How to score 320+ in GRE in 30 days? (the complete guide)
By: Jayesh Lalwani
Tags: Study Abroad, Education, Higher Education, Guides And Tutorials, Students

More than half a million people take the GRE exam every year. Did you know that the worldwide GRE average score last year was 304 (Q 153, V 151)? It means that anything above that is a good score and you can consider yourself better than the average. But there is more to what defines ‘a good score’ on the GRE. It depends on factors like the intended graduate major, target universities, preparation time, etc. However, one should always aim higher. For many reasons, 320 is often considered as the benchmark score when it comes to acing the GRE. This article will brief you about the exam structure, various resources you need for preparation and the most important — how to create a study plan for the exam.

If you are an engineer, you know that resource gathering and requirement analysis are the first steps when it comes to building something. Good planning is half the battle won. Before I started studying, I spent an entire week getting to know about the exam, resources available for preparation, reading material used by people who scored in the range 320–340, traps students fall into, different approaches taken by people according to the time they have for studying and much more. After a lot of reading and analysis, I devised a plan for myself and worked diligently for the next 30 days.

About the exam

The exam consists of 6 sections. The first section is the Analytical Writing section. From the second section onwards, you will have alternating Quant and Verbal sections up until the last section. So, you will have [2 Quant + 3 Verbal] OR [3 Quant + 2 Verbal]. In either case, the extra section is unscored but you won’t know which one it is (unless they mention one of them being a research section). Another important thing to note here is that the test is section adaptive, i.e. the difficulty of the second section depends upon how you perform in the first second in the same category. The raw scores in each section will be scaled as per the difficulty level.

Timing is the most crucial part of the GRE. You get 30 minutes for each of the two writing tasks. For Quant, you have 35 minutes for 20 questions. For Verbal, you have 30 minutes for 20 questions. There will be a 10-minute break after the third section.

For detailed information about the exam structure and the question types in each section, you can check out The Economist’s GRE Advice guide. You can also refer to the GRE Official guide or any of the Manhattan strategy guides (first chapter). The more you are familiar with the exam pattern, the more confident you get about scoring well.

Preparation

GRE is one of those exams I had fun preparing for. I am a working professional and “studies” after a two-year gap was indeed a tough task. Unlike other guides on the internet, this one focuses on ‘what to do’ and ‘how to do’ instead of feeding you with a day-wise schedule. Only a few may be able to follow a time-table but a majority of us will have irregular study periods. So, this guide will only tell you about the elements of preparation and how to make the most of them. How to time your daily studies and how long to prepare for the exam depends upon you. Nevertheless, I will tell you about my study plan to give you an overall idea.

Please note that any resources and study materials described in this guide are easily available and if you use the appropriate search keywords, you will find everything on the first page of Google results. However, whenever I mention any useful website or article for recommended reading, I will include the hyperlinks along with them so you may easily follow up.

Let’s begin.

Just like the initial body measurements in a weight-loss program, the first step you have in GRE preparation is the diagnostic test. Knowing where you stand right now will give you an idea about how you to proceed with the preparation. There are many free practice tests available out there. Choose any one from Manhattan, Kaplan, Princeton, etc. and take the test. Remember to simulate the testing environment conditions to get the best idea about your performance.

Taking a diagnostic test helps in many ways. Firstly, you get a glimpse of what you are preparing for. You will know what your strengths and weaknesses are. You also come to know that time is going to be a killer. And lastly, the diagnostic score gives you a rough estimate of how much you have got to improve for your target score.

I scored a 303 (Q 155, V 148) on my diagnostic test. It was very difficult for me to sit through the test. I took an additional break apart from the predefined one. I realized I needed to work a lot on my vocabulary. And I noticed that in Quant sections, I was facing most difficulties with comparison-based questions.

Once you have taken the diagnostic, it becomes clearer what the end goal is and what things you need to work on to achieve that. We will now talk about the individual sections of the exam and how you can prepare for each one of them.

