Tag: education podcast

Davis: Hey everybody, this is GRE Bites. My name is Davis, and I’m an educator with over ten years of experience.

Orion: And I’m Orion, the founder of StellarGRE.

Davis: We’re here to bring you your weekly bite-sized episode on GRE prep and grad school admissions. Check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. And don’t forget, you can use the code “BITES” for 10% off any membership.

Alright, let’s get into our subject of the day, which is taking another look at grad school admissions. Orion, I’ve heard you talk before. And we’ve had several episodes in the past that touch on this, which is, you know, the reasons to go to grad school but also the reasons that an admissions office is looking at to admit people into grad school. And I’ve heard you mention something called goodness of fit. So will you break down that concept for us?

Orion: I would be happy to. Yes, we’ve talked in the past about how no one actually gets into grad school because of the GRE. The GRE only keeps people out; it never lets people in. I got a perfect score on the GRE. I was rejected by far more programs than I even got an invitation to interview from. That’s just the name of the game. So, assuming that you dodged the bullet, that is the GRE. And the admissions committee actually takes a closer look at your application. How do you get into grad school? Like, what are they looking for? And in so many words, they are looking for goodness of fit. There are a number of ways that we can approach this; the easiest way to understand this is sort of the Matthew principle. Have you heard of the Matthew principle?

Davis: I have not.

Orion: The Matthew principle comes from a verse in the Gospel. I’m going to paraphrase it, which is basically that onto him that has, even more will be given, and onto him that has not, even what he has will be taken away. So this is a teaching of Jesus, actually. And it’s kind of like the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, which on some level is what we see. In reality, it’s like the people who need opportunity the least have the most opportunity given to them; the people who need wealth the least have more money being given to them. Do you understand?

Davis: I understand. But, I get the concept you’re saying, but I’d want to look at the actual passage to see if the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is a teaching of Jesus.

Orion: That’s my paraphrase. The words that I used are, I think, very close to the actual passage about he who has and he who has not. Now, what this means in respect to grad school admissions is that the people who generally need the admission the least are the ones who get invited to join. For example, when I went back to grad school to get my Ph.D. in psychology, that was a career shift for me. Before that, I was an actor. I had taken one intro to psych class and I got a B- in it.

On some level, you might think that I, who has very little background in psychology, would stand to benefit the most from participating in a grad school program in psychology. I had so much more to learn than, say, somebody who already has a bachelor’s in psychology and has worked in the field and has published in the discipline. What do they need another degree in psychology for? They’re already kind of doing what grad school is supposed to prepare them to do, and yet those folks are precisely the ones who get the invitations, not the ones who potentially could benefit the most from an invitation, but the ones who, on some level, are already doing what grad school purportedly is preparing them to do, which is paradoxical because if you can already do it, why are you going back to grad school? Which is actually an excellent question. But to the extent that you need grad school less, the more likely you will get an invitation to grad school. Does that make sense?

Davis: No, that, in that level, makes sense, which is that, from the point of view, as you’re saying, of who could stand the most to benefit from it, then the qualification is who has the least experience, whereas the understanding that I feel grad school admissions officers might be working from, or at least the academic culture at large is working from in this country, is that, you know, grad school Ph.D. programs are really the next step for someone who already has a lot of experience in that area, which is a little backward. I agree with you on that point in some ways, but that’s just how the world works.

Orion: So, if you want to understand what goodness of fit is, you should take a look at the profiles of the students who are already in that program. The more that you look like the folks who have already been admitted, the more likely you are going to demonstrate that you would be a good culture fit for that program. There are a number of ways to do this. A lot of programs will publish all kinds of statistics about their incoming cohorts. Most programs also have an opportunity to reach out to pre-existing doctoral candidates to potentially discuss with them kind of what it’s like to be there. And, and to learn a little bit more about themselves.

And so you can kind of use that as a determination as to whether your application sufficiently demonstrates that goodness of fit. Now, there’s a caveat here, which is that this is what happens in like an ideal world. In an ideal world. It’s more of a meritocracy. And it’s simply on the basis of this goodness of fit that folks get these invitations. And in practice, I find that not to be the case. For instance, one of my dissertation advisors was a really brilliant woman named Davina. And she went to Harvard to get her undergraduate degree. And she remembers her interview with a professor at the time who she subsequently worked under for her thesis project.

Now, three or four years after she was admitted, she finally worked up the courage to ask this professor why it was among all the many qualified applicants to Harvard that she was offered an invitation to join, like, what was it about her application? She kind of wanted to know so that she could help other folks potentially who are interested in matriculating. And the professor kind of laughed and shrugged and said, Well, my daughter’s name is Davina. And this was shocking to my advisor. But this happens far more than we would probably like to admit.

For instance, in my own case, probably the main reason why I got extended an invitation at my top program of choice is that I happened to have the good luck to be interviewed by someone who also used to be an actor, and who saw in me something of his own story and trajectory, which was actually fairly unconventional. And he became my dissertation chair, and we had a great relationship. And I’m very fortunate that he was the one who conducted my interview because another professor probably would have seen that past as a liability.

Davis: So, I hear what you’re saying, that there’s definitely a personal and maybe even one could use the word serendipitous quality or factor variable in the admissions process for people. So, let’s kind of wrap this up for us in a nice bow for all of our good listeners out there. Like, what’s the action item for them when they’re considering admissions when they’re considering schools?

Orion: Yeah, if we’re talking about this factor, there’s very little that you can do to prepare like, Davina certainly couldn’t have prepared, or even known about that fact about the interviewer’s daughter. I couldn’t have chosen my interviewer; that was simply some good luck. I’m just mentioning this to sort of round out the discussion that there is a level of, let’s say, randomness or serendipity to this process. There’s not much you can do about it. But potentially, that can help to make sense of certain programs or decisions. Because we don’t live, let’s say, in a perfect world, we can do what we can. We certainly shouldn’t ignore that. And that’s, you know, making sure your application is as high as possible in terms of its quantitative metrics and demonstrate goodness of fit, but sort of like after that, it’s kind of a roll of the dice.

Davis: I definitely hear you. And thank you for that bit of advice and those interesting stories. And I guess, let me ask one final question here. In order to, you know, kind of increase chances of synchronicity between oneself to create a good fit with a program or a specific discipline, one is looking to get a graduate degree in, is it worth doing any kind of smaller certification programs that are easier to get to that don’t have such a high bar that limits access beforehand to demonstrate good fit?

Orion: I would say no, actually, I think that that would potentially make you look good on paper. But I think again, what gets people in is somebody has to pick you for dodgeball, like one of the interviewers, one of the members of the faculty has to say, I like this person, I want him or her on my team. And so probably a better strategy is to show more of yourself because you have to allow people to know you to like you. And there’s a risk associated with that, because you might share something that another person doesn’t like, but if you run the risk, you run a bigger risk by not sharing anything because there’s nothing likable if you can’t be known.

Davis: Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. We’ll be back next week with another bite-sized episode of GRE Bites. If you have a topic you’d like discussed on a future episode, let us know at stellargre@gmail.com. And if you’re ready to take your prep to the next level, check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships there. Talk to you soon.

Davis: Hey everybody, this is GRE Bites. My name is Davis, and I’m an educator with over ten years of experience.

Orion: And I’m Orion, the founder of StellarGRE.

Davis: We’re here to bring you your weekly bite-sized episode on GRE prep and grad school admissions. Check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. And don’t forget, you can use the code “BITES” for 10% off any membership.

Alright, let’s get to it. I just want to ask you a simple question today. Is there an overall strategy, just a generalized strategy, that one could have in mind taking the GRE to go through problems given the timed nature of the test?

Orion: I believe that there is. The best general orientation to approaching a GRE problem is to get into it quickly and out of it slowly. To really understand that, let’s first talk about the opposite—what not to do. This is generally how most people naively approach the test: they get into problems slowly and out of them quickly. What does that look like?

That means they spend most of their time thinking about the problem before starting to solve it. This often involves reading and rereading the problem to understand it fully because they believe that the most challenging part is figuring out how to address it.

