aren\u2019t scoring within several points of your goal score, you may want to consider pushing back your test. Do you have any flexibility with your test date? Even if programs request or require that you take the test by a certain date, sometimes there is some flexibility there, so it\u2019s worth reaching out to ask in order to give you more time to study.<\/span><\/p>\n But there\u2019s another important reason to take a practice test, which is that it shows you what you\u2019re up against in terms of content (the math and verbal material that you\u2019ll be tested on), timing (how long you have to answer the questions), and duration (it\u2019s a long test, and you\u2019ll need mental endurance).<\/span><\/p>\n Here are the most important things to know about the Verbal and Quant sections of the test: you should leave no blanks, and you should try to lay eyes on every question. This is because the problems are not ordered by difficulty, so you could very well see an easy question near or at the end of a section. Your score is based on how many questions you answer correctly, so you want to get to these questions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In addition to understanding this basic aspect of scoring, you will want to find out how much you should \u201ccare\u201d about your essay score. Some programs have expectations for the essay score and some don\u2019t. Know how seriously you need to take it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, you\u2019ll want to familiarize yourself with the basic structure of the test\u2014how long the sections are, how much time you have on them, and what question types you\u2019ll see. This way you won\u2019t be trying to get your footing as you\u2019re taking the test, and most importantly, you\u2019ll have a sense of timing so that the clock doesn\u2019t run out when you\u2019re on question eight of twenty. On average you will spend 1 minute 45 seconds per question on the Quant section and 1 minute 30 seconds per question on the Verbal section.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Knowing what the question types are\u2014you can read about these in the <\/span>GRE Official Guide<\/span><\/a> or in our <\/span>Math and Verbal Strategy Guides<\/span><\/a>\u2014will save you time and mental energy during the test, as you won\u2019t have to read the instructions on the standard question types, for which the task is always the same (Quantitative Comparison on the Quant side, and Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence on the Verbal side).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For these predictable question types, you have some basic strategies that can take you a long way. It is worth spending some time learning these strategies, which you can find in our <\/span>Math and Verbal Strategy Guides<\/span><\/a>. For Quantitative Comparison problems, the strategy is what we call \u201cpicking numbers.\u201d For Text Completion problems, it\u2019s using clues to predict a fill-in. For Sentence Equivalence problems, it\u2019s eliminating any answer choices that do not have a synonym choice.<\/span><\/p>\n Spending several hours learning, practicing, and testing yourself on these strategies is a valuable use of time for anyone who is trying to maximize the effectiveness of last-minute study.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, with only two or so days to prepare you shouldn\u2019t try to memorize 200 new vocabulary words or relearn all of the math you haven\u2019t seen since high school. But that doesn\u2019t mean you should completely disregard content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Look over your practice test results for areas on which you can quickly brush up, your <\/span>low-hanging fruits<\/span><\/i>: focus first on any easy problems that you missed. Why did you miss these? What could you have done differently to get them right? Is there a simple geometry formula you\u2019ve forgotten? Need to refresh yourself on how percentages work, or the meaning of the word \u201csuperfluous?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In cramming it can be very tempting to lose sleep or otherwise sacrifice health for the sake of study. Resist this temptation. You are much better off having had a good night\u2019s sleep and\/or having gone on your regular jog than staying up till 2 a.m. quizzing yourself on right triangles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, take a snack. You\u2019ll want it at the break.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n (And remember\u2014if it doesn\u2019t go as well as you hope, you can take it again in three weeks.)<\/span><\/p>\n RELATED: <\/strong>Managing GRE Anxiety Before Test Day<\/a><\/p>\n Don\u2019t forget 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 Mary Richter is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Nashville, Tennessee. <\/i><\/b>Mary is one of those weirdos who loves taking standardized tests, and she has been teaching them for 15 years. When she’s not teaching the LSAT or GRE for ManhattanPrep, she’s writing novels under the last name Adkins. You can find them wherever you buy books. <\/span><\/i>Check out Mary\u2019s upcoming GRE prep offerings here!\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So you\u2019re taking the GRE in a couple of days and you have no idea where to start. It\u2019s not an ideal situation, but it\u2019s where you find yourself. What do you do?\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[921840],"tags":[419,1365019],"yst_prominent_words":[1364988,1362627,1362677,1365008,1363564,1365013,1365012,1363092,1365016,1362632,1363421,1363094,1362813,1363022,1365009,1362628,1362795,1364972,1365014],"class_list":["post-12732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gre-prep-2","tag-how-to-study-for-the-gre","tag-study-for-the-gre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12732","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\/183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12734,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12732\/revisions\/12734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12732"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}GRE Study Tip 1: Take a practice test<\/b><\/h3>\n
GRE Study Tip 2: Learn the basic test structure, question types, and scoring method\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n
GRE Study Tip 3: Learn basic strategies for the basic question types\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n
GRE Study Tip 4: Use your practice test results to focus your study<\/b><\/h3>\n
GRE Study Tip 5: Get a good night\u2019s sleep and take a snack<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n![\"Mary](\"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2020\/01\/mary-green-close-up-1-150x150.jpg\")
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