GRE Math prep

manwiththemachinegun

So on my trial run, I blew verbal and writing out of the water. But Math was about as low as it could be. It's super annoying because the GRE doesn't really test your ability to solve problems, it tests your ability to game the test. So, to that end, I'm looking for a study guide/book that covers the test material as well as the meta-strategy. I haven't found a good book yet that does both.

VishNub

I don't have general recs, and it's been a while, but my recollection is that like a third of the questions were basically 3,4,5 triangle related. So if you can recognize and solve those, that would help...

durandal4532

The GRE is indeed an extension of the SAT in that it's just a test of your taking-the-GRE skills.

The method that worked for me, though it is very annoying, was to just get like 4-5 prep books, divvy up the tests in them, and take all of them in an order that was basically: practice some sample questions, practice some sample questions, full timed practice test, grade myself, check the questions I got wrong, retake the entire test until I got every question right, move on to another set of practice questions, try another practice test.

Basically, try to maximize the number of times you do full timed math portions completely without assistance. It's always frustrating to do very very poorly on them, but it's the best way to give yourself the maximum number of opportunities to test that you're definitively learning to do things without need for any reference.

And yeah, triangles and geometry will save you a lot of time. Commit those rules to memory and a good portion of the test is alright. It tops out at like pre-calc, because they can't be sure anyone actually got through calc in college.

So yeah it is not a very fun thing to do like hour and a half practice tests literally every waking moment but it was a good way for me to restart some dormant like geometry 101 skills to game a stupid fucking test.

The specific books I used were just like "contains 10 real GRE tests!" and otherwise not really remarkable.

Creagan

If you can afford it, a tutor can really help with the math section. I'm a verbal learner, and the books didn't really help me even though they completely explained all the tricks required to solve the various types of problems.

I managed to get a tutor for just a few days, and I firmly believe that's why I passed the math section. (I went with the Princeton Review people.)

manwiththemachinegun

I started one of the GRE math review PDFs you can find online, and it's a decent review. Doing a bunch of sample problems will help too. I only need a 50th percentile score which is good.

mts

Unless it's changed, it doesn't go beyond trigonometry