So, they dedicate most of their time to thinking all the way through to the solution. Once they’ve determined that, they quickly move to the actual execution of the solution. On some level, they believe that going through the steps is merely a formality; the real challenge is in understanding the problem. Implementing the solution becomes a chore that they want to complete as quickly as possible. This approach, of course, is maladaptive in several ways.

First of all, it’s incredibly time-inefficient. Spending all that time thinking and rereading wastes precious minutes. Secondly, by rushing to the execution of the solution, you dramatically increase the manifestation of carelessness, and you tend to blow points more frequently than you otherwise would.

Davis: I can totally relate both as a teacher tutoring kids on the SATs and other standardized tests, as well as from my own experience taking tests. What you’re describing is a very normal process. In a test scenario, people bring to bear a greater level of attention, thinking, “Oh, this is a test; I need to be really careful.” And they’re reading, and they want to make sure they understand it really carefully and really accurately. Then, at some point, it dawns on them, “Oh, I’ve been spending a lot of time on this; I better move quickly. I have many tests left.”

I appreciate your perspective, which is, you know, the opposite of that, which I want to hear you speak about more in just a minute, which is, you know, get in fast, have an executive outlook from the start, isolate the important pieces of the question first that you can address immediately get through those and then avoid those careless mistakes. Tell me more about that fast in and slow out approach.

Orion: Yeah, this is really important. Some questions will have very unambiguous, recognizable diagnostic signs, some problems will not. In fact, for some problems, the solution to them only reveals themselves in the solving. It’s very, very hard without doing anything to know all the steps that would be required to arrive at the solution. But sometimes, simply by doing the only next thing you can do, the next step reveals itself in the solution. Sometimes, diagnosis evolves as you move through the solution as well. These things are hidden until you take some action in the direction of the solution.

Davis: Okay, so what does it look like to be fast in and slow out?

Orion: Well, that’s why, in the Stellar system, we have a second-by-second strategy for how to approach a new GRE problem. In that first second, upon seeing that question, we decide whether we’re going to do it right then and there or skip it for our second pass-through. That holds true for both the verbal and the quantitative sections.

Since that’s based on immediately recognizable visual criteria, that only takes one second; in the next second, we move into the efficiency strategy, which is diagnosis. This should take about 10 seconds. It takes about 10 seconds to look at the answer choices, to figure out the structure of the problem, which will suggest a general problem-solving strategy that might be appropriate for this question, and maybe another few seconds to do a soft scan on the problem to recognize any of the immediately apparent diagnostic signs.

Remember, every question has either English words or arithmetic symbols or geometric shapes that you can point to and say this is this type of problem. And with more experience with diagnosis, those diagnostic signs will jump out at you like landmarks in the desert; the more experience you have, the faster it is to see those diagnostic signs.

So, pretty much within the first 10 seconds of encountering a novel problem, you should know whether you’re doing it right then and there, and you should know what kind of problem you’re likely dealing with and which specific techniques or general problem-solving strategies might be appropriate to that question.

That said, even if that doesn’t quite happen, like in the examples I gave earlier about diagnoses not being immediately apparent, if after 10 seconds, you haven’t been able to figure out what type of problem you’re dealing with, you get into the question anyway, through efficiency strategy number three, which is continuous solving.

Continuous solving means that rather than reading the question multiple times to come up with a holistic understanding of the problem and its solution, we read until we can do something, and we force ourselves to stop right then and there and do that thing without knowing how or why that thing will actually be helpful to the ultimate solution. It’s sort of like you do it on faith.

Davis: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more. This is like a gold paradigm shift. Just to reiterate a few points you made, Orion, we should avoid approaching problems with the feeling of “Let me be really careful and meticulous until I understand how to solve it.” This continuous problem-solving approach is incredibly valuable. I’ve seen it work for myself and others.

What it does is it changes what would be the natural, intuitive human approach, which is “Let me go in carefully. Let me try to wrap my head around the whole problem, get the whole landscape.” And then, once I’ve got that moment of, “Oh, I know how to do this,” then I rushed through the work. Those careless mistakes are what differentiate top scores from average scores on the GRE.

To really take your game to the top score level, use this strategy of jumping in and doing what you can immediately after you’ve completed these diagnostic processes. By the way, all of them are specifically explained for each of the different types of problems in Orion’s StellarGRE self-study program and private tutoring courses. So, what’s the slow out part?

Orion: Part of the slow out is in continuous solving. You’re absolutely right; we want to disabuse ourselves. The tendency is to solve questions holistically because it’s very easy for one thing to shift in your working memory when you’re trying to keep 7-9-10 things in your working memory simultaneously.

Ideally, you’re focusing on the smallest next quantum of the problem and giving that your full undivided attention. So continuous solving is an efficiency strategy because it prevents you from reading the question multiple times. And it’s kind of a carelessness strategy, too, because it limits your focus to the smallest actionable step of the problem. The idea here is to give your full, undivided attention to the one and only one step of the problem that you’re currently focusing on. And to do that at a slow and measured rate.

You can even, on some level, solve that step 50% slower than you otherwise would because we’re never going to have to reread a problem. If we solve things in a calm, measured way, we will never make it less likely that we will make a misstep, which will cause us to waste more time. Sometimes, taking shortcuts actually tends to be the long way around.

So, if you implement a lot of these strategies, you can actually go more slowly and more carefully through your solution because you’re not bleeding time and unnecessary ways elsewhere.

Davis: Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. We’ll be back next week with another bite-sized episode of GRE Bites. If you have a topic you’d like discussed on a future episode, let us know at stellargre@gmail.com. And if you’re ready to take your prep to the next level, check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships there. Talk to you soon.

Davis: Hey everybody, this is GRE Bites. My name is Davis, and I’m an educator with over ten years of experience.

Orion: And I’m Orion, the founder of StellarGRE.

Davis: We’re here to bring you your weekly bite-sized episode on GRE prep and grad school admissions. Check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. And don’t forget, you can use the code “BITES” for 10% off any membership.

Alright, let’s get to it. We’ve mentioned the term “cheat sheet” before in previous episodes. We have another listener question from someone who heard that and just couldn’t resist asking about it. She has also posed a previous question to us. So, thank you again, Sara, for your communication and collaboration with us on these episodes. The question is simply: what in the world is the cheat sheet? Well, Orion, I’ll pass it over to you.

Orion: Yes, the cheat sheet is crucial. Essentially, everything you need to get a perfect score on the quantitative section of the GRE can be written on the front and back of a standard-sized sheet of paper. You might need to write small, but not excessively so. This is a stark contrast to some of my competitors who offer encyclopedic books spanning thousands of pages, covering all the essential material and information that students must know for the quantitative section. Everything you need can fit on one sheet of paper, and I call that the student’s cheat sheet.

Davis: So, when you say everything you need can be written, are you referring to formulas? Or just mathematical concepts represented mathematically? Or does that include actual words?

Orion: No, it’s mostly the mathematical representation. This is a quantitative exam; you need to know some things about math. However, knowing math is necessary but insufficient to answer the questions correctly. If you don’t know, for instance, the area of a trapezoid, it will be challenging to answer a question about the theory of a trapezoid. But that’s probably not enough for a GRE problem, right? You have to understand that the GRE may appear like a math test, but it’s not. It uses quantitative concepts to test something far more abstract, such as potential. The GRE is an aptitude test; it doesn’t evaluate your knowledge of math, which is understandable because the math involved is, at most, basic algebra and geometry from middle school. It’s not about measuring your achievements in the quantitative domain. It’s about gauging, as accurately as possible, your potential to succeed in a future context that might require quantitative ability, among other skills. To test potential, one section uses quantitative concepts, and another uses semantic concepts. However, neither section is truly about words or numbers. Both aim to evaluate potential in future achievement contexts.

