Tag: test preparation

Davis: Hey, everybody! Welcome back. This is GRE Bites. I’m Davis, an educator with over 10 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. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships.

Alright, let’s get into today’s topic. Hot topic. Big news. Anyone who’s following GRE news will know this: the GRE is changing. Ooh, boy. Effective September of this year, at least one thing that’s changing is that it will be significantly shorter: half the length, roughly, as what it is now. So, Orion, thoughts on how this will effect the StellarGRE study program? I mean, we got to cram a lot in here. What’s going on?

Orion: Yeah, this is big news. I just learned about it recently. You are correct: the new version of the GRE will go into effect starting September 22nd of this year. Students right now can book a testing experience after that date with the new version of the test. If you want to take the test before that date, you can still take the test in its current, four-hour format. But there’s going to be some significant changes.

So, as you mentioned, the most important – and probably the happiest – shift for most people is that the test is going to be half as long as it used to be. The current version is nearly four hours long. The next version will be two hours long. This is incredible. So how are they doing this? Well, they had to make some significant cuts. The writing section is going to be halved: they’re just throwing out the argument essay prompt. So students will begin the testing experience with the issue essay, and that’s the only essay they’ll have to write. So their writing score will simply be the scaled score of that one essay, as opposed to the average of the two.

Next, the test will still be adaptive. So students will move into what we assume to be four timed problem sets. The full details haven’t been released, but I assume they’re still going to alternate, and the first set will probably still be presented randomly. So it’ll either be verbal, quant, verbal, quant; or, quant, verbal, quant, verbal. Though, again, I’m not 100% sure about this.

All told, between the two scored sections in each half of the test, there will be 27 problems. Now ETS still hasn’t released the actual breakdown with respect to how many problems are in each section. Obviously, it’s an odd number, so it can’t be evenly split. But we can potentially say that there’s going to be 14 questions in the first section, and 13 questions in the second section. So that is a significant reduction: about a third of the questions are going away.

The test will still be adaptive. So how you perform on the first scored verbal section will determine the relative difficulty of the second scored verbal section. I assume there’s still going to be three different second sections – easy, medium, and hard – but, again, those details have not yet been released by ETS. The scoring, according to ETS, will be exactly the same, because they’re trying to create continuity with the previous scoring system. So scaled scores will still range from 130 to 170, in 1-point increments, and the conversion of raw to scaled scores, according ETS, will be normalized. That way, there will be a seamless continuity in the interpretation of scoring for universities.

This is huge: what ETS has said is that it’s not changing the content or the question types, which as a content creator was extremely relieving for me. Everything that the GRE currently tests, it will continue to assess. There won’t be any new content. They’re not deleting any content domains, and there’s not going to be any new question types. We’re still going to have sentence equivalences, text completions, multiple answers, etc. And they’re not introducing any new question types. So diagnosis will remain the same as in the current Stellar System, as far as we’re aware. That means that all the strategies and techniques that are currently applicable to the version of the test that we have today will continue to be applicable in the new version of the test.

Obviously, the shorter test will mean a different balance in, let’s say, efficiency versus accuracy. ETS has said that, even with the shorter sections, there’s not going to be more time per question. So based on the number of questions in the set, the total time will be prorated relative to the current pro rata: which is 90 seconds for each verbal question, and a minute and 45 seconds for each quant question. So the sections will be shorter, but they’ll be shorter proportionally. What this means, however, is that – because there’s going to be fewer questions and the scoring will remain the same – each question is kind of more important.

In the current version of the test, a student could conceivably even miss a question or two, at least on the verbal section and still get a perfect scaled score. That will likely no longer be the case. We’ve seen, in the current version of the test, really steep drop-offs. On the quant section, you have to get them all right to get a perfect score. If you miss one, you’re probably already down to a 167. It’s a really steep drop. And so there’s probably going to be an even steeper drop relative to the ceiling of the test on a quant section with fewer questions. Efficiency will remain important – because, like I said, the prorate per question will remain constant – but accuracy will be even more important than it currently is, because you will have even less wiggle room than you did before. So my hunch here is that it’s going to be even more important for students to track their carelessness and come up with appropriate fail-safes.

Davis: Now, that’s a lot of good information. And it is a relief: not just for you, but for everyone who’s been studying or preparing. The longer version of the test will stop being available, as of September?

Orion: Yeah, as far as I’m aware, you wouldn’t be able to take the test after September 22nd in its current form.

Davis: So why would a student take this current version?

