The GRE
The Graduate Record Examination is a standardized and the most popular admission test for graduation schools worldwide. It is your pathway to Ivy League colleges like Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, and other reputed institutions. When it comes to the GRE prep, 60 days or 2 months is a good enough period to study and get the best possible score. However, the period is also crucial, so any amount of procrastination will lead to losing your chance at a high GRE score, and even to your dream college.
After reading this introduction, you might be anxious thinking about how to prepare for the GRE exam especially since you have just 2 months and no study plan as of now. We understand your situation. And this is why this article will give you a day-wise schedule on how to prepare for the GRE exam in 60 days along with important resources and strategies to ace the GRE exam. We are considering you will be starting from scratch and you have access to good GRE mocks, sectional tests, and GRE exam syllabus topic videos.
If you do not, you can check out the GREKing course page here for accessing all the materials and GRE mocks.
The schedule is divided into two parts. The first part will focus on mastering strategic approaches to each type of question of the GRE and getting the answers to the questions right. The second part will focus on answering questions quickly and challenging yourself with tough questions.
Books for the GRE Exam Preparation
Here we are mentioning the books and materials you would need for your overall GRE preparation. If you feel you'll need special attention to any particular section, we will be mentioning books specific to each section below.
Also Read: Books for GRE exam- Know Your Best Fit
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ETS Official Guide (OG) – for GRE
It is the official book written and compiled by actual paper setters of the GRE. The book will give a very clear idea about the paper pattern, type of questions, and formats.
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Barrons New GRE (19th Edition)
The Diagnostic Test of the Barrons Guide will help you to gauge your preparation. Besides, the content for both the Verbal and Quant sections is comprehensive. However, the difficulty level of questions in this book is not on par with the actual GRE exam. So it is recommended to use this book as a supplement.
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GREKing Free GRE Ebooks
The content of these e-books is designed keeping in mind the actual GRE exam paper. The questions are of different difficulty levels to help you from the amateur stage up to the pro level.
Some of the Ebooks are:
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- GREKing 50 Most Repeated Words
- GREKing 50 Must Solve Text Completion Questions
- GREKing 50 Must Solve Sentence Equivalence Questions
- GREKing 100 Must Solve Quantitative Comparison Questions You can get the ebooks.
We are adding more Ebooks every day so that you can have access to more resources. So be sure to check back and refresh the website regularly.
Analyzing GRE Mocks
Once you are done with solving enough practice problems, it's time to start attempting the GRE mocks. It is recommended to give at least 5 GRE Mocks before attempting the GRE exam. However, just giving GRE mocks is not sufficient at all. An even more important exercise is to analyze the mock results. Here's how you can do that.
- In an Excel sheet mark three columns- Unaware of the concept, Unable to understand the concept, Time Management Issue. Now put every question you got wrong in the GRE mocks or any question you did not attempt, under one of these column heads. This way you will get to see your performance in a structured, quantifiable format.
- Color code the three columns and track the sheet. The goal is to have less and less of the first two columns as you start learning and practicing. Now go through the solutions of the GRE mocks and consult with your mentors to shorten the time taken for solving each question.
How to Prepare for the GRE Exam- Daywise Schedule
Before starting with the study plan, let us go over some important pointers:
- Reading Comprehension forms 50% of GRE Verbal Reasoning
- Arithmetic and Geometry comprises almost 50% of Quantitative Reasoning
- Read one article every day from either the New York Times, Economist, Wall Street Journal, or Forbes
- Use an excel sheet for analyzing the GRE Mocks results
Let’s get started with your next 60 days schedule:
Month 1:
- Week 1
| Day 1 | Read through the official ETS Guide & understand the complete GRE exam pattern, question types, sectional duration, exam syllabus, etc. Complete one session of Norman Lewis's Word Power Made Easy. Then, read one article from the mentioned sources. Note down the meaning of the words you are unaware of. |
| Day 2 | Go through past year's GRE exam papers and repeat the exercises for Vocabulary and article reading. |
| Day 3 | Give one Diagnostic GRE mock. If you have enrolled for the GREKing course, you can give GRE Mock 1. Then, continue the Vocab and article reading exercise. |
| Day 4 | Analyze the mock scores. Vocabulary and Article Reading exercise will continue every day. |
| Day 5 | From today, you will start with your subject preparation. You might be confused about how to prepare for the GRE exam sections. So, choose one section at a time. For example, focus on Verbal Reasoning for today and choose any one topic. Now go through the foundational videos on your course dashboard and the GREKing Youtube page. After this solve some practice questions from the topic-specific GREKing free ebooks. |
| Day 6 | Repeat the same exercise but with Quantitative Reasoning today. Don't go about choosing broad topics like Arithmetic. Instead, Break down to smaller topics. Maybe focus on Ratio and Percentages today, Time and Work and Average the next day, and so on. |
| Day 7 | Write one AWA Essay today. The topic can be chosen from the GREKing AWA Practice Ebook. Then, give 1 topic tests of each GRE Verbal and Quant. |
Tips:
Remember, practicing sessions from Norman Lewis and reading an article from Forbes/ NY Times/ Economist is a daily exercise and needs to be done without fail. Note: Quantitative Reasoning also has Data Analysis questions. If you are not sure how to prepare for this section of the GRE exam, go through the tutorials and practice from the GREKing Ebook- "GREKing 50 Must Solve Data Analysis Questions".
