About ten years ago, my girlfriend (now wife) and I were on vacation on the island of Maui in Hawaii. We were there for a whole week, so on one night, we got off the beaten track and went to a neighborhood street festival somewhere - the kind mostly attended by locals. There were booths selling food, families milling about, and a beer garden. Strings of lights stretched overhead, and a DJ somewhere was spinning tunes. And then we heard it:

"Cheeseburger in paradise
Heaven on earth with an onion slice
Not too particular, not too precise
I'm just a cheeseburger in paradise"

Catchy? Definitely. Cheesy? Literally. It was a goofy song from the 70s or 80s, a song we'd both heard before more than once - the type you recognize immediately. But for some reason, neither one of us could remember who sung it. Names were bandied about, but we soon grew silent. The trail had run cold.

"Wait!" I eventually said. "Don't look it up. It's going to be so much better when we remember it."

The night went on. Beers were drunk. And about an hour later - I forget which one of us said it - but suddenly, the answer came:

"Jimmy Buffett! JImmy Buffett!" We literally jumped up and down, elated. As you can tell, the memory is still with me today. 

Why does it feel so good to figure something out for yourself? It probably has something to do with admiring your ability to do so - admiring your cleverness, or hard work, or memory. In a world full of opportunities for instant gratification, it can feel refreshing to challenge yourself. And in the absence of challenge, a skill tends to atrophy. Worse, I think it's true that people who habitually don't challenge themselves lose some of the drive actually needed to achieve hard things.

Since you're preparing for the GRE, it might be worth thinking about how challenging yourself can help you prepare for the test. Let's say you're taking an untimed quiz, or staring at a tricky question. There are a million ways you can get help, from Reddit to ChatGPT to your roommate. But figuring the question out for yourself will build your GRE muscles more than if you get a hint. Plus, it will give your confidence a little boost.

I sometimes think about people who naturally do well at quant - especially former math majors - and the characteristics they probably have. Yes, they probably know quant concepts really well. But they also probably built a lot of experience over many years doing the hard work of figuring out tricky math questions by themselves. And they probably actually learned to like doing this! This created a virtuous cycle for many of them, leading them to continue to tackle trickier and more interesting topics (hence their choice of major).

We can apply this to verbal, too - it definitely feels better to figure out a verbal question by yourself the first time as opposed to getting it wrong and having to fix your mistake. People naturally good at verbal - avid readers, for example - tend to have pride in their answers and actually get mad at the test when an answer they really thought was right turns out to be wrong. To me, as a tutor, this is a great sign that they have enough confidence in their verbal ability to react this way! They're less likely to give up and guess and more likely to give answer choices the scrutiny needed to be accurate.

So how can you hack into the mentality of these types of people to enhance your GRE prep?

1. Have pride. If you're working untimed, hold yourself to a high standard of accuracy, and the higher your score goal, the higher that standard should be. Get things right the first time. Tinker with questions. Experiment. Sit with them for a while, or come back to them as needed, but do not give up and guess. Do not passively look at a solution until you've given it your best shot.

2. Attack weaknesses. If you're struggling with a concept or question type, get curious, and get pissed off! Find all the examples you can. Do extra-curricular research. Bounce your take on the question off a friend or study buddy. Get to the point where you actually own that question. Again, the higher your score goal, the more aggressive you will be with this.

3. But... be reasonable. Don't waste undue time if you're truly spinning your wheels on something, or come back to it on a different day. There is such a thing as spending too much time on one thing or on one question - calibrate this to your timeframe so you don't over-index on something at the expense of the big picture.

The Bottom Line

There are a lot of people who look for help too quickly when they're struggling and who give up too easily and look at the solution if they're stuck. But to increase your GRE skill, your perseverance, and your toughness, see if you can get unstuck yourself. The more you do this, the more natural it will become. 

And here's the titular song.