Orion: Well, it depends. It could be that this summer is when the student has to prepare for the test. And even though it might be more beneficial, in some respects, to wait: there’s no time like the present. If you have the availability and the willingness, sometimes it makes sense to make use of that window, because life can throw you curve balls. Further down the road, some unforeseen circumstances could arise – this happens all the time – that mislay your best-intended plans.

If you have deadlines that don’t accommodate the new test’s release date, then you’ll probably have to take the current version of the test. All of the testing conditions remain the same: you still have to wait three weeks between subsequent administrations, and you can only take the test five times in each 365 day period. So if you, let’s say, took the test in late September, and you wanted to be able to have a buffer to take a second test – in, let’s say, mid-October – and then you want to wait a couple of weeks to ensure they release your official scores to your programs: then, if your test date is before November 1st, that’s going to get a little tight in terms of the timeline. You’d have to take the test, like, exactly when it’s released, exactly at the three-week point, and hope that everything goes right with the dissemination of your scores. Though ETS does say that, in this new version, it hopes to release scores more quickly than two weeks. But the word is still out on just how quick that’s actually going to be. So that’s one reason why you might want to take the current version.

And if you’re doing very well in your prep, and you like the idea of having a greater question buffer, then it makes sense to take the current version of the test. When I earned my perfect score, it was in an in-between period between the old version of the test and its current version. And even though I could have taken the newer version, I actually decided to take the older version, because that’s what I had been trained on. And I thought that, given the question types and the structure, I had a slightly better chance of acing that test than the new version. And it was a gamble that paid off. So this is going to be a good thing for a lot of people, but – like any change – there’s no such thing as a unilateral positive. It’s going to come with, you know, a suite of pros and cons.

Davis: Well, thanks a lot for giving us that introductory material to the change. We’ll do another episode on why it’s changing and on some of the other effects. Big news, but also good news: content is the same, question types are the same. So all prep that has been done so far is mostly translatable – if not all translatable – to the new testing experience, which will begin September 22nd of 2023.

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, which is still relevant and will adapt with the changes coming. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships there. Talk to you soon.

Davis: Hey, everybody! Welcome back. This is GRE Bites. I’m Davis, an educator with over 10 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. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships.

Alright, let’s get to the topic of the day. We know that, to prep for the GRE, you’ve got to study the material, and you’ve got to run through actual practice problems. Maybe even, you know, taking whole sections – entire quant and verbal sections at a time – and practicing on the essay. Well, I want to ask you, Orion, specifically at what point in your study process and how many times over the course of your prep do you want to engage in taking the full four-hour test?

Orion: That is an excellent question. And it’s something that is very important for all students to do. The GRE, in its current form, is an endurance test. It takes about four hours to complete. If students are just doing one-off questions, if they’re grinding through thousands of disconnected problems using some of my competitors’ resources, they get a very disjointed experience of the test. It’s not enough to just be able to solve a problem. Obviously, each problem is a little puzzle. It’s very satisfying to be able to solve it. But if you can’t solve that problem in 90 seconds or less, you kind of can’t solve it. And if you can’t solve that problem in 90 seconds or less, 100 of them in a row, you’re actually not really preparing for the test that you’re going to be forced to take, whether you like it or not.

So it is very important to gradually move in the direction of sitting for full-length mock tests as your prep progresses. So it’s a good idea. We do this in this Stellar product, as well. You start by reinforcing specific strategies and techniques. And then you rehearse specific types of problems: there’s a time and a place for that. And then you move into full problem sets: i.e., completing 20 quant or verbal problems within the indicated time limit. And then you string those sets together into longer and longer sequences – finally culminating in the full-length test with the two essays and the five sections. So far, so good?

Davis: Yeah, that makes sense. So you said there’s a certain time for each of these different modes of study. And so at what point do you want to embark on…

Orion: Yeah, you want to do it later on in your prep. And there’s a couple of good reasons for this. Practically speaking, unfortunately, there’s not a lot of good full-length practice tests available. You can download two for free at ets.org/gre, called the PowerPrep tests. Those are obviously the gold standard, because they’re created by the publishers of the test. They’re adaptive, and the sections are curated by question. Like, they’re very intentionally constructed.

We do that at Stellar, as well: you have an adaptive test, and each section is curated. I put the questions in each section intentionally to create certain difficulty levels. A lot of my competitors don’t do that. What they do is just randomly populate these sections with questions more-or-less of a certain difficulty level. It mostly works, but it isn’t exactly the same experience. So we want to save the full-length practice tests for later on in our prep. Because if we use the good stuff too early, we kind of lose the validity of that experience too soon. So we have five through Stellar and two through ETS. That’s seven, and that’s probably more than enough for students to do.