Davis: That makes a lot of sense. As a student and a teacher, there’s sometimes that feeling of encountering a problem and thinking, ‘Oh, I can figure this out.’ Ideally, the cheat sheet is prepared and studied well in advance, so there’s never a moment when facing a GRE question using our system where someone says, ‘I think I can figure this out.’ Instead, it’s immediately, ‘I know the exact formula, I know precisely how to apply it.’ This confidence is developed through the program and then reinforced by the cheat sheet. So, how is the cheat sheet formed in your program, and how should someone use it when preparing for the GRE test date?

Orion: Yeah, great question. You used the magic word, ‘consolidation’, which is really what this is about. Consolidation is kind of a fancy word for memorization. There’s more to it, but that’s the core concept here. Because of that, I believe it’s really important for each student to make his or her own cheat sheet. This is something I could easily provide, but I don’t, because the act of creating it will do the lion’s share of consolidation for you. It doesn’t take all that long if it’s only a one-page document. A lot of consolidation also has visual analogues. So, if you, as a specific individual, are creating that cheat sheet, you’ll remember that you put the probability rules in the upper right-hand corner. Not only do you have the semantic information consolidated, but you also have a visual analogue that you can use to recall that information as necessary. The act of you organizing and creating the sheet will help you to memorize it, which is why I don’t do it for you.

Davis: Is it beneficial, then, to use that strategy? I mean, it’s a great strategy, and I definitely appreciate the act of creating it being the lion’s share of the consolidation and memorization. Should students use that while doing practice tests?

Orion: That’s a good question. I don’t have a problem with doing the practice problems with the cheat sheet directly in front of you. On some level, you can “cheat” off of yourself on the actual exam as well. This is a bit of a gray zone. So, take this with a grain of salt, but you can use your scratch paper on test day as a kind of cheat sheet. Anything that you’re having trouble remembering, you can jot down on your scratch paper when you sit down at your computer terminal and then refer to it during the exam. I believe that’s entirely fair game. I don’t see an issue with it because, although knowing those formulas is necessary, it’s not sufficient. If you could ace the quantitative section of the GRE just by memorizing that page of formulas, you could prepare for this test in a weekend. However, that’s generally not the case.

Success on the GRE isn’t about what you know; it’s about how you apply it. It’s procedural knowledge, as opposed to, let’s say, crystallized or factual knowledge. You need some of the latter to succeed, but the vast majority of success is procedural – it’s a method of approach. And to answer your question, which was insightful: you know you’ve consolidated the information when you can instantly recall the relevant material. That’s the benchmark.

For instance, I should be able to wake you from a deep sleep and ask, “What are the three sides of a 30-60-90 right triangle?” and you should instantly respond with “x, 2x, x√3.” It should be second nature to you, even in a state of semi-consciousness. That’s how deeply ingrained that factual knowledge should be. The test is challenging enough; if you’re spending time and mental resources struggling to remember crystallized knowledge, you’re creating unnecessary hurdles for yourself.

Davis: That makes a lot of sense. It emphasizes the importance of gradual preparation rather than cramming over a weekend. Trying to develop that level of recall in a short period is improbable. It’s better to invest time over several weeks, be it eight weeks or six weeks, or whatever duration one needs, to build that recall knowledge base, especially since it’s procedural and requires consistent rehearsal over time.

Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. We’ll be back next week with another bite-sized episode of GRE Bites. If you have a topic you’d like discussed on a future episode, let us know at stellargre@gmail.com. And if you’re ready to take your prep to the next level, check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships there. Talk to you soon.

Davis: Hey everybody, this is GRE Bites. My name is Davis, and I’m an educator with over ten years of experience.

Orion: And I’m Orion, the founder of StellarGRE.

Davis: We’re here to bring you your weekly bite-sized episode on GRE prep and grad school admissions. Check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. And don’t forget, you can use the code “BITES” for 10% off any membership.

Alright, this week we have another listener question that reached out to us via email. Caitlyn, thank you so much for your questions. We’ll address one question in this episode and will follow up with another episode for your other question.

So, for question one that Caitlyn posed: She says, “In Episode 19 of GRE Bites, you mentioned having a whole mental recharge ritual during what you call the ‘park screen’ that allows you to let go of what you previously did and to prepare yourself for what is to come. What specific steps do you use or recommend? Do you have some favorite self-talk statements that you repeat? Do you have a favorite breathing exercise you recommend? I play competitive softball and golf. This park screen ritual would probably be helpful between pitches and innings, as well as between golf shots or rounds, to stay mentally fresh for the entire game. Any tips on how to cope with making an error or hitting a bad shot and not letting it affect the next play or shot?”

This is a fantastic question. Caitlyn, I’m glad you brought up sports because I think we can think of the park screen as a type of focusing ritual. What is the park screen, just to be clear?

Orion: Oh, yes. A park screen is an untimed portion of the GRE. Most screens on the GRE have a timer in the upper right-hand corner that automatically progresses the test when it counts down to zero. However, there are screens between the timed sections of the exam that do not have timers. Typically, these screens don’t contain any significant information, so students often skip over them quickly. However, they could use these park screens for a reasonable amount of time to create de facto breaks during the test. This is beneficial because, otherwise, you officially get only one-minute breaks between most timed sections and a 10-minute break about halfway through. Utilizing the park screen evens the odds and creates some breathing room as you navigate this marathon of an exam. It’s important to know how to identify the park screen and how to use it responsibly. I believe I mentioned in that episode, which Caitlyn is referencing, that I have my own ritual for dealing with this.

It’s much like performance in sports. Consider what a batter does between pitches in baseball. Every batter has a unique ritual that he performs between pitches. It’s something developed over years and might not always make rational sense. Still, it serves as a comforting, grounding, and refocusing routine. The batter will go through that ritual regardless of the outcome of the previous pitch, whether he swung and missed badly or almost hit a home run. This ritual helps to shake off the previous pitch. The last pitch might have been a fastball, but that doesn’t mean the next one won’t be different. On some level, it encourages the player to treat each attempt as an independent event.

Similarly, it’s common for students to not perform well on one section of the test and then let that feeling linger for the rest of the exam. Whether or not they actually performed poorly isn’t certain at that point, but their perception affects their subsequent performance.

So, whether you felt you didn’t do well or believed you excelled, you don’t want to become complacent. You need to move on to the next section as if it’s an entirely new opportunity, just like in baseball.

Davis: That makes a lot of sense. So it’s not only the previous instance, whether it’s a pitch or a section on the test, but also how you prepare for anxiety about the future, like the next batter who’s coming up. What’s involved in that recharge, and how does an individual create their own mental recharge ritual?

Orion: Yeah, like I said, it’s very unique and idiosyncratic. I’ll share what I do because I think Caitlyn had that question. You can adopt some or all of this, or use it as inspiration for your own ritual. Between sections on the test, I lean back in my chair, close my eyes, and take 10 paced breaths. A paced breath is one where the exhale is longer than the inhale. So, it’s like breathing in for two counts, holding for two, and then exhaling for four counts.

This technique from yoga activates the parasympathetic nervous system. If your exhale is longer than your inhale, your parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the body’s relaxation response, gets activated. This is beneficial because it raises your baseline level of calm every 30 minutes during the test. If you’re already feeling anxious and high-strung, the first time you come across something unfamiliar, or if something doesn’t go as planned, you might lose focus and become sidetracked.

However, if you’re calm, you can maintain your strategy longer, even if things don’t immediately go your way. So, it’s essential to keep investing in our ability to remain calm. One way to do that is through paced breathing exercises.

I also do things in as many different ways as possible, opposite to what I had been doing for the last 30 minutes. When I’m taking the test, my eyes are open, I lean forward, I’m tense, and I’m focused. During the break, I lean back and close my eyes. So, I shift from seeing or sensing to feeling. I change my posture on as many levels as I can, giving the neural networks associated with my test-taking behavior a break. This allows my mind to recharge.

A significant part of this ritual is letting go. For better or for worse—and I might have gotten everything right and shouldn’t second guess—it’s done. That section is in the past. As part of this breathing exercise, I visualize wrapping up that section in a little box with a bow and sending it off into the universe. It’s gone. That was then. Near the end of the break, I begin to reorient myself toward the future. If the next section is, for example, the verbal section, I remind myself of my general strategies: I’ll tackle the vocab-based questions first, then the reading comprehension, followed by any logical reasoning questions.

