10 GRE Myths

In my opinion of course. Feel free to disagree.

Success on the GRE is the result of a “guru” or GRE legend.
1. I think some of you are too quick to idolize.
2. You’re at a 310 and then you work very hard and you get a 330.
3. Then you go to Reddit…and you’re like “The GRE journey has finished. Thanks myself!”
4. Idolatry is dangerous. In fact, you could argue that it’s in our nature to want to idolize a leader for some reason.
5. Be skeptical
6. Don’t hesitate to give yourself the bulk of the credit if you see a big improvement.
7. If you DON’T see a big improvement, don’t blame the teacher.
8. If you don’t see a big improvement, most of the time the advice being offered was not actually followed or implemented in a good way.
The number of “questions correct” is useful information.
1. Today, I did 10 reading questions and I got 5 correct. Today, I did 10 reading questions and I got 10 correct.
2. When you say this, you’re not really getting the “why”
3. Let’s imagine we have a native English speaker do 10 verbal questions. Is it possible, using their ear alone, they get 9 out of 10 correct?
  1. Yes, this is possible.
  2. If this is possible, why would I advise people to NOT use their ear?
  3. There’s no consistency to it.
4. “Hey, I did a reading passage and I got 4/7.”
5. “The next day I did another reading passage and I got 7/7.”
6. Is this improvement? Maybe not. How do I know it’s not just luck?
7. What IS useful information?
  1. How good is your foundation?
  2. How good are your strategies?
    1. Awareness.
      1. Making deductions
      2. Choosing numbers
      3. Backsolving
      4. Equal/not equal
    2. The implementation
8. Let’s imagine we have a person, a student, who does well on the foundation checks, does well on the strategy checks, and does well on untimed practice.
9. It happens by accident. The GRE score just kind of falls in your lap.
The GRE is an intelligence test.
1. Yes and no.
2. It’s definitely NOT an intelligence test in the beginning.
3. IT IS A MEMORIZATION TEST.
4. All of this information is being given to us and what is our job? Memorize it.
5. How do I know that most of you are GOOD at memorization?
  1. Most of you speak more than one language.

1. 1. Clearly your brain works. There’s nothing wrong with your brain. Your brain is firing on all cylinders.
  2. If there’s nothing wrong with our brain, why are our GRE scores not improving?
    1. Because you’re not memorizing what you need to memorize.
Solving hundreds, even thousands, or problems is a great way to improve our GRE score.
1. This is when it’s an intelligence test.
2. This actually might work for a very small number of people (people who have high IQs or who are naturally intelligent)…this MIGHT work.
3. It’s a very dangerous prep strategy because it only works for maybe like 5% of people. So it’s very risky. If you’re not a person who can easily pick up on patterns, that’s OKAY, there’s nothing wrong with you, but will this strategy work?
4. In fact, this strategy can actually be harmful. It can actually make your prep worse.
  1. If you solve thousands of problems, your bad habits are potentially entrenched (GRE word).

1. 1. These people tend to be resistant to advice (not because they’re bad people) but the advice would require undoing tons of deep-rooted bad habits.
2. If this doesn’t really work that well, why do so many people do it?
  1. They were trained to do this.

1. 1. It’s just fun. It’s more fun.
  2. It takes LESS effort.
    1. You’re not changing anything about yourself.
2. Even when I point this myth out to people, do they change their behavior? My guess is some of you will watch this class, say “That makes sense,” and immediately go back to your old habits of solving hundreds of questions.
  1. “I’m depressed.”
    1. Look into talking to somebody
    2. With a professional, determine if medicine is right for you.
    3. Stop drinking alcohol and doing any recreational drugs.
    4. Get outside and exercise.
    5. Start meditating.
    6. Have a better diet.
    7. Get more sleep.
    8. Drink a lot of water.
    9. Stop doomscrolling.
    10. Get off your damn phone.
      1. When you see something bad, you feel bad.
      2. When you see something good, you feel bad.
GRE diagnostic reports are useful.
1. They used to be, when there were 40 questions in both quant and verbal (80 total). This gave us enough data to figure stuff out.
2. Now, there are only 54 questions, 27 each. It’s just not enough data. Maybe it tells us a little bit about time management.
  1. If you get a question wrong that you spent 2 minutes on, can we determine why you got this wrong?
I have watched the videos. Now what? Watching videos somehow magically imparts this knowledge to you and you’re good to go.
The math is easy. It’s high school. It’s junior high school math.
1. Yeah, we learned this in like second grade.
2. The math is actually not that easy, especially in two major categories:
  1. Arithmetic
    1. Can be quite tricky with all the prime number stuff

1. 1. Data analysis
    1. Is quite tricky for many reasons
2. If we assume that arithmetic is easy, and then we skip it, why is this so dangerous?
  1. Algebra, coordinate geometry, geometry and data analysis.