The other good reason why you should do it later on in your prep is that it’s important not to reinforce the wrong thing. You cannot do something over and over again, and get worse at it. So if you’re doing these full-length tests at the beginning – before, say you’ve learned about skipping. or you’ve learned about diagnosing, or you’ve learned certain time efficiency techniques – what you’re going to be doing is reinforcing maladaptive approaches to the test. What we want is for students to reinforce and rehearse what they should be doing on the test before they actually take the test. And that generally means you have to spend some time learning what you should do o the test first. That makes sense, right?

Davis: No, that makes total sense: not, you know, drilling in or solidifying bad habits or bad practices. That makes sense. I do want to ask though: is there any place, for example, for taking something like a practice test, right at the beginning of studying for the GRE, to get a baseline, and then going into this specialized course of study?

Orion: That’s a good point, Davis. It’s really important to collect a baseline on your current abilities before you even start your test prep journey. Best case scenario: you’re already scoring at or around where you need to with respect to your target schools, and you can bypass the test prep ordeal entirely. That would be great. It would be very frustrating to learn that you put in two or three months of effort unnecessarily. That’s fairly rare, to be honest, but it is a case that’s worth exploring.

So it’s a good idea to collect a baseline. You don’t necessarily have to do that with a full-length mock test. I think you can get a pretty decent idea of your baseline by completing a single quant problem set and a single verbal problem set. Just do 20 problems of each within the relevant time limits. And that should give you a pretty decent snapshot into your current ability. I don’t think there’s a dire necessity to take a full-length test when you first start out.

Davis: No, that’s great. And that’s what I remember: just one section of each to get that baseline, but within the appropriate time frame. And so, you know, you said seven tests total: that’s probably more than enough for a given person. So, let’s say, you know, just projecting out: you’ve got eight weeks. You take your baseline when you start, week one. Maybe by week four, you’ve gotten some of these strategies, you’ve gotten individual sections down within time, you know? And then how close to week eight? I mean, is that the last thing you’re doing before you take the real test: taking a full-length test?

Orion: Well, you definitely don’t want to take a full-length test the night before you take the real test. That’s not a great idea. In the three-month study plan that I have delineated in the Stellar program, as I mentioned, there are five full-length mock exams, and they come in around week eight. I think that you do one a week until the final week, when there’s not a lot of new material and it’s just about consolidation of your system at that point. And then there’s two. But you definitely want to practice for that sustained endurance and concentration necessary for a top-percentile score.

Davis: No, great. And just a clarification: I’ve been using eight weeks as a framework, a two-month thing, but you’re right. So in that case, if someone was doing it in eight weeks, it would come in around week six. But in a three-month, in a 12-week course, you’re saying?

Orion: Yeah, around two-thirds of the way through, something like that. That’s right.

Davis: Okay. That’s great. Thank you for that question and response.

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! Welcome back. This is GRE Bites. I’m Davis, an educator with over 10 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. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships.

Alright, let’s get into today’s topic, which is contrary to what we’ve talked about a lot, with respect to time management: a game of seconds, not having enough time. I wanted to acknowledge that there’s an experience some people have where they get to the end of a section, and maybe they have a minute or so or two minutes left. What should a person do? Even on the writing section? What should a person do if they feel like they have too much time on any given section of the GRE?

Orion: It’s a great question. You’re right, it’s a good problem to have. Most people have the opposite problem. They don’t have enough time. I would say that if you’re finishing a verbal or a quant section, and you have one or two minutes left: congratulations! That’s actually exactly where you want to be. If you’re finishing with about a minute left, it means that you paced yourself absolutely correctly. With a minute left, you’re no longer rushing at the last second to answer that last question or two. And you also probably didn’t sprint through the section, which likely would have increased your careless error rate.

So when we talk about having too much time, I’m not thinking about a minute or two. That’s actually a really good problem to have. That’s not a problem at all. Actually, what I’m talking about is that sometimes there are some hot shots out there, and they finish with ten or even fifteen minutes left on the clock. It’s possible. I’ve gotten perfect scores on the test in half the available time. And some people are just very, very confident in one or the other section of the test, and they just plow through. So what to do under those circumstances?