On a vocab-based question, I’m going to look for synonym pairs in the answer choices. First, I’ll eliminate those that have synonym pairs in text completions and those that do not include equivalents. Then, I will look for key and trigger words. I know all this by heart, but what I’m doing is sort of like warming up the approaches, the process that I’m about to use, to sort of rev the engine before the green light signals the beginning of the race. So that’s the ritual I’ve hit upon. It helps me; it grounds me, relaxes me, revitalizes me, and reorients me to what is to come.

Davis: Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. We’ll be back next week with another bite-sized episode of GRE Bites. If you have a topic you’d like discussed on a future episode, let us know at stellargre@gmail.com. And if you’re ready to take your prep to the next level, check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships there. Talk to you soon.

Davis: Hey everybody, this is GRE Bites. My name is Davis, and I’m an educator with over ten years of experience.

Orion: And I’m Orion, the founder of StellarGRE.

Davis: We’re here to bring you your weekly bite-sized episode on GRE prep and grad school admissions. Check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. And don’t forget, you can use the code “BITES” for 10% off any membership.

Alright, let’s get into it. Exciting times. Once again, we have another user-submitted, listener-submitted question. Caitlyn, this is her second question as well. I’ll read it from the email. It’s very detailed, and I appreciate your thoroughness in asking your questions. She says, “In Episode 25 of GRE Bites, you provide a number of practical recommendations for what to do the day before the test. Are there any additional pre-performance psych tips you’d like to recommend before a test? Or for someone going to an acting audition, playing in a playoff, or a championship game? How about for an Olympic athlete or a team going to the Olympic Games? Do you have any favorite recommendations for being clutch in high-pressure moments, such as when the bases are loaded in the bottom of the ninth, either as the hitter or the pitcher? Or going into the final hole with a chance to win or lose the golf tournament?” Alright, Orion?

Orion: It’s a great question. On some level, we can think of the GRE as an academic Olympiad. You are competing against the best and brightest from all over the world to become doctors. It is a normalized exam, which means that the scaled scores are adjusted to accommodate the actual performance of your competition, similar to how professors might curve grades in high school or college. The competition is fierce, especially in this modern age where it’s at a global level. So, comparing the GRE to the Olympics isn’t necessarily a far-fetched idea. It’s crucial to stay focused and composed during these situations.

Davis: You’ve used the word “frosty” before. I just want to make sure I understand. “So frosty,” “stay cool,” “increase your baseline chill”—what do these mean to you? Help unwrap this for people.

Orion: I think it means being appropriately activated physiologically. I don’t mean that you’re sluggish or unresponsive, which you might infer from terms like “chill,” “frosty,” or “cold.” However, the more anxious a salesperson becomes, the more inappropriately physiologically activated he or she tends to become. That activation can disrupt the over-rehearsed performance that person is there to do.

So, one of the best ways to stay calm in a clutch moment is, on some level, to have a “fuzzy focus” with respect to the moment. Or, to put it another way, to not really focus on what’s going on. It might be the bottom of the ninth with bases loaded and down by three, but on some level, it’s in your best interest not to dwell on that or prioritize it.

It’s not a great idea for a therapist to say, “Don’t do this,” without suggesting an alternative. When told, “Don’t think about pink elephants,” suddenly, that’s all anyone can think about. So, I can’t just advise against something; I also have to recommend an alternative. That’s why it’s essential to have those grounding rituals we discussed in a previous episode.

It’s like watching Steph Curry at the free throw line. He dribbles the ball twice, with his mouthguard conspicuously hanging out the side of his mouth. He does this, I assume, whether it’s in an empty gym when he’s practicing his free throws or in game seven of the championship. And why wouldn’t he? It’s that behavior that got him to the championship game. Clearly, it’s working. Now is not the time to deviate from that system or to experiment. You want to do what you’ve done 100,000 times and has demonstrated sufficient success to keep doing it. This allows Steph to focus on the dribble, to focus on the mouthguard, instead of game seven. He’s not focusing — I mean, I can’t know for sure, but I assume — on the score, the championship trophy, the sponsorship deals, or everything that’s at stake. He’s focusing on dribbling the ball and going through the motions and the ritual that he has cultivated over thousands and thousands and thousands of repetitions.

Davis: Now, that’s right. Just like in the “Men Until Recharge” episode where we talked about utilizing the park screen to, for example, change your posture and alter how you’re engaging your senses and physiology, Caitlyn is specifically asking about, for instance, the pregame day. She’s also referring to those clutch moments, which we can discuss further. But for the day before the GRE, do you have any specific recommendations to mention?

Orion: Well, at that point, you’ve done all the preparation you’re going to do for that test. There’s not one more word you need to memorize the day of the test that will make any significant difference in your performance. So, at this point, it’s about taking care of yourself. This means getting a good night’s sleep, engaging in some exercise to get the blood flowing and the focus sharp, and having a nourishing breakfast or lunch, depending on the time of day. I’d also suggest doing a few practice problems to warm up before you go into the test. You don’t want the first problems you tackle that day to be the ones that count. This is akin to sports; before a game, players do easy layups to get back in the groove, and you’ll want to do the same. It’s crucial to maintain a positive expectation, to visualize yourself succeeding, to see yourself navigating the test effortlessly, and achieving the results you desire. This is often discussed in sports psychology as “quiet eye” time. The more time you spend visualizing what you’re actually going to be doing with your mind and body before you do it, the more likely your mind and body will execute as you intended. Does that make sense?

Davis: No, that makes perfect sense. And that ties right in. I’m not particularly into mainstream sports myself, but I have competed at an international world level in martial arts. You knew that. But then, this point about visualization is something I just wanted to emphasize. We’ve talked about this in a number of ways before. He mentioned, first, establishing a “chill baseline,” which involves engaging your physiology in a good way.

So often, when a big event is approaching—whether it’s game day, a major tournament, or the GRE—it’s common and natural for the human psyche to become overwhelmed. One might start reflecting on everything that hinges on this moment, all the potential future outcomes, as well as any past regrets or anxieties related to preparation. This can lead to a spiral of “what ifs”.

And so it happens: we, as human beings, have a tendency to pull from past experiences and project into the future. Much of what you’re discussing is about finding a way to center oneself in the present moment, focusing on what’s necessary right then and there. This principle holds true for sports as well as larger life decisions.

Visualization is an incredibly powerful practice. I can attest to its efficacy firsthand. There’s also merit in the idea of “clearing the slate”. Using breath work helps to let go of extraneous thoughts about the “what ifs”, future uncertainties, or past regrets. By the time you’re in the moment, you’ve prepared as much as you could. Prime the pump, so to speak: ground yourself with a few practice questions or visualization exercises, picturing yourself succeeding. Then, direct your focus solely to the present, as if you were simply practicing. Whether you’re taking the GRE or participating in a game, approach it as if you’re giving your best in a normal event.

Orion: Yeah, you had a lot of good stuff there. Davis and I want to highlight, in particular, another antidote to focusing on all the things that your performance hinges on. Instead of imagining the future or remembering the past, it’s important to stay grounded and focused in the present moment. That’s because the outcome is shaped by the process. The more we focus on the outcome, the less we pay attention to the process, and consequently, the more we jeopardize the outcome. Paradoxically, when we shift our attention away from the outcome and concentrate on the process, we increase our chances of achieving the desired outcome.

Davis: Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. We’ll be back next week with another bite-sized episode of GRE Bites. If you have a topic you’d like discussed on a future episode, let us know at stellargre@gmail.com. And if you’re ready to take your prep to the next level, check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships there. Talk to you soon.

Davis: Hey everybody, this is GRE Bites. My name is Davis, and I’m an educator with over ten years of experience.

Orion: And I’m Orion, the founder of StellarGRE.

