Every day I get at least one such query: “Where can I practice official GRE questions?” – and my answer almost invariably is to use the three ETS GRE Official guides:
Guide 1: The Official Guide to the GRE General Test
Guide 2: The Official GRE Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions
Guide 3: The Official GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions
If you are short on time but are determined to score well on the GRE test, you must try taking complete advantage of the three official guides. However, do note that to gain the maximum benefit from these guides, you must first learn fundamental concepts from other sources such as the Manhattan GRE Guides and Magoosh GRE videos.
These three Official books are undoubtedly the most comprehensive GRE resource available in the market right now. They excel in nearly every way and cover precisely the kind of questions that show up on the real GRE. Among them, they have over 700 Practice Questions (Quant + Verbal + AWA) designed on the same pattern as the actual exam.
There’s an art to effectively using these three books to get the most significant improvement from your efforts. Here are some critical guidelines on how to approach these books.
In this Article
Start by Getting a High-Level Familiarity of the Exam
Your starting point should be to get familiar with the overall test format, concepts tested, and test-taking strategies. You can do all of that by doing the following Chapters in the given order.
- From Guide 1 (The Official Guide to the GRE General Test), do the following Chapters.
- Chapter 1: About the GRE revised General Test
- Chapter 3: GRE Verbal Reasoning
- Chapter 5: GRE Quantitative Reasoning
- Then move to Guide 2 (The Official GRE Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions) and go through the following Chapters.
- Chapter 1: Overview of the GRE Quantitative Reasoning Measure
- Chapter 2: Test Content
- Finally, from Guide 3 (The Official GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions) cover the following Chapters.
- Chapter 1: Overview of the GRE ® Verbal Reasoning Measure
- Chapter 2: Test Content
These chapters are mostly rudimentary, and they will introduce you to the following:
- Types of GRE Verbal & Quantitative questions
- A few sample questions with explanations
- High-level test-taking tips and strategies for each question type
Many times when we start preparing for any standardized tests, we tend to skip such sections because we think they are not that important. However, in this book, you will find many valuable points in these chapters. These chapters will give you more clarity on what the GRE is about and how the official test-makers want you to approach it. Therefore, please spend a few hours skimming through them.
Then Focus on the Math Review
From Guide 2, go through Appendix A (Math Review) and Appendix B (Mathematical Conventions). ETS has dedicated these two Chapters to give you an in-depth review of the Math Formulae, Topics, and Conventions that will appear on the GRE. Try to plunge into each mentioned concept of Math so that you know all the subtleties of the Math section. Even if you have used other sources to prepare the fundamental concepts, I would recommend that you skim through these two Chapters. This way, you can make sure that you didn’t miss anything while consulting third party resources.
*Skip Chapter 7 (Math Review) in Guide 1. It is the same as Appendix A in Guide 2.
Now you Can Start Solving Questions.
In Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6 of Guide 2 (The Official GRE Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions), you will find Math practice questions broken down by topic: Arithmetic (Chapter 3), Algebra (Chapter 4), Geometry (Chapter 5), and Data Analysis (Chapter 6). Do all of these and do an in-depth review of the explanations. I am sure you will learn a new thing or two while going through the official explanations. Therefore, don’t skip them.
Next, solve the Verbal Practice questions given in Chapter 3 (Reading Comprehension), Chapter 4 (Text Completions), and Chapter 5 (Sentence Equivalence) of Guide 3 (The Official GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions). In this guide, the Verbal questions are broken down by topic and difficulty level (Easy, Medium, Hard). Again, don’t skip the official explanations. If your Verbal is weak, you may want to solve the easy and medium questions first and skip the difficult ones. After you have thoroughly reviewed and analyzed your mistakes in the easy and medium questions, you can then do the harder ones. After that, move to Guide 1 and solve all the easy, medium, and hard Math and Verbal problems from Chapter 4 (GRE ® Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions) and Chapter 6 (GRE ® Quantitative Reasoning Practice Questions). Apply what you learned while answering questions of Guide 2 and 3.
Take a breather and revise all the questions that you have solved until now. Revisions are critical – you should review all the mistakes you have made so far. I would advise you to consider them a couple of times before moving forward.
Do the GRE Practice Tests/Sets (Time them)
In each of the three ETS official books, there are a few Practice tests and practice sets. They are arranged as follows:
- Two Full-length Tests in Guide 1
- Chapters 8: GRE Practice Test 1
- Chapters 8: GRE Practice Test 2
- Three Math Sets in Guide 2
- Chapter 7: Mixed Practice Sets
- Three Verbal Sets in Guide 3
- Chapter 6: Mixed Practice Sets
Make sure you time them. With these timed tests, you can learn how to handle the time pressure on the GRE. Handling the stress of the ticking clock is difficult for most GRE aspirants. Having a few extra minutes on a GRE section can change your score by a massive five points. Don’t fool yourself by doing untimed practice; the purpose of the GRE practice sets is to test your skills under timed conditions.
Also, make sure that you do each Practice exam in one sitting. While solving through an exam, don’t stop or start halfway. The GRE is a marathon exam and lasts four and a half hours. It is challenging to stay focused and avoid careless mistakes for such a long period. Just like training for a Triathalon, you have to make sure you have enough stamina for the exam—which is why it’s so important to take each GRE practice set in one sitting.
So, I would suggest that you split these sets into three days.
- On day 1, do the GRE Practice Test 1 in Chapter 8 of Guide 1
Take a day off
- On day 2, do the GRE Practice Test 2 in Chapter 9 of Guide 2
Take another day off
- On day 3, do the three quant and three verbal practice sets from Chapters 7 and 6 of guide 2 and 3, respectively.
Give Extra attention to Vocabulary
Another useful tip that I would like to add here is paying extra attention to the vocabulary in the verbal questions in Guide 1 and Guide 3. There are around 500 words used in the verbal questions in these guides and these words are ETS’s favorite. At least 70% of these words will appear on the exam.
Thus, pay extra attention to them and focus on how they are used in the sentences. After reading a sentence twice or thrice, you will get a clear idea of the exact meaning of the words mentioned in those. Word power does matter a lot, and it may be the only difference for you to get a 160+ on the verbal section.
GRE students ask me where to learn words for the verbal section. My advice is only to memorize the words given as part of the questions in the Guide 1 and Guide 3. This is the most reliable word list that you will see on the test day.
Keep Revising Again and Again
Once you are done with the three official guides, spend time revising and reviewing your mistakes. If you have time, also review every question that you got right. The actual exam will mostly contain the same types of questions and concepts. Therefore, you must understand the three guides to the core. By regularly revising, you will be able to identify and improve your weaknesses. As a result, you’ll end up being more cautious when you see similar questions on the exam. Once you have finished the guides, don’t just keep on doing problem after problem from other sources—value quality over quantity. Therefore, you should do a detailed review of the three official guides a couple of times.
Final words
The writers of the three GRE official guides have prepared the resources to try to cover the maximum in the most efficient manner. Try to practice as much as you can and follow the patterns mentioned above. For smart test takers out there, the official guides are the only books that they will need to do well on the GRE.