My Magical Tips for the GRE (pre-Aug 2011)

Every GRE taker has his or her experience. There are a lot of preparation materials for GRE leaves one uncertain which one to choose, but many of those materials are equally sufficient to review. They give strategies, examples, samples of common tricks, and resources for reviewing math, suggested sophisticated English vocabulary, and writing skills. However, there is no such a thing that precisely tells you how to score a decent score on GRE if you do not have an innate sharp-witted mind. Average people need to be adept at math and widely knowledgeable in English language skills. That is not all. Speaking of the quantitative section of GRE, time management and quickly math discerning are two major factors. In my experience, I encountered a challenge that prevented me from scoring a good score in my first completely-a-bust GRE exam, which is trivial mistakes that happen due to unmindfulness and nervousness.

Trivial mistakes were a nightmare for me. Even though knowing enough math, I found that only silly mistakes madly ruin my answer sheet. That is for the questions that I knew how to solve, not the ones that I didn't. Thus I invented the magic solution. In other more realistic words, I develop a way that will help me overcome this challenge. While practicing math problems, I started listing the gaps that I usually fell in and make mistakes at and I wrote them to better bridge these gaps. They were the ones that I encountered and cared a lot to get a grip on. They are, again, not strategies but mind hints of lack-of-accuracy conditions that bog me down. I used them as marginal annotation kept them in mind, which amazingly helped me to get a decent score in GRE unlike previous trial.

Finally, here are the most important annotations I made. I hope they help test takers around world even though the GRE exam has seen some changes after August 2011.

1. Always bear in mind these two strategies when first looking for both solving and comparison problems:

• Choosing random numbers
• By knowing that Choices are numerically ascended, use choices' numbers in the problem starting by choice B. When your solution indicate that you need a smaller number to solve the problem correctly, the correct answer eventually is only A. In opposite, when you need a bigger number, try D then compare again.

2. Do NOT rush yourself while reading and solving any problem. Read, think, and solve deliberately.  Just don't forget time allocated to each problem.

3.  Be skeptical about every problem, especially problems look easy or short. There are no silly dump questions in GRE, they are trying to trick you DUDE. Problems that use a property, such as absolute value, usually have a hidden thought.

4. Be very cautious when you start solving a problem on scratch paper. You often forget a sign, number property, or condition given in the problem. Also, the unsaid details are equally important. For example, signs, evenness of numbers, exceptions of values between 0-1 or -1 (means excluding fractions less than 1), exceptions of zero, and etc. Remember that you can always redo math but you do not have time to bog down on a question until you get it right.

5. When you do not recognize the hidden idea that makes you choose the correct choice, start solving the problem depending on the type of math it has. Usually you are going to encounter this with number property, simplification and polynomial problems.

6. Be accurate always and do NOT assume. Write on margins the relationships that are somehow relevant to the problem. Problems' language sometimes tend to conceal key relationships or be overstated but missing a key given information that will leave with no answer. For example, geometric questions have a lot of these stumbling blocks. In addition, the difference between two absolute values when applied to a distance problem may seem easy to do math spontaneously when it comes to a distance difference. Also, problems that mention a relationship between a couple of values, such as locations or people relationships, and a missing relation meant to be assumed by the test taker is not given and crucial to identify the problem as unable to be solved.

7. Practice doing algebraic problems using different number properties prep material with deep focus the difference between equation and polynomial. So once anyone looks to a problem on exam day containing an equation or polynomial he or she would be able to save some thinking time. An example of things that some test takers may come across would be impetuously assuming positive x is the value that can be used in squared x, where x can be either positive or negative.

8. Whenever dealing with unknown variables, say x, remember to the number properties that x may take, such as the zero, the square, fractions, radicals, and etc.

9. In comparison questions, when there is a an unknown variable, say x, on side and a value on the other side say 10, consider running the problem using 10 directly to check whether x is higher, lower, or equal to 10, needless to say that choice D is possible in certain cases.

10. In comparison questions, when your first guess is choice D due to insufficient given information, hold on and scrutinize the problem for seconds looking for any possibility that logically match the compared value to another choice.

11. In graphics and tables, be aware of titles, dates, notes under each table or chart, and the zero of the chart (absence of zero point eliminate the possibility of solving some question by sight without losing time doing simple math, such as the percentage of change between two years' GDP values. However, it is a fatal trap because you might solve it by sight although the zero is not drawn or given.)

12. Use your scratch paper to draw given information on questions that describe shapes, directions, geometric no matter how easy it is

13. A common trap comes on questions that give percentages (or probabilities) then somehow give a scenario that includes an increase in specimens or items represented by those percentages. Here, the percentages do not reflect the original numbers that are not given, and you cannot solve the problem.

14. Do not forget the triplets of right angle triangles 3:4:5 and 5:12:13, also their multiples 6:8:10 and 10:24:26 because they shorten the time of applying the Pythagorean theory. They are a favorite topic.