Improve your GRE score without learning anything new? Well, you probably think there’s a catch somewhere.
Obviously, proficiency in the concepts tested coupled with some strategies is essential to improve GRE scores. But, following these test-taking perspectives will ensure that you get the maximum possible score for the amount of preparation you’ve had.
1.Don’t worry too much about the AWAs
The AWAs are the first tasks you will have to respond to. These are about an hour long and if you aren’t careful, you might end up getting very absorbed by these tasks.
Why is this a problem?
Because, you ability to stay focused is a quickly exhaustible resource. If you spend all your mental-ability to focus into the AWAs you may not be able to do as well on the Quant and Verbal sections. Remember: it’s enough to get a 4 on the AWAs but you need as high a score as possible on the Quant and Verbal sections.
How do you keep from stressing out?
Create Templates! AWA responses need to be predictable and to draft a good AWA response is quite easy (if you know what to do). Checkout our blog on the AWAs to know more/
2. Fight the easy battles first: use Skip, Mark and Review
A. The GRE lets you do a particular section in any order that you want : you can start by answering the last question first or in any which order you please.
B. Within a section each question carries the same amount of score (irrespective of how their difficulty levels may vary).
C. Your score depends on the number of questions you get right.
Therefore what you should do is Skip the difficult questions and get all the easier ones correct as soon as possible. Then attempt the difficult ones Mark any question that you’re stuck in – come back to it later by using the Review button. This ensure that you get the maximum possible score within a section!
3. Guess : Leave no question unanswered
An extension of the previous point; there is no negative marking on the GRE.
Therefore, when you’ve completed a section – go back to the questions you still haven’t managed to answer and make an intelligent guess or pick an answer in random (if you haven’t the slightest clue). If you got it wrong – you don’t lose anything; if you were lucky: BRILLIANT!
4. Don’t spend too much time Reading the Passages
While solving Reading Comprehension questions don’t spend too much time with the passages. Remember the passages are there to help you answer the questions. No brownie points are given for reading a passage intensely.
Read only what you need to: this is essentially the stuff the questions test you on.
5. Use the scratch paper intelligently
The Scratch paper will be provided by the test administrators at the test centre.
Many students only use this for the Quantitative Reasoning section of the test. What you need to be doing though – is utilising the Scratch paper for everything!Use it to put down your reasoning for all questions.
Write down the Gist of a passage, the word that could fill a blank for Sentence Equivalence and the probable inferences you could make for a Critical Reasoning question.
Also, let your scratch paper reflect your reasoning for the answer choices as well. Once you see the first option put down on the scratch paper what you decided about it: is it a keeper, is it definitely wrong or are you unsure? Keeping a track of this helps reduce silly errors substantially. It also helps avoid traps!
Follow these simple steps and you’ll see your score improve drastically (without even learning one new word or formula!).
So, what do you think of these techniques? Leave us a comment and let us know!
Looking for expert guidance on your GRE prep? Reach out to us at enquiry@crackverbal.com.