Well, until you’re getting a perfect score on those sections consistently, it makes sense to me to take as much of the available time as possible to ensure that you’re not making any careless errors. I mean, if you’re a hotshot, and you can finish the sections in half the time, you’re probably scoring in the high 160s. But you may not yet be getting a perfect score. Why go through all of this prep, why schedule a four-hour test that costs you hundreds of dollars, just to get out of the test ten minutes earlier than you otherwise would? To my mind, use those extra ten minutes to give yourself every possible chance of getting the highest possible score that you can, namely: a perfect score.

Davis: Thanks for clarifying that. That makes a lot of sense. The test is a game where I have to really just go as fast as I can while being as accurate as I can. You mentioned the word “paced” earlier. If you’re pacing yourself well, and you get through and you have a minute or so at the end, that’s not too much time. It’s not necessary, in other words, to feel rushed in every section to be able to get a perfect score.

Orion: Absolutely. I talk about this in the program. You should never feel rushed. When you’re taking the GRE, if you know your strategies, if you have your system down, you should never feel rushed. But you should also never hesitate. So there’s this balance of, like, perfect poise and responsiveness at every step of every problem. If you’re in that sweet spot, if you’re on the razor’s edge of the present moment, you will never feel like you don’t have enough time – because you’ll consistently come in right under the time limit, at about a minute or two, if you follow the strategies that I lay out in the manual.

So what I suggest doing is, if you are in the mid- to high-160s, almost certainly the reason why you’re not yet at a perfect score is because of your own carelessness. So you have to understand that you get the material, you understand the vocab, you’re fine with the math. In fact, you are the primary source of error at that point. On some level, you are your own worst enemy. You know how to do all the questions.

So if you’re going to get a question wrong, it’s because you’re going to miss something silly. You’re going to miss a negative sign. You’re going to transcribe a number incorrectly. You’re going to miss a small, but important word in the question. And if developing fail-safes, if going through questions a little bit more slowly and more carefully reduces one out of 100 careless errors? Well, that could be the difference between getting a 167 and a 170. And I think those 10 “additional” minutes well-spent in the context of your total test prep experience.

Davis: Awesome. So rather than approaching the test with a strategy of “go as fast as I can, get through the section as fast as I can, and if I have time, you know, go back and double check,” that’s a much poorer strategy than pacing oneself, and trying to arrive at the end of each section with a comfortable one-to-two minutes to just kind of relax.

Also, I want to point out, I remember, that on writing sections, for example, word count is huge. The higher the word count, you know? So the time spent there: just continue and use up the whole time?

Orion: Yeah, when I used to teach my class, I would make this tongue-in-cheek flowchart on the board when somebody asked, “What should I do if I have more time on the writing section?” And the flow chart had one arrow from “Do I have more time?” to “Yes.” And one arrow from “Yes.” to “Write more.”

There’s absolutely no reason why you wouldn’t benefit from a higher total word count on the essay. So if you finished your well-crafted, thesis-based, five-paragraph essay in 20 minutes, and you have 10 minutes left over, great! You’re just going to be adding some copy for the next 10 minutes, and you can increase your total word count by potentially 50%. And on the writing section, you can always add fluff before your intro, and after your outro. So you can leave your core five-paragraph essay intact. And you can just add more context both before and after you actually get into the response, proper. Does that make sense?

Davis: No, yeah, that makes a lot of sense for the writing section. Also, this gets into the question of verbal sections, where you’re reading. How much time do you want to take on reading? Do you want to, like, skim through that? Or is there a time to really just take the time to read the whole thing?

Orion: Yeah, that’s a great question. And it’s hard to know. As you’ll recall, we always skip around in the verbal section by question type. So we would take care of all of the vocab-based questions first. And there’s going to be 10 of them, it’s going to be half the section. Once you’re done with that, you’ll know exactly how many questions you have left, across how many different passages, and exactly how much time.

So, at that stage, you can do some quick calculations: “Okay, I have three passages to read, for a total of nine reading comp questions, and I have 18 minutes left, so I can spend about six minutes per bundle, which means I can spend three minutes or so reading this passage.” You can do some real fast, back-of-the-napkin calculations that way, because that will help you to determine how closely you get to read the passages.

Obviously, with less time, you have to accommodate to that reality, and read the passages a little bit more casually. And that’s okay, because, remember: most of the passage is going to be completely irrelevant to any of the questions you’re subsequently asked. If you feel like you have to understand the passage, that’s actually your anxiety talking. You don’t. You have to understand it on a gist level for passage as a whole problems, and you need to be familiar enough with the passage that you’ll know where to go back to read for detail based on the questions you’re subsequently asked. So you do get a second pass at certain parts of the passage. You don’t have to understand it all.