Davis: We’re here to bring you your weekly bite-sized episode on GRE prep and grad school admissions. Check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. And don’t forget, you can use the code “BITES” for 10% off any membership.

Alright, so today’s question, and the topic of discussion, is something I don’t think we’ve touched upon in previous episodes at all, really. Which is a question for you, Orion, how to get the appropriate accommodations while taking the GRE. What’s that process like, talking about things like time and a half, double time, or a room to yourself?

Orion: Sure, yeah, there are lots of different accommodations that students can receive when taking the GRE. And for better or for worse, the process of obtaining those accommodations is or can be long and expensive. And we can see why this might be the case, because there is a whole gamut of people who are attempting to secure accommodations for themselves on this test. And that spans from folks who, let’s say, very legitimately need these accommodations, to those who are simply trying to game the system to make the test-taking experience a little bit easier, so that they can secure a higher score for themselves. And so, the accommodations process is rather difficult to pass through because it has sort of a filtering function to try to screen out those who may not legitimately need the accommodations but may want the accommodations.

Davis: So where would someone scheduling a GRE first encounter the option to even pursue accommodations?

Orion: Yeah, so in order to schedule a test with accommodations on the ETS portal, a student needs to have already been approved for that accommodation by ETS. And that process can take several months to accomplish. Let’s walk through what that looks like. Basically, a student who is looking for accommodations needs to petition those accommodations from the staff of psychologists who work at ETS. They look at these petitions in the order in which they are received. And there’s generally a very long backlog, especially later in the year, which is when people tend to take the GRE. So the sooner you start this process, the better.

Now, what I’ve seen in the many years of helping folks prepare for the GRE is typically some students incorrectly assume that, let’s say, just because they received some testing accommodations in high school or college, that that will automatically apply to the GRE. And that is not the case. In fact, that very rarely happens in my experience.

Davis: So if it’s appropriate, can you give any examples of definite shoo-in cases where it’s going to be very clear, very delineated that yes, these are accommodations versus not?

Orion: Yeah, very clear shoo-in cases would be those with, let’s say, sensory deficits, like if you’re blind. Or if you have mobility issues, those are going to be much easier to approve because they’re less related to, let’s say, the student psychology. And most of the accommodations sought are based on some form of psychiatric diagnosis, usually things like ADHD or learning disabilities. And that’s probably how these students received accommodations in high school and college.

So if you’re one of these students who historically has received accommodations for, let’s say, ADHD or learning disabilities, which are the most common reasons for seeking accommodations on the GRE, you have to understand that those diagnoses may no longer be considered currently valid, let’s put it that way. You might not be able to say, “I got this diagnosis 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and it’s still the case today,” because people mature and people change.

And so what I would highly encourage folks to do is, like, I have a more or less a shoo-in process for getting those accommodations, but again, it takes time and it’s very expensive. Basically, what you should do is seek a testing bed from a licensed psychologist, and these, unfortunately, can run between one and $2,000. And they take usually a couple of days to just complete the tests, and then several weeks to complete the report.

But basically, to get a diagnosis of ADHD or LD, you basically need to take a battery of both aptitude tests and achievement tests, in the case of ADHD, maybe some executive functioning tests, to show that there is some sort of discrepancy between, let’s say, your innate ability, that’s your aptitude, and your actual performance, which is your achievement. And that’s the basis for these diagnoses. And you kind of want that official current report from a licensed psychologist, that’s going to get the attention of the psychologists on staff at ETS. Also, especially if you’ve only been recently out of school, if you received accommodations in college, you should contact your Office of Student Services and request a letter that basically delineates the accommodations you did receive in that academic context. Those two things, the report based on a complete psychological battery from a licensed psychologist, in conjunction with a letter of previous accommodations from your college, is your best possible chance of securing accommodations on the GRE.

Again, this could take several months; it takes about a month to just complete the psychological report before you can submit it, and then it can take, I don’t know, one to four months, depending on how busy the staff is, to actually review your case. And only then, once you’re approved, can you schedule the test, which, you know, depending on the time of year, might be another few weeks out from that approval date. So this is a process that really does need to get started sooner as opposed to later.

Davis: Thanks a lot for that. You’ve mentioned that it’s expensive. And is that particularly pertaining to this third-party psychology test? Are there also fees associated with the process?

Orion: No, there are no fees associated with that. It’s most of the psychological battery that’s very expensive. And one more thing to keep in mind is that a lot of folks, as we’ve said on this podcast, they struggle with the time limit. The hardest part of this test absolutely is the fact that you have to answer every question in 90 seconds functionally. And a lot of students think, well, if I had twice as much time, this test would be so much easier than it currently is.

And on some level, you’re right, it would be. However, when you get a double-time accommodation, you’re really kind of swapping one problem for another because now, instead of a four-hour test, you have an eight-hour test, so that you’re swapping, like, let’s say, efficiency within the time limit for endurance over an eight-hour time period.

So it’s like pick your poison. There’s really no perfect solution here. So that’s just something to keep in mind is that accommodations aren’t necessarily a silver bullet in a lot of cases.

Davis: Thanks a lot, Orion. That’s very informative. I hope that helps our listeners.

Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. We’ll be back next week with another bite-sized episode of GRE Bites. If you have a topic you’d like discussed on a future episode, let us know at stellargre@gmail.com. And if you’re ready to take your prep to the next level, check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships there. Talk to you soon.

Davis: Hey everybody, this is GRE Bites. My name is Davis, and I’m an educator with over ten years of experience.

Orion: And I’m Orion, the founder of StellarGRE.

Davis: We’re here to bring you your weekly bite-sized episode on GRE prep and grad school admissions. Check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. And don’t forget, you can use the code “BITES” for 10% off any membership.

So, today’s topic I want to ask you about, Orion, is the many different approaches to preparing for the GRE. Someone could, you know, wing it themselves, just buying a book off the shelf, or someone could wing it themselves, just going in cold. There are group classes in person, which are coming back online more and more since COVID. There are also a plethora of, now you know, mobile apps available.

And of course, there’s also, you know, traditional good old-fashioned hiring an expert for single, sit-down, private tutoring, which can be in person or, you know, online. So, specifically with that last one, when should someone who’s preparing for the GRE really consider the advantages and dive in to paying for private tutoring?

Orion: It’s a great question, and you’re running the risk of asking a barber if you need a haircut. But my answer might surprise you. I don’t think that private tutoring is a good option for a lot of folks.

Let’s just say this to begin with: Nobody needs a private tutor. Like, I didn’t have a private tutor to prepare for this test. When I took the test, I was a broke artist living in New York City; I couldn’t even afford to buy the books.

So, I would go into the Barnes and Noble in Union Square, take one GRE prep book down, go into the café, and do all the problems on the little bev napkins in the café, until I did all the problems in that book. Then I’d put it back on the shelf and take down the next book, and do all the problems in that book. And I repeated this until I got through the whole shelf of materials. And I learned from my mistakes. And I learned by doing. I didn’t spend a lot of time reading the theory associated with the various test prep companies; I mostly focused on doing. And that’s how I improved a great deal. And that’s certainly something that anyone can do. It costs no money, just a little time and initiative.

Davis: How long did that process take you, though?

Orion: I didn’t have a lot of other things to do at the time, I’ll be honest; that’s part of why I was broke. So, I think I did that over about a month. I was very dedicated. It was something that I wanted to do. I felt confident in my ability to learn from my mistakes. I’m generally a very disciplined and focused person. So, it was easy for me to be self-directed. I understand that’s not true for everybody. But if you are, absolutely, that’s a route that you can take.

Davis: That was my next question: was, you know, is that a route that you would recommend at large? Or, you know, you started by saying, you know, you’re risking asking a barber for a haircut. And then you’re saying that you were able to do it, just methodically, free time over a month, going through everything and kind of gleaning it. And that was really, as I understand it, the birth of StellarGRE and the approach that you’ve put into our study guide. You said it’s not an approach for many people. But, what in private tutoring, that is, but when would it be an appropriate approach?