Quantitative Reasoning

The average GRE score statistics presented at the beginning of the article indicate that people score better in Quant than they do in Verbal. Doesn’t apply to everybody but yes, it’s true and you will find examples all around you. Doesn’t mean that you can give any less importance to Quant than Verbal. Your Quant score matters a lot for admission into a top university.

Many colleges require a minimum Quant score of 160 or 165. The average is lesser than that, isn’t it? I suggest you aim for a perfect 170. The higher you score in Quant, the better your total score is. If you score a 165+ in Quant, you can get away for less in Verbal and still make the total reach 320. However, there’s one small problem. Even though you might be a Math wizard and reaching 160 would be child’s play for you, taking your score from 160 to 165+ will require a lot more work than you did to reach 160. This difference is what you have to work on.

The Quantitative Reasoning section mainly covers four topics — Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry and Data Analysis. These may be split into further subtopics depending upon the reference material you use. The reference material I recommend is Manhattan Prep GRE Strategy guides, Manhattan 5 lb. book of Practice problems and the Official Guide to the GRE from ETS.

If you study well, I assure that you will be able to answer each and every question asked in the Quant section. You can refer to these books in any order you like. For example, you can start with 5 lb. practice problems and only refer to strategy guides for the topics you feel the need to. Another way is to start with the guides and later move on to practice problems once you have a clear understanding of the basics and strategies to follow for different question types. What approach to take depends on the amount of time you have before the exam and your current skills. I had around 30–35 days for my preparation, so I decided to use the first week for the strategy guides and then started with the practice problems.

You need to take care of a few things while practicing. The most important one is to keep track of time spent on each question. It will prove really helpful to you later. For instance, you will know what type of questions take you longer to solve and you can work harder on. During my prep, I didn’t pay attention to this and I realized later when I ran short of time for the last 2–3 questions in mock tests. Another golden piece of advice is when verifying answers, you should check solutions for all questions regardless of your answer being right or wrong. Sometimes, you will find that the book’s solution is less complicated and takes lesser time than the approach you followed.

The Official Guide by ETS is considered as the Bible when it comes to GRE prep. In terms of questions and practice tests, it comes closest to the actual exam. The content is very concise and to the point. You should digest it line by line, understanding the meaning of each sentence. It wouldn’t take much time and give high returns. Do not skip the Math Review section, it contains every bit of information that you will be tested for during the exam.

Additional resources

1) Khan Academy — to brush up the basics of any topic

2) Magoosh Mental Math videos/app — calculation tips & tricks

3) Magoosh Math Formula eBook — something for your last day revision

Verbal Reasoning

Let’s talk about the section that worries most students. I wasn’t one of those students until I took the diagnostic test. The verbal section seemed all gibberish to me and after the first 3–4 questions, all I could think about was when it would end. That is definitely not the state of mind one would want to be in during the actual exam. But the question was ‘HOW?’ which put me into research mode and I persistently searched for strategies, tips, resources — anything and everything that would help me improve my skills. This guide covers some of my findings alongside the Dos & Don’ts in your preparation for the Verbal section.

The Verbal Reasoning section consists of three types of questions — Text Completion (TC), Sentence Equivalence (SE) and Reading Comprehension (RC). While TC & SE assess your understanding of words and sentences, RC focuses on how you comprehend information in general and your critical reasoning skills.

The skills you need for the Verbal section of the GRE cannot be gained overnight or within a week. If you are thinking that you will spend the first 15 days of your study time doing Quant and then start with Verbal, that is wrong on so many levels. You have to work simultaneously, that means both Quant and Verbal should be included in your daily studies. For example, if you decide to read Manhattan strategy guides, one each day for the first week, supplement it with something from Verbal like vocab words or RC practice.

One of the major elements of your Verbal preparation is working on your vocabulary. It’s okay right now if you don’t know words like ‘acme’ or ‘panacea’. I also didn’t know their meanings when I started my preparation but these are two of the many words I saw on the GRE. And you too will do just fine with some preparation. You must start working on your vocab right from Day 1 because you need maximum time possible to make yourself “acquainted” with these new words.