Davis: Now that helps a lot. So just to recap: use your time wisely, pace yourself, no need to rush, but also don’t hesitate.

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! Welcome back. This is GRE Bites. I’m Davis, an educator with over 10 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. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships. Let’s get to it.

Okay, so in a recent episode, we talked about the fact that the GRE is changing, coming September of 2023: coming in at roughly half the length, but with the same content and same form. So we want to get into a little bit about why this is changing, why this change is taking place. So I want to get your thoughts on these subjects, Orion.

Orion: Sure. So first we’ll talk about the official line from ETS. The official line from ETS is that the test is changing to accommodate the student. And there might be some truth to that. The president of ETS has basically said, “we’re listening to the students. The students have complained that the test is needlessly long. We are receptive to our audience, and to our customers. And so, while maintaining the rigor and validity of the test, we are accommodating student wishes.”

And they also have the line that, by making it shorter, they can decrease the turnaround in the dissemination and release of the official scaled scores. Which means that graduate programs will receive those scores more quickly than they used to. I don’t buy the second one nearly as much as the first one, because, like, you can see your scaled scores within two minutes of taking the current administration.

The bottleneck is on the essays, which – while they are graded by a computer algorithm – need to also be graded using the same rubric by a human grader. By cutting it from two essays to one, I guess you can cut the review time in half, functionally. So maybe that is true, that with only one essay to grade, as opposed to two, human graders can confirm the algorithm’s assessment more rapidly. But I do think that that really hasn’t been much of a bottleneck, either. I got my start as an essay grader. And after just a few weeks, you can rate an essay in less than 60 seconds. So if you have just a few essay graders, this is something that you could handle en masse in the current form very easily. In any case, those are the official lines for why the test is changing.

Davis: And you mentioned in a previous episode that you had taken the test to get your perfect score right at the transition between an older form and the now-current form, but soon to be old form. What benefit is it to the market, to universities, even to students to have a test that changes every 15-to-20 years?

Orion: Yeah, that’s a good reminder. It’s been about 15 years since the last major revision. And it was a major revision. They introduced the writing section. They introduced new question formats and they deleted old question formats. The Verbal section, in particular, looked very different between the pre-2008 and the current version.

By comparison, the transition from the current version to the one that’s going to be available later this year, is really mostly in terms of the length, as opposed to the content or the format. So it’s a smaller change. But it’s going to feel very different to a lot of students because of that cut from four hours to two hours.

It’s interesting, because we might learn the fuller story as to why this change is occurring as time progresses. Because, for example, one of the major reasons why ETS changed the test back in 2008, in a radical way, was that, around that time, the California Board of Regents, who control the UC system, the University of California system, which is the largest university system in the country, started casting doubt on the appropriateness and validity of standardized tests. And they were toying with the possibility of not requiring those standardized tests in their admissions process. And that would have been a huge hit for ETS. There would be hundreds of thousands of fewer tests sold every year, if the UC schools no longer required them.

And so my understanding is that ETS and the Board of Regents had a lot of backroom conversations about, well, what kind of changes would make the Regents feel comfortable enough to keep the standardized tests an appropriate and relevant aspect of their admissions process. And that’s where we got the essay, because they thought that there should be a greater focus on actual writing ability when, I can see their point, you do a lot of writing in college. And so I’m not going to say that the Regents dictated what was going to happen with the new test, but the test graders, I think, certainly took that feedback, because the UC program was one of their biggest, let’s say, affiliates, and they were adapting to maintain their market share.

And I think something similar is probably happening today. About five years ago, the GRE was unstoppable. It was gobbling up market share in the testing industry. It was a big coup when business schools began to accept the GRE, as well as the GMAT. The GMAT used to have that its own little niche in the marketplace, and the GRE came in and swallowed that up. And then even law schools started accepting the GRE. So the LSAT no longer had its little niche. So the GRE was just like becoming this leviathan in the marketplace. Almost every grad school program of any kind, unless you were going to become a medical doctor, accepted the GRE about five years ago. It was doing really, really well.

Then COVID and the shutdowns happened, and a lot of programs waived the GRE requirement for a few years. Some programs have brought that back, a lot of programs haven’t. There’s also been the introduction into the marketplace of a few shorter tests, like the Executive Assessment, which is about 75- or 90-minutes long, and is now being accepted at – not all MBA programs – but at a lot of executive MBA programs, next to the GRE. And I think the GRE has been losing market share in the last three years, because of changes in requirements around the COVID shutdowns and increased competition from shorter tests, like the EA. And I think this is its way of staying relevant in the marketplace.