Orion: Yeah. It was the birth of StellarGRE. But the approaches that I teach in the manual only really evolved organically over years of teaching. So, that’s also one of the best ways to learn: by teaching it to somebody else. So, if you are going through this process, and you have a friend or a loved one who’s willing to subject their time to your studies, you might try to teach them a few things. That really helps to consolidate your own process.

In general, I recommend in life that you try to take yourself as far as you can on your own before hiring an expert or hiring a professional. That’s because professionals are very expensive, obviously. But by going through this process of taking yourself as far as you can on your own, you’ll also be able to provide the expert with much more useful information about what you need. Because by then, you should know kind of what you understand and what you don’t understand.

And so the time that you spend together will be very targeted and efficient, as opposed to just showing up from square one. The reason why tutoring is so much more expensive is that it’s by far the most efficient route to mastery. Like, I can do in an hour what somebody else might be able to do on their own in a week. So it’s that expensive because you’re saving time. If you want to take the long way, you’ll save money, but if you want to take the short way, you generally have to pay, right? So, I think that it’s useful to go through the self-study program, especially the Stellar self-study program.

Davis: Why?

Orion: Because everything that I sell in the self-study program is something that I would teach you in a private tutoring session. So, you get the vast majority of the system at less than the cost of a single private tutoring session.

So, when students reach out to me through the podcast often and say, hey, you know, I’d like to hire you for private tutoring. Alright, it sounds like you know what you’re talking about. I almost always recommend that they go through the self-study program first because I was going to teach them all that stuff anyway. They’ll save hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. And then, if they’re still not quite where they need to be, they might only need a session or two at the end of that process to really take care of a few different little tactical issues. So, it’s overall a much more efficient and economic option for folks.

Davis: So, for anybody out there who’s in the middle of their own self-study or another method, another approach to studying for the GRE, what’s a qualifier like? So, if they’re not reaching their target score on a practice test, is that pretty much?

Orion: Sure. I mean, if you go through the self-study program, your score will go up. Depending on where you’re starting from, and where you’re trying to get to, it may not go up enough on the time frame that you are desiring. So, at that point, it’s useful to reach out for private tutoring because really, we’re talking about achieving certain outcomes. We’re not here to just, like, spend time together; you know, we’re here to help you get what you want.

One other thing that I think is really great about the StellarGRE integrated method is that, for better or for worse, every system, or every tutor, kind of has their own way of doing things. So, if you were to say, take a self-study program through one of my competitors, and then call me up after you spent months moving through that process. Unfortunately, I might tell you to unlearn some of the things that you’ve spent the last few months learning and do things a very different way. What’s great about what I’m offering is that the self-study program is exactly what I would teach my private students. And so all the systems are integrated. So you’re not going to run the risk of having to unlearn things or go backwards, or serve two masters, as is sometimes the case if you go this route.

Davis: Now, that makes a lot of sense.

Orion: Thanks.

Davis: I mean, it’s akin to, you know, how to approach a mountain; there are some paths up the mountain, you realize the only way to actually get to the top that you are looking for is to actually go back down a little bit and have a different approach, if you will. Would you take a brief moment to just say, give a quick comparison between the pros and cons of, you know, a private tutor at that point at which you need versus like a group class setting?

Orion: I really like group classes. I used to teach a lot of them before the pandemic; they were a lot of fun, mostly because it made the process of preparing for standardized tests more tolerable. Like, people built relationships with the other folks in the class, which gave them sort of a motivation to keep working and to keep coming back.

So, group classes can be useful if you are, let’s say, more extroverted and less self-structured and self-directed, because that kind of culture that can develop when a class is well-run can really help motivate people to move through this process, which isn’t usually very pleasant and enjoyable. That said, group classes can really run the gamut. If you are scheduling a group class through, like, a big corporation, the teacher might have only had a couple of weeks of training, maybe isn’t a very experienced teacher. And that kind of culture may not really develop. It could, but it doesn’t necessarily; it doesn’t happen inevitably. You do need a teacher with experience who wants to nurture that kind of context for his or her students. But when that happens, it’s great for a lot of folks. If you’re really more introverted and focused, then group classes can be distracting. So, there are pros and cons to every approach.

Davis: Thanks, and maybe in a future episode, we can dive into those a little more.

Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. We’ll be back next week with another bite-sized episode of GRE Bites. If you have a topic you’d like discussed on a future episode, let us know at stellargre@gmail.com. And if you’re ready to take your prep to the next level, check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships there. Talk to you soon.

Davis: Hey everybody, this is GRE Bites. My name is Davis, and I’m an educator with over ten years of experience.

Orion: And I’m Orion, the founder of StellarGRE.

Davis: We’re here to bring you your weekly bite-sized episode on GRE prep and grad school admissions. Check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. And don’t forget, you can use the code “BITES” for 10% off any membership.

Orion, I wanted to ask you today about what might be a unique situation for some, but was not unique to me, at least when I joined your in-person class years back, which was, you know, the difference between approaching the GRE coming right out of college, going right into grad school, and being in the workforce for a number of years and then deciding, “Hey, you know what, I actually do want to see what my options are back in academia or get a different degree for a different profession.” So, what is your perspective? Any suggestions, any tips, tricks? For those of us who come back to the GRE after some time off?

Orion: It’s a good question. Folks of all walks of life can take the GRE. When I was teaching my in-person classes in San Francisco for many years, I would say about a quarter of my students were either still in college undergrad, or they had graduated in the past year. And this is one way to go about doing this. These folks generally were actually not interested in going right into grad school. But their mind was, “Well, I’m a student now. I’m kind of in the habit of taking tests and preparing for tests. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to strike while the iron is hot, I’ll take this test now while I’m still in student mode, get the score that I need. And I’ll just put it in my back pocket because scores are valid for five years. And within five years, if I did go back to grad school, I think I’m going to go back within the next five years.” And that’s actually a decent strategy.

However, I think the average age of my student was around 26, which suggests that they’ve been out of school for several years. That’s because about half of the folks who took my program were seeking an MBA. And MBAs are different from, let’s say, Ph.D. grad programs. MBAs really do want to see real-life professional experience on your resume or your CV as part of the application process. That’s much less important if you’re going into, let’s say, a pure science Ph.D. track. They want to see if you’ve published, they want to see if you had a master’s, like an honors thesis, they want to see if you’ve presented or if you’ve worked in various laboratories. They don’t need to see real-world professional experience as much as, say, an MBA program does. Does that make sense?

Davis: Yeah. Yeah, that does make sense. So, in the case where you’re coming back after a time, you know, what are some steps to—it can be daunting—I mean, what are some steps to kind of dusting off those old study habits, that old mindset of being a student taking tests?

Orion: A lot of folks reach out to me after they have been out of school for many years, sometimes, I am contacted by students in their 40s, who are trying to do a career change in midlife. I went to grad school at 29. So this is kind of my second career.

So I know a little bit about that. I usually reassure these folks by saying it’s actually, in some respects, a benefit that you’ve been out of school for so long, because you’ve probably already forgotten a lot of the things that I would tell you to unlearn. Anyway. The fact of the matter is, is that, for example, on the quant section, which is generally where people are most concerned, everything that you need to get a perfect score you learned in seventh, eighth, and ninth grades; it’s arithmetic, which I don’t care how long it’s been since you’ve done math, you haven’t forgotten arithmetic. Algebra, but as we’ve seen, in the Stellar system, we reduce 99% of algebra into arithmetic by plugging in. So there’s really not algebra on the test, and geometry, but it’s not like formal proofs. It’s more like memorizing two dozen equations, and then transforming them into arithmetic by putting known values into these equations and solving for the unknown constant.

So the things that you actually need to know most people still know, even if they haven’t done math for 20 years. These folks can actually be easier to teach than folks who are directly out of undergrad because, frankly, the way that math and concepts like verbal concepts are taught in school are not the right or best way to approach on the GRE.