- Week 2-3
We will not be repeating the point for Vocab Practice and Reading article every day, as it is to be continued. From week 2, increase the number of daily sessions from Norman Lewis. Try to finish 2-3 sessions each day.
| Day 1 | Go through the Verbal Topic Tutorial videos. Then start practicing exercise from GREKing Ebook. |
| Day 2 | Refer to the Quant Topic Tutorial videos. After that practice questions from the relevant Ebook |
| Day 3 | Repeat the same exercise with Verbal Reasoning |
| Day 4 | Repeat the same exercise with Quantitative Reasoning |
| Day 5 | Refer to the Verbal topic videos and instead of practicing from the Ebooks, focus on attempting GRE Verbal Reasoning sectional mocks from the dashboard |
| Day 6 | Attempt a similar approach with Quantitative Reasoning |
| Day 7 | Give one full-length GRE mock. Then analyze the result in the excel sheet format |
- Week 4
From this week, start writing one AWA topic every 2-3 days. Also by this time, you should be able to finish the Norman-Lewis book or be close to finishing it if you followed the pace suggested. If you are not, focus on finishing that first before referring to any other material. Instead of continuing with the activity of giving more sectional tests, this week the focus will be on completing the GREKing Ebooks for Verbal and Quant.
| Day 1 | First, do Verbal Practice from GREKing Ebook, then write one AWA topic. After this attempt one sectional verbal test if done with the topic videos |
| Day 2 | Watch Quant Topic videos and Practice from GREKing Ebook. Then attempt one Sectional test if done with topic videos |
| Day 3-6 | Alternative days of Verbal and Quant practice from the GREKing Ebooks. If you are done with these Ebooks, you can refer to the other materials mentioned above. In these 4 days, write two AWA essays. |
| Day 7 | One full-length GRE mock and analyzing results in excel sheet format |
Month 2:
By this time, you should have scheduled the GRE exam and also done with your GRE King ebooks. We will focus on giving more GRE mocks and Sectional tests throughout this month. Continue Reading articles from the sources as you were doing. However, instead of learning vocabulary every day, shift it to alternate days. Increase the count of the words you are learning per day based on your comfort level. Once you are done with Norman Lewis, move to the vocabulary ebooks by GREKing and check out the YouTube videos for a daily dose of new GRE vocabs.
- Week 1-3
| Day 1 | One full- length GRE mock, analysis of the results, AWA essay writing |
| Day 2 | Timed Sectional tests of Verbal and Quant, Vocabulary Practice |
| Day 3-6 | Repeat the sequence for Day 1 and Day 2. |
| Day 7 | Go through the ETS Official Guide and practice few Verbal, Quant questions. Read articles and learn Vocab as per plan. |
- Week 4
The final week before the GRE examination and the most crucial one. This week you will not be learning any new vocabulary words. However, continue reading the articles. The main focus will be on revising concepts and giving a few GRE mocks.
| Day 1 | One full- length GRE mock, analysis of the results, AWA essay writing |
| Day 2 | Repeat Day 1 exercise |
| Day 3-6 | Revise the GRE Vocab learned over the past 2 months. Read articles. Go over the GRE mocks analysis |
| Day 7 | Relax. Revise the formulas. Gather all necessary documents, eat well, sleep early. |
Hope this day-wise study plan helps in your GRE preparation. Feel free to contact us for any customized GRE preparation strategy and clearing of doubts! All the best! Carpe Diem!
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