How to Prepare for GRE Exam at Home - How to Prepare for GRE Test at Home

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How to Prepare for GRE Exam at Home

How to Prepare for GRE Exam at Home? Well I have given GRE and I studied for like about 20-25 days. I scored 310(Q-160 V-150). I know these marks aren't good enough, but if you get a head start of about 3 months and get on the schedule you can easily score about 320+. Here is what is I recommend you do.

How to Prepare for GRE Exam at Home



  1. DO NOT JOIN ANY COACHING CLASSES. This is the most important thing that you have to do. Because first of all, you are about to be graduate or you have completed and i assume you have a good grip on basic mathematics. Going to classes will just waste your time and more importantly waste a good amount of 20-30k on the things you already know. How to Prepare for GRE Exam at Home?
  2. Now, starting from Quants, the first important job you'll have is to brush up the mathematics that you have already studied in your Xth and XIIth grades. This you can do by solving the NOVA MATH BIBLE. The NOVA MATH BIBLE (NMB)will get you acquainted with all the basic concepts of probability and all the other important concepts and will make you very comfortable with the questions. Once you have solved the NMB(will take about 2-3 weeks), go on to the Manhattan series. You'll find a Manhattan series with 8 books in total, Manhattan 5lb and 7 other basic manhattan books. Do not start solving Manhattan 5lb as of yet. Solve the other manhattan books. Once done with that you will be very familiar with the type of questions that are asked. Finally, move on to Manhattan 5lb. That book will be your everything for Quants. Eat with it, sleep with it! Solve the complete book. (Finish it in a month or so). Also, solve the Advanced questions that are asked. Once you solve Manhattan 5lb, you will have a kind of mastery over GRE Quants. After that, you can go ahead and solve ETS GUIDE(it Will take about 3 days). REMEMBER THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO MAINTAIN AN ERROR LOG. WRITE DOWN ALL THE MISTAKES THAT YOU, ANY SILLY MISTAKE WRITE IT DOWN IN THAT ERROR LOG. BEFORE A WEEK OR TWO OF THE ACTUAL EXAM, STUDY YOUR ERROR LOG ONLY AND ELIMINATE EVERY POSSIBLE PROBABILITY OF SILLY MISTAKES IN YOUR EXAM. Once these three books are done(NOVA, MANHATTAN, ETS), I think you can quite easily score very good marks in Quants. An absolute score(170) is definitely possible.
  3. Moving on to VERBALS. The most important thing in verbals is that you have to understand the context of every sentence and what words are to use in it. Firstly you'll have to improve your vocabulary. PRINCETON HIT PARADE, MANHATTAN 600, and Magoosh words are more than enough. If you do all these you may learn about 1500 words( Most of the words are common in these three, but nevertheless do all three). Not just learn these words but try to use these words in day to use of your English. Flaunt it if you want. The most important thing to be successful at VERBALS is to be very good at context reading and thinking literally. I mean GRE passages boast the most boring and high fundo English. So I suggest you start reading American newspapers like The New York Times and so on. Now so as to practice verbals, you can do passages from Manhattan 5lb/Kaplan Series/Princeton Series. The Verbal section is down to how good you are at English and not just spoken English but the actual literal grammatically correct English.
  4. Coming to the final part, the AWA section. The AWA section is down to your application of knowledge and your English and how you structure your points down. ETS GUIDE is good enough, wherein you can figure out the structure of the essays also it contains a pool of 100-200 essays which you can refer to.
  5. Now coming to the final part. THE TESTS! No matter how much you solve or practice, it is all down to how you perform in the exam. Now to get well acquainted with the actual test, you have to solve as many as tests you can. Starting off from the Kaplan Test series move on to the Manhattan test series. Give these tests as if you are writing your GRE. Try and give these tests under the supervision of your parent or any friend or so. These tests can give you an idea of where you lag and where you need to improve. Give these tests occasionally while you are solving the material I've told you to before. Now before a week or so of your exam, give the ETS POWER PREP series. Give both the tests with a gap of 3-4 days. These tests will show you where exactly you stand and will more or less be your GRE SCORE(+-3)
  6. I personally suggest that instead of buying paperbacks, you buy or download digital copies of these books, as you are going to give your exams on the computer screen, you might as well start studying from the computer screen itself. You can buy these books on Amazon or the ones who cannot afford it can download a torrent named "GRE PACKAGE" on kickass torrents.

