GRE Quant Prep

<p>I'm trying to find a good prep for the quant section. I've been through the Kaplan test book but I don't feel prepared at all. </p>

<p>I feel like I prepare best for math by doing problem after problem after problem until its second nature, that's how I got through my calculus classes.</p>

<p>I'm trying to get an 800 to be competitive for grad school for economics.</p>

<p>Can anyone recommend any services? I saw a couple of sites online that offered review and question banks but I can't find any reviews online so I was wondering if anyone here could recommend anything.</p>

<p>I don’t know about any services, but you might want to try the Nova math prep book. It’s just full of problems so it might be what you’re looking for. I went through it twice and it helped me get my high quant score I wanted.</p>

<p>Did you do Kaplan’s general test book or the math workbook? If you just did the general, then I would recommend getting the Kaplan math workbook since it is exclusively math. Some of the prep books come with codes that take you to websites for additional practice.</p>

<p>My son is also planning on economics grad school. He wrote his GRE yesterday and got 800 on the quantitative. He had 5 different prep books including both of the aforementioned Kaplans. We figured that the expenditure was well worth it considering what just taking the GRE once costs and what grad school costs. Go to amazon.com and you’ll find a wealth of prep books. My son bought the ones that had the most practice tests and most math in them.</p>

<p>I agree that doing many many math problems is the way to go. You do eventually get better and that 780 to 800 is the place to be for economics grad school, so you don’t have a lot of room for error. Best of luck.</p>

<p>Do Nova’s math book, it’s very good for practicing the type of thinking on the exam. If you have significant mathematical background (e.g. due to your major) you should find the math on the GRE quite easy, and you will lose points mostly from careless mistakes (such as using an entire graph when the question only asked to use part of it, failing to notice differences in units that the question uses (for example: “If x can run 3 miles in 1 hour, then how many miles per minute can he run?”), misreading inequality signs, failing to cover all cases when restrictions on variables aren’t explicitly stated (unless it says x>0, x cannot be assumed to be an integer, for example. You have to check fractions also), etc, etc, mostly resulting from ignoring small details in the questions. Those are what will shave the points off. So most of the prep, once you have the material down, should focus on eliminating such errors. </p>

<p>This is the way I prepared for quantitative (I got a 800), in the order given: </p>

<ol>
<li>Finished all problems in Nova’s math book.</li>
<li>Read through Kaplan’s general strategies</li>
<li>Did all of Barrons practice tests (mostly got 760-780, no 800s)</li>
<li>Did all of Kaplan’s practice tests (not the CAT)</li>
<li>Did all of Kaplan’s CAT. I got 770, 790, and 800.</li>
<li>Used GRE PowerPrep. In my opinion this is the most accurate predictor of score so do it a couple of days before the actual test, and don’t use it until then. It is pretty much the exact same thing as you will get on test day, minus the research sections. I got 790 and 800 on the PowerPrep.</li>
</ol>

<p>Depends on what your baseline performance is. If you’re the kind of student that can’t get 800 because of careless errors (me, for example), then there’s not much you can do besides being on your game on test day. If you actually can’t solve a problem you encounter, then I suggest hitting the books really hard. Of course, you should do that regardless of your current performance but carelessness is hard to fix sometimes.</p>