And a lot of folks, if they’ve just spent the last 18 years of their life approaching math problems in a certain way, they’re going to have a sort of rigidity, and sometimes willfulness against abandoning some of those approaches, even if they might not be adaptive for a time standardized tests, like the GRE. Whereas if I’m working with somebody who has been out of school for a long time, they’re almost like, “Yeah, I have no idea, just, I’m kind of a blank canvas, you can, you can actually, sometimes move faster with those students, because there’s less resistance to trying new and unconventional approaches.”

Davis: No, that makes a lot of sense. And I can definitely confirm what you’re saying, from personal experience that ability to, you know, at one point feel like, “Oh, my gosh, I haven’t like taken a standardized test in years, or any kind of test.” But then to be able to approach it with much more ease and acceptance.

Orion: Just looking at the raw data, which is, you know, which is incredible for Stellar GRE in the sense of your measured the measured metrics on improvement and success rate. There’s also something that is worth considering, which is, in traditional IQ tests, there’s a number of broad domains, and some of those domains decrease predictably with age.

But there’s one domain that predictably increases with age, and that has to do with crystallized knowledge, including vocabulary. So whereas if you’ve been out of school for a while, it’s likely if you have not been in a profession that requires quantitative analysis, that some of that will have decreased. But it’s also likely just because you’ve been an adult and a human being for longer, you’ve acquired more words, a broader vocabulary, and better and deeper reading comprehension. Because you’ve just been using language for much longer than some of the other folks. And that predictably increases with age. So that’s, it’s like a trade-off, you might lose some things here, but you might gain some things there.

Davis: I wonder what your thoughts are on, too, in terms of the emotional maturity or ability to practice mindfulness, which is so beneficial on the test when it comes to acting under pressure, under time constraints, that seems for me, at least, I know, as a student, that was more of a source of stress than coming back later, it was like, “Okay, this is just, you know, it was easier to deal with, because of that life experience as well.”

Orion: Well, if you’re 21, and 22, and all of your conscious life has been geared towards academic achievement. And this is just one more big test to determine what you believe to be your future, the rest of your life.

Davis: Yeah.

Orion: That’s putting a lot of emotional pressure. Versus a person who’s maybe 35-45 years old, they’re just going to say, “This is just an obstacle that I need. It’s a little formality that I need to check for this application, I’m going to do the best I can and then it’s going to be fine no matter what,” because they have more lived experience. And they understand that at the end of the day, this is just a standardized test. So yeah, it would make sense that they would deal with less anxiety than somebody in the first camp.

Davis: I would also point out that even coming back to it a little later, I think I was in my early 30s, when I went through your course. And those whatever cognitive decline I had in my 20s had no impact on my ability to still achieve within the 99th percentile coming out, so that’s great.

Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. We’ll be back next week with another bite-sized episode of GRE Bites. If you have a topic you’d like discussed on a future episode, let us know at stellargre@gmail.com. And if you’re ready to take your prep to the next level, check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships there. Talk to you soon.

Davis: Hey everybody, this is GRE Bites. My name is Davis, and I’m an educator with over ten years of experience.

Orion: And I’m Orion, the founder of StellarGRE.

Davis: We’re here to bring you your weekly bite-sized episode on GRE prep and grad school admissions. Check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. And don’t forget, you can use the code “BITES” for 10% off any membership.

Today, we’ve touched on it briefly in a previous episode, maybe two. But, you know, I think we mentioned once what getting a perfect score looks like in terms of its range. I thought it would be a good idea today to lay out the basic facts of the point structure on the GRE, what each section contains, and how many points each question is worth. Are there any pros and cons to skipping questions or leaving them blank versus guessing? Let’s get into that.

Orion: Great. So, to understand the point structure of the GRE, we first have to understand the structure of the GRE, which looks like this: You begin with the writing section, which is composed of two tasks – the “Analyze the Issue” and the “Analyze the Argument” tasks. That’s the first hour of every administration. After that, there will be 5 20-question sets. Whatever you get first will be random.

So, you’ll either get a quant or a verbal set first, and it will alternate from there. It could either be quant-verbal-quant-verbal-quant or verbal-quant-verbal-quant-verbal. Whichever you get three of, one of those three will be the experimental section, which will be unscored. However, it’s unlikely that you will know which one it is, so you kind of have to give your best on every section. That means, for the verbal, there are two scored 20-question sets, and for the quant, there are two scored 20-question sets. So, your overall verbal and quant scores are based on your performance on those 40 scored questions.

The test is also adaptive. Unlike the GMAT, it’s adaptive by section, which means how you perform on, say, the first scored verbal section will determine the relative difficulty level of the second scored verbal section. There are three different second sections you can encounter: we can call them easy, medium, and hard. To get into the top percentiles of scores, you need to have provoked the hardest second section for both the verbal and the quant.

So, there are 40 points each for verbal and for quant, making it 80 points total in terms of your overall score at the end. To tap into those hardest sections, you generally need to excel on your first verbal and your first quant section, aiming for 20 out of 20.

However, you don’t have to get a perfect score. The thresholds for provoking the hardest second sections vary. For example, to provoke the hardest second quant section, you need to answer at least 15 questions correctly on the first graded quant section. For the verbal, I believe you need to answer 14 questions correctly.

Davis: Great, that’s helpful information. For those first two writing sections, how many points are each of those worth?

Orion: So, before I answer that question, let’s talk about what points are. There are actually three different scores associated with the GRE: raw scores, scaled scores, and percentiles. For example, just a few moments ago, you mentioned that there are 40 points for the verbal section and 40 points for the quantitative section, etc. We can call those the raw scores. Raw scores represent the sheer number of questions you answer correctly, with one point awarded per question. It’s crucial to understand that hard questions aren’t worth more points than easy ones. Similarly, questions that take you longer aren’t worth more than those you answer quickly. Every question within the verbal and quant sections is worth the same one point. Those are your raw scores. However, you are never actually told what your raw scores are.

Davis: Students don’t see their raw score on their score report. You would only ever see your raw scores on your practice tests to have an idea of how that would then translate, right?

Orion: That’s correct. The easiest way to track your own progress as you’re preparing for the test is to track your raw scores, which is the sheer number of questions you’re getting right within the time limit. Obviously, that number should be going up. As your prep progresses, you should be answering more questions correctly within the time limit. Emphasizing “within the time limit” is really, really important. A lot of students don’t practice enough within the time constraint because they just want to feel like they can answer the questions. Unfortunately, they’re preparing for a test they’re not going to take, which often leads to some rude awakenings further down the road.

Davis: Great. So we’ve got the raw score, and then we’ve got the scaled score. We’ve already talked about how there’s like a 260, which is kind of the average. What’s the max score on the GRE? What’s the score threshold that’s considered good enough for grad school?

Orion: Sure. So, scale scores are an arbitrary metric. On the verbal and quant sections, they range from 130 to 170, which is a perfect score, in one-point increments. The mean for the verbal is 150, and the mean for the quant is 152. So, a perfect score would be a combined 340, and the 50th percentile would be right around 300. Now, the issue with scaled scores is that if you were to tell someone who wasn’t familiar with these metrics, “Hey, I got a 168,” they wouldn’t know if that’s good. It’s a meaningless number. It’s just a ruler that ETS created to measure the GRE. So, no one really knows what a scaled score means. That’s why, in combination with your scaled scores, you also receive percentile scores, which provide useful information. Your percentile scores tell you the proportion of people who took the same version of the test that you outscored. For all these scores — raw, scaled, and percentiles — higher is always better.

If you get a 50th percentile score, for example, that means you’re right in the middle: half the people who took this test scored lower than you, and half scored higher. For the 90th percentile, 90% scored lower than you. That’s an impressive score; you’re outperforming 90% of people around the world who are trying to become doctors.

Regarding the writing section, there is no raw score. The scaled score ranges from zero to six in half-point increments. And again, that’s a totally arbitrary metric. Therefore, the percentiles are really the useful information.