1. 1. Do we need arithmetic for these four?
The math is getting harder.
1. I know for a fact that the math is not getting harder because I have very strong evidence:
  1. Percentiles keep going down.

1. 1. 10 years ago, 2% of people got a 170 in quant. Maybe it was like 3 or 4%.
  2. Right now, 8% are now getting a 170. That’s nearly 10%.
  3. Should the math get harder?
    1. Maybe. Do we really want 10% of people getting a perfect score?
      1. The answer is no, not in my opinion, but because it violates the purpose of the test.
      2. It’s meant to rank people, to put people in order.
The GRE is expensive.
1. I don’t want to be insensitive.
2. Spending 200 on the GRE is a much better deal than spending 200 on a fancy dinner.
  1. We all know what happens to the fancy dinner.
3. For some people, the price of the GRE is the same cost as their monthly salary.
  1. How on Earth can I say that this is not a bad deal?

1. 1. I’m trying to put you on a path where ultimately your monthly salary is ten times or 20 times or 100 times the price of a GRE test.
  2. What is the safest way (not guaranteed) to increase salary? Education, especially if you major in an in-demand field.
2. If you do well, or even really well, the GRE can actually EARN you money. You gained money, assuming you’re getting a master’s no matter what.
  1. With a long enough perspective, the GRE in a way can lead to much higher salaries.

1. 1. More directly…the universities might reduce the cost by 50%, maybe only 10%. If your master’s is going to cost a total of $50,000, 10% is $5,000.
2. I’m coming at this from a place of privilege.
3. It’s not a guarantee, but education is the most LIKELY way to set yourself on a middle-class, comfortable lifestyle.
4. If you can prove to me right now that your quant foundation is solid and your vocabulary is pretty solid, then you can spend the rest of the time before the test working on strategies and untimed practice and timed practice and it might be worth it to take it.
5. Foundation quizzes:
  1. On the GregMat website, click on practice at the top, and then click on Your Quiz Data. You will see at the top of this new page foundation quizzes. There are two for each major category.

1. 1. If you click on classes at the top, and then must-see-recordings, and then click on a class called Being Busy Doesn’t Equal Being Productive, and you look at the class description and scroll down, you’ll see Google form quizzes that test your foundations.
  2. The Quant Flashcard quizzes
  3. The Tickbox quizzes also test your foundations (part of PrepSwift)
  4. Every prepswift video has a short quiz connected to it.
  5. If you go through the I’m Overwhelmed Study Plan, there are these things called Progress Quizzes.
  6. How do I prove it? What score do I need?
    1. 150+: 60%
    2. High 150s: 70%, maybe even 75%
    3. Low 160s to mid 160s: 85%
    4. High 160s or 170: 90%+
Verbal is an English test.
1. Not really.
2. Do native speakers know the vocabulary words already or, like you, if you’re not a native English speaker, do they have to study them?
  1. These are words that are not used in normal conversation.
3. Let’s imagine your vocabulary is perfect or nearly perfect. What is verbal testing now?
  1. Reasoning and logic
4. One caveat, being a native speakers helps in a couple of ways:
  1. They do know some of the words.

1. 1. They know idioms.
    1. There is no way to study idioms.
  2. Being a native speaker allows you to limit the number of possible answers that could be in a blank.
    1. The question of whether we should implement this plan is not ___________. (trivial, important) (valid, invalid)
    2. If it were an English test, can somebody explain to me why the verbal score in America is 153. WHAT?!

Hey ChatGPT, I want you to test my ability to implement various reading strategies. Let’s start with sentence simplification. I’ll give you a passage and then I’ll simplify and rephrase each sentence and I want you to give me a score for each sentence from 1 to 5. You should measure both my ability to change the vocabulary and retain meaning.

If I give myself 30 random words, how many would I know?

Go to ChatGPT and like I said test your reading skills.

Hey ChatGPT, I want to test my ability to eliminate reading answer choices. I’m going to give you a passage and some questions (don’t tell me the answer!!!).

Let’s now imagine that your foundation is good.

Must see videos

My quant foundation is good…now what?