The question arises — how to know which words you have to prepare for the GRE? Thankfully, various entities that provide GRE prep have already done this work and published their so-called ‘wordlists’ online. Brings up another question — there are so many wordlists, which one to study? The truth is, it doesn’t matter because each one is made after extensive research based on previous GRE exams. However, choose one from a reliable source. Barron’s, Manhattan and Magoosh are some of the most popular ones. In my opinion, Magoosh vocab wordlist is a really good one because it categorizes words into sets of Common, Basic & Advanced. They also have an app which uses the flashcard approach to help remember the words easily.

If you have more than 25 days for preparation, I suggest reading ‘Word Power Made Easy’. You might have already heard of it from some friend who’s preparing for CAT or a similar exam. True to its reputation, this book is the best resource out there for building vocabulary. It uses etymology as an approach to make readers learn new words and I found it very efficient. Plus, the approach sticks to you and helps you guess the meaning of a new word you come across by recognizing the roots. At the end of this article, I have described in detail the techniques I used to learn new words, which you might find very helpful.

Strengthening your vocabulary is half the job done. Once you know enough words, start practicing TC and SE questions from Manhattan 5 lb. or Magoosh. Initially, you may face difficulties understanding the context and getting the answers right but that’s completely normal and part of the process. As you practice, you will learn new strategies like finding hints in other parts of the text or eliminating wrong answers. You can check out Magoosh videos on YouTube for TC/SE strategies.

Coming to the Reading Comprehension part of this section, there’s only one way to master it — PRACTICE! There’s no shortcut here. This is not the kind of RC you saw in high school. The passage is boring and sometimes, really very long. The answer choices are tricky and there are traps even the most brilliant students fall for. As with TC/SE, you will have to learn strategies to tackle these questions and that only comes with practice. But first, it’s important to know the kind of questions asked and the ways to deal with each of them. For this purpose, I recommend Manhattan Prep Strategy guides and Crunchprep Reading Comprehension guide. Both of them describe the strategies along with examples. Make sure you solve the practice questions at the end of each chapter in the Manhattan guide. Practice RC questions from the 5 lb. book each day until the last week of the exam to make yourself accustomed to reading long uninteresting passages. And again, timing’s a killer on the GRE so make sure you do timed practice every once in a while.

Analytical Writing

This is the easiest section and still the most neglected section on the GRE exam. A majority of the students ignore preparing for this section until the final days before the exam and ultimately, are able to secure only a 3 or 3.5 out of 6. Many top universities have a minimum requirement for Analytical Writing score and are very strict about it in shortlisting applicants. And come to think of it, what does it say about your overall score? A combined score of 327 on Quant and Verbal but a mere 3 in writing? That too when getting a higher score isn’t tough after all. Devoting an hour or two each day during the last week is enough to improve your writing skills.

The Analytical Writing section consists of two essay questions, ‘Analyze an issue’ and ‘Analyze an argument’, each of 30 minutes. The first one gives a statement for you to analyze and present your views on. The statement will always be open-ended and controversial. You can pick whichever side you want but make sure you are able to think a lot of content to write about it. For example, People’s behavior is largely determined by forces, not of their own making.

The second essay will describe an argument made by someone based on a few incidents. For example, the advertising director of a movie company suggests that they allocate a greater share of the budget to advertising because positive movie reviews have increased but fewer people have reportedly attended movies in last year. You are required to evaluate the argument and the evidence on which the argument is based. In my opinion, this is simpler of the two tasks because if you really focus on finding faults and read the given argument 2–3 times, you will surely find some points to write about.

One key resource that will help you excel in the writing section is the Crunchprep Analytical Writing guide. It describes what the essay graders look for in an essay and also talks about some common mistakes to avoid. The Analytical Writing chapter from the Official GRE guide is another great resource. It gives an extensive look at how the essays are scored by giving you sample essays and corresponding scores obtained.

A fun fact here — the questions you will see in this section are from a list which is already present on the ETS website. Yes, you read that right! But there’s a catch; there are around 150 questions for each of the two types — Issue topics and Argument topics. So, it is illogical to go through each one of them. Why I mentioned this fact is to tell you about the best source available for practice. Once you are done with reading the guides, go to this website, pick random questions of each of the two types and practice with a timer.

