Year End Audit: Grade Your OWN Study Habits

It's December 30. Somewhere right now, a GRE Test Taker is writing "2026 goal: 165 Quant" on a sticky note. There's no look back and no data. There's just a bigger number and a fresh notebook.

That is NOT a plan. That is a wish on a sticky note.

A new goal only means something if you know HOW you got your last score. So before you set anything, you grade yourself. You don't grade your score. You grade your HABITS. The GRE gives you the score you earn, and the way you studied this year is exactly how you earned it.

Below are seven questions. Answer each one honestly, on paper, with a letter grade. I'll bet at least three of your grades come out worse than you expected. That's good news. A bad grade on a habit is the easiest thing in the world to fix.

First, know the event you're training for

The GRE General Test is the entrance exam many graduate and business programs accept. Since September 22, 2023, it has been the shorter version. According to ETS, the company that makes the test, it runs 1 hour 58 minutes. You get one Issue essay in 30 minutes. Verbal comes in two sections: 12 questions in 18 minutes, then 15 questions in 23 minutes. Quant also comes in two sections: 12 questions in 21 minutes, then 15 in 26 minutes. There is no unscored section and no scheduled break. Verbal and Quant are each scored 130 to 170, and writing is scored 0 to 6. You can take it at a test center or at home.

If any of your practice this year was built around the old, longer test, that's already your first grade.

The seven questions

1. Did you review every practice test, or just look at the score?

A practice test is a measuring device. It tells you roughly where you stand. It does NOT make you a better Test Taker. The review is where the improvement lives. Say you took four practice tests this year. Can you show me four written lists of what you missed and WHY? If you can't, you didn't train. You just weighed yourself four times.

INSTEAD: Every test gets a written review, question by question. Here's how to review a practice test the right way.

2. Did you redo questions, or only chase new ones?

What's more powerful: being an acquaintance of 3,000 questions, or being the commander of 500? Lots of Test Takers treat new questions like progress. They aren't. If you missed a question in March and never saw it again, you still don't own it.

INSTEAD: Redo every missed question about a week later, from scratch, with full notes. It's not about the right answer. It's about WHAT YOU'RE DOING to get there.

3. Did you write on paper for EVERY question?

This is the one pride hides. "I can do it in my head" sounds smart. It is the source of a huge share of silly mistakes. Here's a test of that habit.

INSTEAD: Write the given facts, write a short list of values to test (a fraction, 1, numbers near the edges of the range), then work. Every question. No exceptions.

4. Did you train the FULL event?

The real test is close to two hours straight with no scheduled break. If your practice was twenty minute sets on the couch with your phone buzzing, you trained for a different event. That's like training for a marathon by running sprints.

INSTEAD: Take a full, timed test in real conditions, no more than one per week. ETS offers free official practice tests called POWERPREP. Put your phone in another room. Here's why you should train with ZERO interruptions.

5. Can you name WHY you missed each question?

"I don't know" is not an answer. You're heading to grad school. You are not allowed to have "no idea." Did you misread? Skip a note? Use the long way? Run out of time because of the question before it? Pick one.

INSTEAD: After every missed question, say your steps out loud and find the exact moment it went wrong. That's the whole point of learning to explain your work out loud.

6. Did you write a single Issue essay?

There's only one essay now, and it's 30 minutes. That makes it really easy to ignore. It still gets its own score, 0 to 6, and it's still the first thing you do on Test Day. If your first timed essay of the year happens on the real test, you've chosen to start your test cold.

INSTEAD: Write a timed Issue essay every week or two. Thirty minutes, no spell check crutch, done.

7. Were your lost points on hard questions or gettable ones?

Most people say "the hard ones." Stop reading and actually count. Go through your last two practice tests and mark every miss as "couldn't do it" or "could have done it." I'll bet the second pile is BIGGER.

While you're at it, check your pacing. The first Quant section gives you 21 minutes for 12 questions. That's an average of 1 minute 45 seconds. An AVERAGE, not a rule. Some questions take 30 seconds. Some take 3 minutes. If you ran out of time, the clock wasn't the problem. Re-reading, head math and long routes were.

INSTEAD: Chase the gettable misses first. A few more correct answers on questions you already know how to do beats one more hour on the hardest question in the book.

Your grade sheet

Here's how to read it. An A is a habit you KEEP. A C is a habit you change one piece of. An F is where your next points are hiding. Don't get down on yourself over an F. It means you've found something concrete to fix, and that's far better than staring at a score with no idea why it's stuck.

Your challenge for today

Don't wait for January. Today, grab a blank sheet. Write 1 through 7. Give each one a letter grade, honestly. Circle your worst grade.

Then pull five questions you missed this year. Redo them right now, with full notes on paper, saying every step out loud. THEN, and only then, write your new goal. Under it, write the one habit you're changing to get there.

The number on the sticky note is easy. The habit under it is what earns the score.