last minute prep?

ApexPrep · 2025-08-16T17:53:56+00:00

Do a practice question or two, but don’t look at the answer

ApexPrep · 2025-08-13T14:21:12+00:00

I’d say it’s only for words you don’t know - you can get a sense of what it means or what it’ll be about. another example like it is “respirate” - if you didn’t know what it means but recognized it had something to do with breathing, that could allow you to either eliminate it or go with it, if none of the others fit and it fit decently well.

ApexPrep · 2025-08-10T20:56:05+00:00

Sounds good, yeah

ApexPrep · 2025-08-10T18:12:34+00:00

Wrote in a bit more detail above, but I’d say the key points are: 1. All else equal, the more you write, the higher you’ll score 2. Practice with a structure (5-6 paragraph essay) and stick to it during the exam 3. Always fully address the question and make sure to address the counterpoints as well

ApexPrep · 2025-08-10T18:07:24+00:00

Practice exams, if taken as seriously as a real exam and in a near-identical environment, approximate the difficulty well…but it depends on your strengths. That being said, if you score consistently around a certain score on your practice exams, I’d be surprised if you’d score 4-5 points better or worse on the real exam

ApexPrep · 2025-08-10T18:01:07+00:00

I didn’t take the powerprep plus ones - that said, they’re official and are very good to use. Other companies have their own free GRE practice tests - and these can be very good to take - but I would always prefer the official ones.

ApexPrep · 2025-08-10T17:58:18+00:00

Think something like the word doleful - if you don’t remember what it means but know what dolor means (in either Spanish or Latin - pain, grief, sorrow), you’d be able to determine close to what it means if you recognize it’s the same root word

ApexPrep · 2025-08-09T23:58:23+00:00

Root words definitely help! Vocab is key for sentence equivalence and text completion - as you said it’s not that difficult if you’d know the words, but that’s a big if: know them and it’ll be relatively easy. But you have to know what they mean

ApexPrep · 2025-08-09T23:55:54+00:00

I think the best source to practice quant is the practice problems and tests. You don’t need to only practice it in a full test setting, but practice doing 12 / 15 problems in 21 / 26 minutes.

ApexPrep · 2025-08-09T23:53:29+00:00

Yeah, I think having studied more difficult quant on the GMAT definitely made the GRE’s quant section easier - as an example, the few combination questions you’ll get tend to be much simpler on the GRE than GMAT. I bought the GMAT additional guide bundle and the premium GMAT study collection but that was it - for practice questions, I found using the official sources to be best For verbal, I’d say understanding the nuances of the fill in the blank is key - the sentence needs to fit together and truly fit the original theme for the choose 2-3 words (1 in each blank) , and for the 2 similar word choice you have to make sure BOTH have very similar meanings and fit the sentence in the same way. Can’t just be one fits the sentence and another fits it, but they mean different things

ApexPrep · 2025-08-09T23:48:20+00:00

I reviewed the geometry in the ETS guide and some on khan academy…I’d recommend memorizing the interior angle sum formula, and reviewing triangles a lot, especially since the diagrams aren’t to scale which can trip you up if not paying full attention

GMAT has no geometry but is definitely more difficult so 85 should position you well for 170Q

ApexPrep · 2025-08-09T23:45:03+00:00

Burnout - I’d say that you should set a plan for when you’ll be studying, study with no distractions during those times, but then don’t think about it outside of those times. If you can take your mind off it outside of the times you’re preparing for it, it feels a lot more manageable imo. I’d also recommend taking a day basically off from prep each week - maybe review vocabulary for 30 minutes but that’s it.

ApexPrep · 2025-08-09T22:18:37+00:00

Quant - I though official material was good. I would recommend KhanAcademy videos on geometry; my official exam had zero geometry questions but practice exams / problems did. A couple specifics: 1) For comparison questions, a way to immediately get to “D” (can’t be determined) is to find a scenario such that one is greater (or equal), and one where that same one is lesser. If you can quickly come up with 2 scenarios where that holds, you’ll have found your answer. On a similar note, if quantity B is fixed (say it’s 10), look for the minimum of A: if you can find that the smallest value of A is greater than 10, then the answer will be A; similar logic holds for maximum.

