![\"Blog-GREAnyQuestion\"](\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/12\/blog-greanyquestion.png\")
<\/b><\/h3>\n<\/b><\/h3>\nYou can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Crazy, right?\u00a0<\/i><\/b>Check out our upcoming courses here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n “I know all of the rules, but I’m nowhere close to my goal score.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n “When I study, I understand everything right away. But when I took the actual GRE, I couldn’t make it happen.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n “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.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n “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.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n 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 <\/span>always knowing what to do next on any GRE problem<\/span><\/i>. That’s what the \u201c<\/strong><\/span>When I see this, I will do this\u201d<\/b> technique is for.<\/span> Clue: <\/b>Any feature of a problem that stands out to you.\u00a0<\/span>Before your next review session, create a new spreadsheet or open your notebook to a fresh page. In the leftmost column, you’ll record <\/span>clues<\/b>. In the middle column, you’ll record <\/span>responses<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n Response: <\/b>The right thing to do when you notice a particular clue. <\/span><\/p>\n For each problem you review, regardless of whether you got it right or wrong, record at least one clue and response. Make your clues general enough that they’ll be useful to you on other problems, but don’t make them too general. The perfect clue is one you’ll always react to in the same way, no matter where you see it. Here are some examples for Quant:<\/span> Here’s an illustration of how you’d identify useful clues while reviewing a Quant problem. First, do the following problem:<\/span><\/p>\n If <\/span>t<\/span><\/i> is divisible by 12, what is the least possible integer value of <\/span>a<\/span><\/i> for which <\/span>t<\/em>\u00b2<\/span>\/<\/span>2\u02c6<\/em><\/span>a<\/span><\/em> might not be an integer?<\/span><\/p>\n (A) 2 The solution: if t<\/em>\u00b2\/<\/span>2\u02c6<\/em><\/span>a<\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0might not be an integer<\/span><\/i>, then t<\/em>\u00b2<\/span>\u00a0might not be divisible by 2\u02c6a<\/span><\/em><\/span>. Since <\/span>t<\/span><\/i> is divisible by 12, its prime factors include 2, 2, and 3. So, the prime factors of t<\/em>\u00b2<\/span>\u00a0include 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, and 3. That makes it divisible by 2\u02c6<\/em><\/span>4<\/span>, but it might not be divisible by 2\u02c6<\/em><\/span>5<\/span>. So the right answer is <\/span>(D) 5<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n That’s a bit of a whirlwind solution, right? And knowing it well, even memorizing it, will do absolutely nothing for you on test day. To improve your understanding of the solution and provide yourself with takeaways for <\/span>other <\/span><\/i>problems, break it down into clues and responses. At each step of the solution, what was the right thing to do next, and why?<\/span><\/p>\n The first step was to recognize the relationship between “t<\/em>\u00b2\/<\/span>2\u02c6<\/em><\/span>a<\/span><\/span>\u00a0might not be an integer” and divisibility. That comes up in a lot of problems, because it’s a handy way for the GRE to disguise divisibility problems to make them harder. Here’s how you’d generalize it into a clue and response:<\/span><\/p>\n The next step was to determine whether t<\/em>\u00b2<\/span>\u00a0was divisible by \u00a02\u02c6<\/em><\/span>a<\/span><\/em><\/span>. The solution jumped immediately to finding the prime factorization of t<\/em>\u00b2<\/span>, but why? Here’s the clue: There was another trick involved in finding the prime factors of t<\/em>\u00b2<\/span>. You might remember it from earlier in this article!<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, how did you know that t<\/i>\u00b2<\/span>\u00a0was divisible by 2<\/span>4<\/span>, but not by 2<\/span>5<\/span>? Another clue:<\/span> Since <\/span>t<\/span><\/i>\u00b2<\/span>\u00a0can be divided by 2 four times, it must be divisible by 2<\/span>4<\/span>. You don’t know whether it can be divided by 2 a fifth time, so it might not be divisible by 2<\/span>5<\/span>. That makes <\/span>(D) 5<\/b> the correct answer.<\/span><\/p>\n Now, try using the clues from this problem to solve these micro-problems:<\/span><\/p>\n The more clues you add to your own list, the more you’ll notice that GRE problems test the same skills over and over. It’s not possible to see every problem\u2014that’s one good reason not to adopt a ‘quantity over quality’ approach to studying! But it <\/span>is<\/span><\/i> possible to learn which features are used over and over, and how to react to them. If you feel like you already know the content, but you can’t bring it together, then stop thinking so much about content and start thinking about <\/span>knowing what to do next<\/span><\/i>. That’s how you take control of the GRE.\u00a0?<\/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> \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Crazy, right?\u00a0Check out our upcoming courses here. “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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,16,2,474284,3,921840,6,7,9,10,733445,154333],"tags":[1362490,160],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-8601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gre-math-algebra","category-gre-applications","category-challenge-problems","category-current-studiers","category-grad-school","category-gre-prep-2","category-gre-strategies","category-how-to-study","category-math-gre-strategies","category-gre-basic-math","category-study-tips-2","category-taking-the-gre-2","tag-any-gre-problem","tag-gre-problem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8601","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=8601"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10923,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8601\/revisions\/10923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8601"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n“When I See This, I Will Do This”: A GRE Study Tool<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"See_this_do_this_empty_table_-_12_8_2015\"](\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/12\/see-this-do-this-empty-table---12-8-2015.png\")
<\/b><\/span>Before your next review session, create a new spreadsheet, or open your notebook to a fresh page. In the leftmost column, you’ll record <\/span>clues<\/b>. In the middle column, you’ll record <\/span>responses<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"See_this_do_this_filled_table_1_-_12_8_2015\"](\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/12\/see-this-do-this-filled-table-1---12-8-2015.png\")
These are useful clues, since they’re neither too specific nor too general. You’ll probably see exponents with non-prime bases in many problems, and you’ll generally react to them in the same way, even though you might never see the specific equation 25<\/span>x<\/span><\/i> = 5<\/span>y<\/span><\/i> + 1<\/span> again. <\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>(B) 3
\n<\/span>(C) 4
\n<\/span>(D) 5
\n<\/span>(E) 6<\/span><\/p>\n![\"See_this_do_this_filled_table_2_-_12_8_2015\"](\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/12\/see-this-do-this-filled-table-2---12-8-2015.png\")
Whenever you see “<\/span>a<\/span><\/i>\/<\/span>b<\/span><\/i>\u00a0is an integer”, the right first step is to start thinking about divisibility.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n![\"See_this_do_this_filled_table_3_-_12_8_2015\"](\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/12\/see-this-do-this-filled-table-3---12-8-2015.png\")
Questions about divisibility are actually questions about prime factorization.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"See_this_do_this_filled_table_4_-_12_8_2015\"](\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/12\/see-this-do-this-filled-table-4---12-8-2015.png\")
That’s how you knew that t<\/i>\u00b2<\/span>\u00a0contained the prime factors 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, and 3. (You could add another row to your own spreadsheet, to remind yourself that t<\/i>\u00b2<\/span>\u00a0might<\/span><\/i> contain other prime factors as well!)<\/span><\/p>\n![\"See_this_do_this_filled_table_5_-_12_8_2015\"](\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/12\/see-this-do-this-filled-table-5---12-8-2015.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
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\n![\"Chelsey-Cooley\"](\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/11\/chelsey-cooley-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Seattle, Washington.<\/strong>\u00a0Chelsey 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 170\/170 on the GRE. Check out Chelsey’s upcoming GRE prep offerings here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n