Mock Tests

This is the last and the most important part of your preparation. GRE is a test of endurance. It is very important to maintain your composure during the 4 hours of your examination. Taking mock tests helps you achieve this. Additionally, you can check how much you have improved since the diagnostic. You also get an idea about the areas that still need improvement.

During the final week before the exam, take at least one mock test each day. Make the conditions of your mock test like the actual exam — sit in complete isolation, no disturbances and no breaks other than the defined one. Make sure you take the two free practice tests from ETS. You also get free tests from other websites like Manhattan, Kaplan, etc. There’s an article from Crunchprep that provides links to various free tests available. Another option is to buy a set of practice tests like one from Manhattan Prep.

One of the things you will learn while taking mock tests is managing the time you use for different question types. In Quant, you have 35 minutes for 20 questions, i.e. 105 seconds for each question. But keep in mind that some questions like Data Interpretation ones are time-consuming. Similarly, in Verbal, you have 30 minutes for 20 questions or 90 seconds for 1 question but for RC questions, you will need time to read the passage. When you are taking mock tests, you can experiment and develop a strategy you find most suitable for the actual exam. For example, I aimed to complete TC and SE questions in the first 10 minutes to keep around 20 minutes for RC questions.

30-day study plan

This is the plan I made for myself after a lot of research which included talking to people who took the GRE, reading strategy guides and articles on various websites like Magoosh and CrunchPrep, Quora answers about GRE preparation, etc. As one month is a short time for such a high-stakes exam, I tried my best not to procrastinate and devoted a good amount of time to studies.

Day 1

Take the diagnostic test (Manhattan, Kaplan or any reliable one) and analyze your performance on both the sections. It will also help you understand the format of the exam. Make sure you take a timed test only so that you get to know how time-based restrictions affect your thinking. While analyzing results, take note of the topics and types of questions you were not able to answer or took long to answer.

Day 2–9

Quant

For the next 8 days, you have to work on strengthening your basic concepts and understanding of exam topics. Therefore, we start with Manhattan strategy guides; you can start with any of the 6 guides, the order doesn’t matter. The language is easy to understand and you can finish one book per day. You can skim through the topics you are sure you know well. However, we know starting something is never smooth and the first few days of preparation may not go as per the plan so we have a 2-day buffer here. By the end of the 9th day, you should be done with all the Math guides.

Verbal

Start by learning words from your preferred wordlist like Magoosh. Learn at least 70–80 new words every day. It sounds difficult but it is definitely possible and as mentioned earlier, later in this article, I will share with you the techniques I used for learning new words. Also, start reading ‘Word Power Made Easy’; it is just like a story and even if you read 2–3 chapters a day, you will finish it within 20–25 days (around the time you start taking mock tests, which is perfect). Although you can totally skip reading this, I highly recommend you find time for this book.

Alongside the wordlist, we also begin practicing RCs every day. Practice 3–4 reading passages on a daily basis from the Manhattan 5 lb. book or any other material you like. As you practice, you will learn more about the types of questions and how to answer them. If you prefer having prior knowledge about the question types and strategies, take the first two days to study the Reading Comprehension guide (book 7) from Manhattan GRE or the one from CrunchPrep.

Day 10–20

Quant

You can now start practicing problems from the Manhattan 5 lb. book. I can’t stress enough the importance of this book. The book contains around 25 chapters (Math). Complete 2–3 chapters each day. Some chapters hardly contain 20 problems while some have as much as 60. On average, a chapter contains 40 questions and you should be done with this book within 9–10 days. You can use the remaining time for the Official Guide by ETS, which will take 2 days at the maximum.

Verbal

By the 10th day, you should have practiced around 35–40 reading passages. You are now getting habitual to reading long and boring passages. You are aware of the strategies and have learned how to implement them. Moreover, you might have observed a pattern in the wrong answer choices. Now is a good time to add a timer to your practice.