I think it’s actually a really smart move. I mean, they were so gargantuan five years ago, it was almost like they had nowhere more to go up. And certain factors started chipping into its dominance. And they’re adapting to try to maintain their market share, while they are still the largest player. That’s my two cents.

Davis: No, I really appreciate that. So ETS has kind of official statements that they want to maintain rigor and validity, but also address student experience. You know, create a better experience for the students who need to take it. And then we kind of have this overarching history of the evolution of the test, and how it changes both from, you know, economic forces, business forces, but also the university affiliation forces, as well. I really appreciate that deep dive into that. And if you want to know more, please check out stellargre.com.

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! Welcome back. This is GRE Bites. I’m Davis, an educator with over 10 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. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships. Let’s get to it today.

So today’s question is a little generic, but it’s something I like to look at before I get into anything: kind of assessing how much preparation I need to do for a given task. And in this case, some people err towards the side of overconfidence with their prep. Some people are like, “Oh, my God, I just need to go for months. I need to get everything I can. I need to do as many problems as possible.” So my question for today is, you know, is there a such thing as too much preparation for the GRE?

Orion: Yes, there is absolutely such a thing. And I have seen some folks who have fallen prey to, let’s say, their perfectionistic tendencies over the 20 years that I’ve been a test prep instructor. They generally tend to be the more anxious sort, but they often can be high achievers. And as a psychologist, I’ve worked with folks to overcome their perfectionistic tendencies.

Perfectionistic tendencies are based on a maladaptive meta-belief that suggests that I can’t succeed if I make a mistake. And that’s not true. If you’re going to hit home runs, you’re going to strike out a lot when you’re in the batter’s box. That’s just how it is. The best players of all time in any sport have generally lost more games than more mediocre players have won. So the ability, the willingness to try and fail, is a prerequisite for sustained high achievement in pretty much any domain.

And for the vast majority of folks, you don’t have to get a perfect score. That obviously would be a nice feather in your cap. But remember: no one gets into the chocolate factory because they have a perfect score on the GRE. I had one and I was still rejected from more places than I got accepted to. So what you need is your target score, which is the median score of successful applicants at your top program of choice. Even the most competitive MBA programs have medians in the high 160s, which means you don’t have to be perfect. You have to be pretty close, but you do get some room to maneuver.

And that’s good because perfectionism can be stultifying. It’s paralyzing. And it can also lead people to some really dark places, if they encounter one problem that they don’t know how to answer. Sometimes they can spiral out of control, because they tend to obsess and ruminate about that one. They can’t let it go. When, really, if they had gotten all the other questions right, except that one, they probably would still hit or exceed their target score. But because they were so perfectionisticly focused on getting everything right, they were too rigid and inflexible. They weren’t rolling with it. And it made it much more difficult for them to achieve the desired result.

Davis: So we’re talking about the prep as well, not just a test-taking experience, which is important. I agree with you that the cognitive baggage of always thinking about the outcome, and the self-reflection of what that outcome would mean for yourself: that’s just baggage, that’s just extra weight. And so you want to be more concentrated in the moment. So in the process of a person preparing, what’s kind of the shortest prep time frame you’ve seen be successful, the longest prep time frame you’ve seen be successful? Is there an inflection point where it becomes just too much?

Orion: Oh, I’ve seen all kinds of things. I’ve had people take a single session with me, and then go on to get top-percentile scores. I once worked with a student who had taken the test 13 times before she reached out to me. Thirteen times. She had been preparing and not hitting her target score for over three years before she booked a session with me. We worked together for a few months, she took it for the 14th time. She finally got what she needed, and she moved on with her life. But that’s probably the longest prep that I’ve ever experienced as a as a tutor.

There’s definitely too much prep. GRE prep is sort of like a Bardo: no one really likes to be here. It’s just a station on route to greater things. We have to stay here for a while, most of us, but we don’t want to live here. We don’t want to build a house here. We want to get what we need from the test and then move on with our lives as quickly as possible.

A lot of test prep companies do not facilitate this for a number of reasons. One is, I think, that a lot of test prep companies want students to continually feel a little under-prepared, so that they will continue to buy memberships for their product. And to that end, you have some of my competitors, who populate their problem sets or their practice tests, like, completely with impossible or devilish problems. And that’s not an accurate reflection of what students will encounter on the actual exam. But it keeps students feeling unprepared, because there’s probably going to be a few questions in that set that they’re not answering correctly. And so they say, “Oh, I’m still not at my target level. I have to keep preparing.” And then they keep buying memberships, which is good for business. But again, the actual test will not ever be entirely composed of devilish problems. So that’s misleading.