Hope this helps you! All the best

Here are More tips on How to Prepare for GRE Test at Home

How to Prepare for GRE Test at Home? Here are some tips:

  1. Practice questions in half an hour sprints (20 questions in 30 mins). This will mimic test conditions and give you a feel of the exam. If you’re solving quant or verbal (sentence completion, sentence equivalence) then aim for 20 questions in 30 mins. If you’re solving verbal (reading comprehension) questions, then aim for 10 questions in 30 mins. (10 questions = 3 questions from one RC + 4 questions from another RC + 3 questions from one RC).
  2. Study vocab regularly. Vocab is the key to cracking the verbal section. I used the Baron’s list of 800 words (essential for GRE). Don’t just memorize what is present in the flashcard. Make sure you understand the application of the word in a sentence. I studied like this – I created a word file in which I would note down the meanings of words I did not know. As I went through the Baron’s 800 words, I noted down the words I did not know. I Googled the word and noted down a sentence where it was used as well. Later, once I had finished preparing, I would only revise the word list, not the entire Baron’s 800 files.)
  3. Don’t spend too much time studying AWA (essay writing task and argument task). The essay task is usually abstract, and you have to write on a topic that is unfamiliar to you. It’s more about phrasing proper points and writing English properly than the actual content of the essay. The argument task is easy. Every argument is based on certain assumptions. You simply have to turn around each assumption and mention how that would weaken the argument. Read the essay and argument writing chapters in the Manhattan Prep 5lb. Book. They have brilliant material. The AWA section (essay and argument task combined) gives you a score out of 6. If you score more than 3.5 out of 6, you’re good to go.
  4. Give equal weightage to verbal and quant. (340 = 170 for quant + 170 for verbal which does not include AWA). You may feel that you are better in quant, so you’ll score more in quant and less in verbal which will balance your score. This is not true. College cutoffs are like 150 for verbal and 155 for quant.

How to Prepare for GRE Exam at Home - Materials


  1. Solve all the questions from the Official Guide to the GRE General Test Book first. After you’re done move to the Manhattan Prep 5 lb Book of Practice Questions. How to Prepare for GRE Exam at Home?
  2. The Manhattan Prep 5 lb. Book has chapters of each question type in verbal (Sentence Completion, Sentence Equivalence, RC, etc.) and quant (each chapter of math). Be sure to solve at least 20 questions from each chapter before giving the GRE exam. This will make sure you’re prepared.

Study pattern to Prepare for GRE Test at Home


Practice questions in 30 min bursts take a break, practice questions in another 30 min burst, and so on. Once you get comfortable with the pattern, start solving questions in 1-hour bursts.

Study plan to Prepare for GRE Exam at Home


Study for 1-2 hours every day. On weekends put in 6 hours. Don’t study on the day before the exam. Just revise vocab if you want to.

Exam pattern to Prepare for GRE Exam at Home


  • 1-hour AWA (30 mins essay task + 30 mins argument task)
  • 1-hour quant (30 min quant section + another 30 min quant section)
  • 10 min break
  • 1-hour verbal (30 min verbal section + 30 min verbal section)
  • 30 min experimental section (either quant or verbal, you won’t know which until you give the exam.)
  • The experimental section is unscored (it is used to try out new questions).

IT IS NOT GUARANTEED THAT THE EXPERIMENTAL SECTION WILL COME AT THE END. IT CAN COME BEFORE ALSO, YOU WILL NOT KNOW. SO GIVE YOUR BEST IN ALL THE SECTIONS.

Mock tests


  • I gave only 2 mock tests (GRE PowerPrep I and II). They are available for free while you sign up for the GRE exam.
  • If you have the Official Guide to the GRE General Test Book, then you will find 2 mock tests in there as well.
  • Try to mimic test conditions while giving the mock tests. Do not take breaks in the middle.
  • Kudos to my friend Sitangshu Chatterjee for supplying all the book PDFs online at

How to Prepare for GRE Exam at Home?  I was good at English since my school days. I read a ton of books and I write on my own personal blog as well. It is possible that you will require more time to prepare than I did, but don’t worry about that. Prepare according to what feels right for you.

Hope this information was useful to you. All the best, you will ace the exam. 

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