Summer Is Your BEST Window to Train for the GRE

Picture October. You have three application essays, all half written. One of your recommenders has stopped answering email. Your boss just handed you a project with your name on it. And your GRE is in nine days. You haven't sat a full practice test since August.

I watch people walk into that exact mess every fall. It is NOT bad luck. It's a choice they made in June, when they told themselves they had "plenty of time."

You don't have plenty of time. You have THIS summer. It's the one calm stretch between now and your deadlines, and once it's gone you don't get it back. So let's use it.

Why summer, and why NOW

Fall belongs to your applications. Essays, recommenders, transcripts, school research. That work is slow and it eats your evenings. If the GRE is still on your plate in October, something gets shortchanged, and it's usually both.

Here's the good news. The GRE is a standardized test. It's predictable, so you can train for it. Here's what you're training for, straight from ETS's page on the sections and question types:

• Analytical Writing comes first: an Issue essay (you argue a position) and an Argument essay (you pick apart someone else's reasoning), 30 minutes each. Each is scored 0 to 6.
• Two Verbal sections, 20 questions in 30 minutes each.
• Two Quant sections, 20 questions in 35 minutes each. You get an on-screen calculator.
• One unscored section that looks exactly like the others. You can't tell which one it is, so every section has to count in your head.
• A 10-minute break after the third section. The whole thing runs about 3 hours 45 minutes.

Two details matter more than people think. First, the test is adaptive section by section. That means how you do on your first Verbal section decides how hard your second Verbal section is, and the same goes for Quant. Your first section of each type is not a warm-up. Second, inside a section you can skip, mark and change answers. That's a tool. Use it on purpose.

Now stop and think. When was the last time you did hard mental work for almost four hours straight? I'll bet it was a LONG time ago. That's a stamina problem, and stamina only gets built one way: in training, over weeks.

The summer plan, kept simple

This week: take one of ETS's free POWERPREP practice tests. Full length. Both essays. Timed. No phone. This is your starting line. It's a measuring device, not training, so don't panic about the number. Just write down your scores and look at WHY you missed what you missed.

The next several weeks: train most days in focused sessions, and take one practice test per week, MAXIMUM. The work between tests is where you get better. The tests just tell you if it's working.

Book your test date for late summer. That way, if Test Day goes well, you're done before fall. If it doesn't, you still have room to train and try again before deadlines, and ScoreSelect lets you choose which scores you send to schools.

So here's the forced choice. What do you want MORE: a lazy July, or a calm November?

Train the way the test actually asks

GRE Quant is not a math test. It's a thinking test that uses math as the gauge. The people who stall out are often the strong math students who insist on doing it "properly" instead of doing it smart. Try these two. Notes on paper, every time.

Which way was faster for you? Be honest. That's the kind of thing you have all summer to fix.

5 summer mistakes I see every year

1. "I'll start in August." August turns into September, and September is already application season. INSTEAD: take your first practice test this week and start training the week after.
2. Studying in weekend binges. Eight hours every Saturday sounds serious. It's really just cramming with a nicer name, the same trap people fall into when they treat a holiday break as a study plan. INSTEAD: shorter sessions, most days of the week, so the skills actually stick.
3. Taking a practice test every couple of days. More tests do NOT make you a better test taker. They just measure you more often. INSTEAD: one per week at most, and a careful review of every question you missed or guessed on.
4. Skipping the essays in practice. The writing comes first on Test Day. If you skip it in practice, your practice Verbal and Quant happen on a fresh brain, and the real ones won't. INSTEAD: every practice test is full length, both essays included, so you train for the FULL event.
5. Working in your head because "there's a calculator anyway." The calculator does arithmetic. It doesn't keep track of what the question asked. Most lost points are silly mistakes, not hard questions. INSTEAD: write down what you're given, what you're asked, and each step. Every question. Every time.

Your move, today

Don't close this tab and "think about it." Do three things before you go to bed tonight.

Open your calendar and block out training sessions for the rest of the summer, most days of the week. Pick a weekend day in the next seven days for your first full POWERPREP test. Then look at a late summer test date and decide on one.

That's it. Three decisions, maybe twenty minutes. Do them tonight and October looks a lot calmer. Put them off, and you already know which October you're signing up for.