Talking about vocabulary, by the 10th day you might have learned around 700 words. Make sure you keep revising words from completed sets. You should be done with the wordlist by the 14th day or 15th day. Thereafter, you can start practicing TC/SE questions (at least 30 every day) from the 5 lb. book. Since you might already be practicing RCs at the time, it will be a rigorous practice of the complete Verbal section (TC/SE/RC).

Day 21–23

Before telling you what to do during these 3 days, let’s take a look at what you might have accomplished in the first 20 days.

Quant — Completed the Manhattan strategy guides, the Offical Guide and the 5 lb. book of practice problems.

Verbal — Learned 1000 vocabulary words, practiced TC/SE/RC questions from the 5 lb. book. (I know there are a lot of these questions in 5 lb., doing more than 50% is enough.)

This is how much you should have completed. What if you haven’t? It is alright because we have a contingency plan. We keep days 21–23 as a buffer period to catch up and complete what’s left. Can be anything — maybe you are lacking behind in quant or need to revise wordlist or some more RC practice. You have 3 more days for perfecting all that is mentioned until the 20th day.

On the contrary, if you are one of those extraordinary students and are done with everything mentioned in the first 20 days, pat yourself on the back. Utilize these 3 days the way you want. You can revise everything you have done so far. You may want to take a practice test to check your progress. You may go for more practice from some other books or websites.

If you had started reading ‘Word Power Made Easy’, it should be on the verge of completion by this time.

A personal suggestion is that out of these 3 days, you should take an entire day off. You deserve it. No reading passages or vocab words. No quant problems. Sleep till noon. Watch a movie. Go for an outing. Do whatever you want, you have earned it.

Day 24–29

The last week before the exam begins. You may feel more and more nervous with each passing day. It’s a good sign. You have studied well; you have put your heart and soul into the preparation for this exam and hence the nervousness. But you can’t let this nervousness affect how you perform during the exam. The only way to get over it is by taking mock tests.

Take one mock test each day for the next 6 days. 2 out of those 6 tests are the ones provided by ETS (Powerprep) and hold great significance. Again, make sure you simulate test-like conditions for each of the 6 mocks. It will be even better if you take the exam during the same hours as your GRE on the 31st day. After each mock, review your work and take note of mistakes which can be avoided.

This is also the perfect time to work on the writing section. During these 6 days, spend at least one hour each day preparing for it. Read the guide from Crunchprep or the Official Guide, check out samples/templates they have provided. Select any random issue/argument questions from the ETS pool and practice one of each type every day.

Day 30

Do not study anything the day before the test. You have been preparing for almost a month. There’s nothing that you can do on the last day which will add to your marks. So, resist the urge to check out that new wordlist at the last moment or solving the quant problem you come across on the internet. If you really want to do something then pick up any Math formula book for revision but do not go for any new information.

Make your own plan

The study plan you just read about is very different from the ones you will find elsewhere on the internet. One major difference is that instead of telling you what to do each day and from which resource, I have simply broken down the preparation time into days and mentioned the resources you can use.

To score 320+ in GRE, I strongly suggest you spend at least 30 days for preparation. Almost everyone who has scored 320 or higher has prepared in more or less the same manner. You can change the plan according to the time you can allocate for studies each day and the resources you would like to use for preparation.

Test day

Stay calm. Get a good sleep the night before the exam. Remember that you have been preparing for this day since last one month and there’s nothing that can stop you from getting a good score now.

There’s cold in some of the centers so make sure you are dressed in layers, in case something like that happens. Take a snack for you to eat during the break. Some people prefer to stay at their seats even during the breaks. This is not recommended. It’s better to get up and move around, it will clear your head.

Do not let your performance in one section have an impact on the other. For example, if your writing section didn’t go well, it’s useless to keep thinking about it. You won’t be able to perform well on the other sections if you don’t get your mind off it. Remember that the scores on each of the sections are independent. Moreover, the test is section-adaptive so let’s say, you were not able to do well on your first Verbal section, it means that the second Verbal section will be easier and you will be able to perform well in that. The scores will then be adjusted according to the difficulty level of the sections, so it’s not as bad as you think it is.

All the best for your preparation and the exam.