Other programs are almost encyclopedic in their approach. Some of them have like a 10-volume set of books for students to read. And then they give them practice problem books that have literally thousands and thousands and thousands of problems in them. And I call this the “shotgun approach,” which a lot of teachers do, which is basically, like, if you throw enough stuff at a student, and if only 10% of it sticks, then you still get that significant improvement. I think that can work. But I also think it’s a little disrespectful to the students. I think that if you focus and you put good faith effort into your prep, you will certainly retain more than 10%, especially if the material is presented to you in a clear and compelling way.

And, to my mind, if you haven’t yet mastered the technique after a thousand problems, doing another four thousand problems is probably not going to help. Like, you should have learned the technique by then. And doing it more times probably isn’t going to work, because you might be reinforcing a strategy or technique that isn’t working.

So the way I approach test prep is more like a boot camp. I know that students’ time is valuable. We hit the ground hard. I give you what you need when you need it. The idea is to devote a lot of attention to test prep in a short amount of time, so you can get what you need to move on with your life. It’s not about doing thousands and thousands of problems. That’s unnecessary. That feeds into the anxiety that students naturally feel with respect to a high-stakes standardized assessment. I think a lot of these materials, on some level, consciously or not, they stimulate student anxiety, which is actually good for sales. My belief is if you help people get what they want, yeah, they might spend less time with your product, they may not buy as many memberships, but they’ll be happy with the experience. And they generally tell other people that they know who are taking the test about the product, and you can still be a successful company and grow in that way.

Davis: Now, I really appreciate your feedback on this topic. And short personal story: I took the course with you maybe four years ago. And one of the things that I liked, that differentiated it, was a focus on “Hey, is the GRE even right for you?” Because if it’s not, you know: drop out. You don’t need this course. I took the course anyway, that eight-week “boot camp,” just as you’re saying. I scored on my final practice test a 169. So not perfect, but up there. And then I got a job at the company I wanted to get a job, with the experience. So the balance is healthy, you know. Put this in context of what’s necessary. Don’t feed off your own anxiety. And also don’t let other companies generate and feed off your anxiety.

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! Welcome back. This is GRE Bites. I’m Davis, an educator with over 10 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. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships. Let’s get to it.

So Orion, as you know, ETS recently released a document which is basically a FAQ regarding the changes on the test. I want to know what you know. What do you think of it? What’s your response? Are there any highlights? Maybe we could just go through it a little bit together?

Orion: Absolutely. So as we’ve discussed on previous episodes, the GRE is changing as of September 22nd, 2023. There will be a new version of the test. We’re still learning the details. And recently ETS published a Frequently Asked Questions document about the general test enhancement for test takers. And I thought we could just sort of go through that together, and get some reactions here.

Davis: Now that sounds like a great idea. So we’ve already covered some of this in previous episodes, but what specifically is new in this document?

Orion: Yeah, let’s take a look. So the biggest things that are going to change have to do with the duration and the structure. So right away, we see that the analytical writing section will be cut from two essay tasks down to one essay task. They are getting rid of the argument essay prompt completely. The issue essay prompt will stay 30 minutes long.

There will still be two graded sections for each of the quantitative and the verbal halves of the test. But before they were two symmetrical sections of 20 questions each. Now apparently there’s going to be 27 questions in total. And that was kind of mysterious, because 27 is obviously an odd number. But we see somewhere in this document – aha! – they finally revealed the breakdown, which is that in each of the first graded verbal and quant sections, there will be 12 questions. And that means that there will be 15 questions in the second graded verbal and quant sections.

Now, ETS said that the sections would keep the same prorate with respect to the time. So let’s see if that is actually true. It is so, because the verbal section – as it currently exists – has 20 questions in 30 minutes, which is a minute and a half per question. And that’s why in this new 12 question verbal section, students will get 18 minutes to complete that section, and 23 minutes to complete the 15 question section.

Davis: So what this means then is that, even though the test is shorter, which helps for fatigue and long-term endurance, strategies developed and practiced, in terms of how to manage your time question-to-question within a section, are still applicable.

