I took the GRE yesterday. Two months of preparing for the GRE, two weeks of fretting and 3 hours later, I emerged unscathed. While I am not going into the GRE hall of fame, I shouldn’t have any trouble getting into my program with my scores. I do believe that there were quite a few things I could have done differently to improve my score and reduce stress!

If only I had known I would have…

1. Started studying seriously sooner. (How’s that for alliteration?) To avoid frustration and panic, I would have given myself three full months of studying everyday! I started casually studying about 3 months in advance, but didn’t get serious until a month before test day. Two extra months was the difference between getting a grad school fellowship and not getting a fellowship.

2. Read the sections before the practice questions. (You know…the ones with the explanations of how to answer the questions!) This would have likely reduced my frustration and fits of rage by 98%.

3. Taken more practice tests. Speed is of the essence when you’re taking the GRE. The more you practice, the faster you will perform. If I had taken a practice exam every week–like I intended to– the 5 questions I didn’t finish in that quantitative section would have been 5 minutes to relax!

5. Not taken a practice exam the night before. A practice GRE with less than satisfactory results, left me in tears the night before the exam. Need I say more?

6. Prepared meals for the week of the exam in advance. I spent a small fortune picking up food and I had to settle for a few disgusting frozen meals, because I didn’t feel I had time to cook and study. This may seem silly, but a great meal without the stress of cooking makes life so much more pleasant!

7. Focused on my weaknesses. I knew going into the test I had been struggling with applying what I know about math to the types of questions found on the GRE. I also knew that it took me far longer to finish the quantitative section than it did for me to finish the verbal. By the time I realized this, there was no time to address it. I went into the test knowing where I was weak–it was unsettling to say the least.

8. Balanced my study time better. Storing things in your long term memory requires a lot of repetition. When there is a lot of information to cover, as there is with the GRE, you have have to alternate! I made the mistake of focusing on verbal for a month and math for two weeks. By the time I got around to “reviewing” vocab before test day, I had to relearn half the words!

9. Never used the Barron’s math workbook. It appeared to me the book was designed to prepare you for the trickiest GRE questions, without preparing you for any of the normal questions. Needless to say, I soaked that book in my tears of frustration. I spent more time being upset than I spent studying when it came to that book.

10. Purchased the Kaplan GRE Math Workbook– I borrowed it from Barnes and Noble for a few hours the weekend before the exam. I can guarantee my score would have been 200 points higher if I had purchased and used the book 2 months before test day! The book has a reader-friendly layout

If you have any questions about my GRE-taking experience, post in the comments and I would be happy to address them. Happy testing!