Davis: Now, that’s helpful. So, just for people to understand, if I’m remembering this correctly, and you’re reminding me, 260 is the lowest possible combined scaled score, and 340 is the highest possible scaled score. But again, unless you’re very familiar with the point structure of all these, which, if you’re tracking your raw score during practice tests, you might have more familiarity than others, the percentile is really what you’re going to be looking at. That’s the information that will come from an admissions office when they say, “This is the average score of people that get into the program,” if I remember correctly.

Orion: Usually, if admissions programs publish that data, it’s median scaled scores for successful applicants. Now, how to convert raw scores into scaled scores is actually kind of a closely guarded secret. ETS clearly has some kind of equation, where certain, you get, you get more points by provoking harder second sections, for instance. But they don’t publish this equation. Obviously, I’ve been able to more or less reverse engineer what I believe to be something plausible by examining the relationship between raw and scaled scores using the freely available power prep practice tests distributed by ETS. And I have created my own equation based on my best guess of what ETS does within the Stellar system. So you can see your raw scores when you’re taking your practice tests on StellarGRE, and we’ll also convert them into scaled scores. Converting scaled scores into percentiles is also freely available; just Google “GRE percentiles.” And like the first thing that pops up will be a PDF document published by ETS, which will on page two contain a table converting scaled scores into percentile scores. And so that’s not a mystery, but it is a mystery kind of how you go from raw to scaled scores.

Davis: Now, that’s really helpful. One quick note I didn’t realize is how much there is to delve into if you have a technical mind, to truly understand the bones of this. But one thing everyone should know is that there is no penalty for an incorrect answer. We’ve talked about skipping questions, going through on a first pass, then coming back. Ideally, every question should have a checked answer when you finish that section.

Orion: That’s right. We say that there’s no guessing penalty. That’s what it’s called in psychometrics. Unlike the LSAT, where there is a quarter-point penalty for getting a question wrong, on the GRE, there’s no penalty for answering a question incorrectly. This basically means that you should put in an answer for every single question, even if it’s just a wild, random guess. Because, why not?

Davis: That’s great. If you have any more questions about that, please shoot us an email at stellargre@gmail.com. We’d be happy to discuss this question or any others in future episodes.

Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. We’ll be back next week with another bite-sized episode of GRE Bites. If you have a topic you’d like discussed on a future episode, let us know at stellargre@gmail.com. And if you’re ready to take your prep to the next level, check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships there. Talk to you soon.

Davis: Hey everybody, this is GRE Bites. My name is Davis, and I’m an educator with over ten years of experience.

Orion: And I’m Orion, the founder of StellarGRE.

Davis: We’re here to bring you your weekly bite-sized episode on GRE prep and grad school admissions. Check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. And don’t forget, you can use the code “BITES” for 10% off any membership.

Alright, let’s get to it today. The opening question is very simple: Can you cram for the GRE? Orion, what do you think?

Orion: No. Thank you, everybody for tuning it. No, I’m just kidding.

Davis: So okay, so why doesn’t cramming work?

Orion: Yeah, it’s an interesting question. What do you really need to know to succeed on the GRE? I’ve said multiple times that everything you need to get a perfect score on the quantitative section can be written on the front and back of a regular-sized sheet of paper. Conceivably, you could learn that information in a day. My GRE manual, available to folks who buy memberships through stellar gre.com, is about 500 pages long. If you are industrious, you could read that in a week.

Davis: Okay, so you can get all the strategies and techniques in a short amount of time. So why isn’t it possible to cram for the GRE?

Orion: Well, there are a couple of bottlenecks. First and foremost is vocabulary. In my opinion, it’s not possible to learn thousands of new vocabulary words in, let’s say, a week. Generally speaking, vocabulary acquisition is the most time-consuming and onerous part of GRE prep. It’s something you should start sooner rather than later. Even if you’re not going to begin the prep in earnest, you can start by acquiring new vocabulary now.

Davis: Just as a reminder to everybody out there, when we talk about thousands of vocabulary words, we’re not necessarily saying you need to know each word, recognize it, and recite its definition; we’re also talking about understanding the general meaning. But even so, it’s true that you can’t cram.

Orion: Absolutely. In fact, most people study for the vocab aspect of the GRE incorrectly. That’s why I’ve attempted to correct this problem by releasing “Stellar GRE Vocab Flashcards,” a free vocab app available for download on the Apple Store and the Play Store, depending on your cell phone platform. This app helps students learn vocabulary in the manner they’ll actually use it on the GRE, which can significantly speed up the learning process. That said, even with these tools, it’s not feasible to learn thousands of words in just a week. So that’s a significant bottleneck.

Davis: That’s true. You mentioned that bottleneck, and I recall we’ve discussed others in previous episodes. The fact that this is a timed test makes it a game of seconds. From personal experience, mastering the pacing of a timed test requires practice over multiple test-taking sessions. Would you agree with that? Can you shed some light on this?

Orion: Absolutely. So, the reason why you really can’t cram for the GRE is that the GRE is not a test about “what”; it’s not a test of information. That would be an achievement test, like your driver’s license exam or the MCAT. If you’re studying to become a doctor, it’s about information, testing your knowledge base on specific information. If that were the case, it might be possible to cram for the GRE. But the GRE is not an achievement test; it’s an aptitude test. This means it’s not really a test about “what” but a test about “how”. Success on the GRE requires some knowledge, but it really, truly requires a process. It requires a “how”. This is procedural knowledge. Think about it like riding a bike. You could read a whole bunch of books about balance and the mechanics of what makes a bike move. But, there’s no substitute for actually getting on the seat and figuring out how to stay on the bike while it’s moving. It’s not something that can be taught in a text; it has to be experienced and embodied by the person in question.

Davis: No, that’s great. It brings me to a question: when you learn how to ride a bike, you have to actually get up and do it. For some people, that might mean trying four or five times before they get it, with someone helping them out. I remember teaching my kids how to ride; they each picked it up differently. But they all had to have that routine experience and exposure, repeating the process multiple times. So, considering an episode titled “Can You Cram?” where the answer was simply “no,” what is the average time necessary to really embed this procedural knowledge to a point where it’s comfortable?

Orion: Yeah, that’s the $64,000 question I get all the time. And it really depends. It depends on a student’s pre-existing aptitude. Most people have significant differences in, let’s say, their verbal and quant performance. This is often a good thing because it means they might need less prep, as they can target one section over the other. However, for someone who’s starting from scratch and needs help across the board, I generally recommend devoting three months to their study.

That’s why, in the StellarGRE self-study program, there’s a week-by-week protocol over a three-month timeline. This guides students through every aspect of their prep, such as which chapters to read and when, which quizzes to take, when to do the full-length mock exams, and so on. Everything is integrated into a three-month timeline, which I believe gives students ample time to practice the how.

And that’s also the basis for the reported score gains—the score improvements in the system over the course of a couple of months. Now, if this is true, if what I’m saying is correct—that success is really about the “how” and you can’t really teach it in a book—then why am I selling a book? Why am I selling a self-study program? Well, Stellar does something very different than all of my competitors, which, unfortunately, focus on the crystallized knowledge, the “what.”

So, if you read a chapter in the StellarGRE manual (and there are several chapters that are available for free if you go there today), you’ll see that after a brief description of the “what”, most of the chapter is a step-by-step modeling of the “how.” And then, there are immediately practice problems made available to the students to go through that same sequence of a solution on similar variations of the same problem. In order to consolidate the process. It’s not really about flashcards or the area of a trapezoid, or the definition of products. It’s about opportunities to get on the bike, opportunities to balance, opportunities to steer, because through that repetition, that procedure becomes embodied. And in order to have top performance on this test, the procedure—the “how”—needs to be embodied sufficiently so that you can move through this timed, standardized test with some degree of confidence and aplomb.

Davis: Now, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for explaining that. And there’s a lot more to learn. And we have other episodes as well that touch on this.

Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. We’ll be back next week with another bite-sized episode of GRE Bites. If you have a topic you’d like discussed on a future episode, let us know at stellargre@gmail.com. And if you’re ready to take your prep to the next level, check out our top-rated GRE self-study program at stellargre.com. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships there. Talk to you soon.