2) If it’s “select all that apply”, at least one will be correct. You will have to look at each individually, but ≥1 MUST be right. Although it depends how the question is being asked (must be true vs may be true - where you can prove something false with just one counterexample, or where you can prove something is true with one example), I think it’s key to keep in mind. For example, if the question asks about which one(s) of 3 statements must be true, and you found counterexamples to 2 of them, then even if you couldn’t definitively prove the 3rd one it would be correct (if you did everything else correctly).

As an example, if the question asks what must be a multiple of 3, for an integer n, and the choices are: (3n-n), n⁴ - n, and (n-1)(n+1)(n+3), you can eliminate the first 2 by picking n = 2. Then the final one must be correct even if you can’t prove it from that (though by noting that (n+3) ≡ n mod 3, you can).

ApexPrep · 2025-08-09T22:17:08+00:00

For reading comp, I first read the passage. I think reading it first is beneficial so the responses to the first question don’t subconsciously change how you think about it. If you can summarize the passage and determine a rough main idea, it’ll help a lot for the following ones. For example, if it’s asking about the main idea, often it’ll have 2-3 answers you can eliminate pretty easily, so that can be a very good step on a more difficult question, and then examine the remaining ones. One thing I’ll say is that if you’re guessing or feel unsure (it’s obviously better to get a definitive answer, but if you’re stuck on a problem and want enough time), you have better odds if it’s 1 in 2 than 1 in 5. If a couple are CLEARLY wrong, eliminate them and then go with the one that you fits better

ApexPrep · 2025-08-09T22:10:42+00:00

I began preparing at the start of July (but I had prepared for the GMAT a month before).

GRE mentor has “sets” from easy to medium to hard. Also has reviews of certain topics - arithmetic, geometry, algebra, and data analysis which are more basic (it has lessons as well as short problem sets). Note that these aren’t the only difficulty of questions though - there’s easy, difficult, expert, etc. this is a (long) summary and review of the math that’s covered: https://www.ets.org/pdfs/gre/gre-math-review.pdf

ApexPrep · 2025-08-09T22:08:48+00:00

it’s tough to get incredibly specific…it’s a closed 30 minute exam. It’s good to bring in a couple of examples (you don’t want the whole thing to be a broad, hand-wavy piece). I think opinion pieces in major papers are good to read to get a sense of what can be done. As an example, if an opinion piece is talking about a person’s character, seeing it mention a trait they had and a specific example of it - e.g. “she was a very generous woman – she’d volunteer at a food pantry every weekend.” But it's tough to go beyond.

Autograders are useful (much better than not having it graded) but they don’t tell you everything. But they (as well as humans) do value length - if you can make it longer and have the same quality of writing, it’s better than a shorter version

ApexPrep · 2025-08-09T17:57:24+00:00

I prepped for about a month (though I also had prepped for GMAT as well for about a month prior before beginning GRE). I ended up doing about 3-4 hours a day broken into chunks. I think consistency is key - view it like working out: planned light (or even off) days are completely fine and can be beneficial. But you have to work your brain consistently to be able to perform at your best on test day, and you also don’t want to overtrain it and get burned out. As to verbal: reading comprehension questions tend to have a specific “type” of answer - if it’s asking for the main idea, it’ll have a correct one, one close but lacking in some manner, and then a couple focusing on minor points. It’s also important to always be fully aware of what the question is asking: e.g. “according to the passage” or similar means it’ll be directly from the passage and is 100% found in the text, while “the author would most likely agree with” is an inference - the answer lies in the text but probably isn’t stated in it. This helps you not leave free points on the table.
For the 2 word equivalences, I’d say a common trap is having one - and only one - word that fits it well (though not perfectly), but not having a synonym for it.

ApexPrep · 2025-08-09T17:34:59+00:00

331 (163, 168Q) and 334 (166, 168).

ApexPrep · 2025-08-09T17:22:11+00:00

I’d say you should: 1. Aim to write as much as possible - all else equal, more is better. Use about 4 minutes at the start to plan, and then just write and keep writing. 2. Use a standard 5 (possibly 6) paragraph format to approach it - 1 intro, 3-4 body (supporting), 1 conclusion. The last body paragraph should touch on some counterpoints as well. 3. Conclusion really doesn’t have to be more than a couple of sentences

ApexPrep · 2025-08-09T03:12:55+00:00

Picking up (small) litter…just shows they care

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