Orion: Yeah, that’s right. Efficiency strategies will remain as important as ever, because if you can’t solve the question in 90 seconds or less, you kind of can’t solve it. Regardless of whether it’s 12 questions in a set or 20 questions in a set: you still have to move through questions with intention and purpose. So we have the 12 question/15 Questions split. That’s a new one. And we know that the tests will still be adaptive by section. I assume – this is not in the FAQ – but I assume that there will still be three possible second graded sections: an easy, medium, and hard. And that means that the thresholds for provoking the hardest second section on these first sections are likely going to be a bit more competitive, a bit more unforgiving. Let’s put it that way.

On the 20-question set, you had to get, like, three-quarters of the questions right in order to provoke the hardest second section. So three-quarters of 12 would be nine. So that means that students only have three points to give – most likely – on the first graded sections, in order to provoke the hardest second sections. And that will be absolutely essential, because – most likely – without provoking those hardest second sections, you won’t be able to unlock the top percentile scores on the test. You’ll come up against a ceiling effect, as we call it, if you fail to do so.

Davis: Now that’s really helpful to have a better understanding of the total time, and the total number of questions in order to provoke the hardest section.

Orion: What we’re getting at is that there’s going to be a more unforgiving threshold to unlock those top-percentile scores. Students can only miss three questions, max, as opposed to maybe five. So we’ve gone from five to three: that is a 40% reduction in that buffer for the hardest second section, which means that efficiency has remained exactly as necessary in the new version as in the current version. It also means that accuracy is actually like 40% more important than it used to be.

Davis: So this creates a challenge for the test. We’ve taken away the endurance component of the test. I mean, the test is still nearly two hours long, but we’ve cut it in half. We’ve gotten rid of the sustained mindfulness component as much, but we replaced it with a concentrated focus on accuracy and carelessness.

Orion: That’s right.

Davis: And I’m also noticing that this new test – I don’t know if we’ve covered this before – will not have a 10-minute break between sections. And so there’s not as much of a recharge space. What are your thoughts on that?

Orion: Yeah, there’s no 10-minute break any more in the new version. So students will have to have a more streamlined approach. I’m also not sure if the park screen will still exist. That was something that might have been an oversight in the test construction in the current version. We’ll have to see if they’ve corrected that oversight in the new version. If that’s the case, we’ll have to develop new strategies for refreshing people’s consciousness between sections if we can’t rely on that. But we don’t really know for sure.

ETS in this FAQ also discusses that they will release practice tests online using this new format. But not until the new version is released, which I think is a little strange. They’re basically saying that – because the content is the same, and there are no new question types – that all pre-existing materials should be useful to prepare for the new version of the test. And so we’ll all be kind of figuring out how this works after the fact. But once we do, we’ll be able to reverse engineer some of those adaptability thresholds and score guidelines, and get some more feedback about the breaks between sections.

Davis: I appreciate your feedback, and your reflection on this ETS FAQ response document. You can find that online on ETS’s website, to review the whole thing yourselves.

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! Welcome back. This is GRE Bites. I’m Davis, an educator with over 10 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. You can use the code “BITES” for 10% off all memberships. Let’s get to it.

So we often say in our intro: GRE prep and grad school admissions. But we often focus heavily on the GRE. So I want to switch tack today and pick your brain on grad school admissions. One question that prospective students are faced with is: do you accept the stipend, and not have to pay tuition? Or do you pay out of pocket? What’s involved with accepting the stipend?

Orion: Yeah, this episode will be specifically for folks who are getting PhDs or doctorates. It’s pretty rare that this will come up in the pursuit of a master’s degree. Basically, a lot of PhD programs – on the surface – are tuition free. A lot of PhD programs have a very small cohort, often fewer than 10 people at any one time. If you’re accepted into this doctoral program, it’s generally expected that you will be offered a free ride, in terms of tuition, as well as a small annual stipend to cover living expenses. Often the stipend is very, very low, in terms of standard of living in certain housing markets. For example, I know that the stipend for doctoral students at Stanford University, one of the top programs in the world, was about $30,000 a few years back, which would be very difficult to live off of in the Bay Area, which is one of the most expensive places in the world.

But a lot of students say, “okay, that 30,000 bucks in my pocket is better than going 150,000 dollars into debt.” And they might have a point. People should be very cautious about getting into that level of debt. They should have a plan associated with paying it off. Like, they should do some market research to see whether the degree would actually help them to secure a better paying job, so that it is a rational investment in their future. Absolutely. That’s right.

Davis: But the reason, as I understand it, that universities offer this type of PhD program stipend is that you’re expected to actually become a member of the faculty, essentially. You’re teaching classes. You’re helping your advisor on research projects. So, you know, teaching some classes seems like a much better deal than kind of being a free agent, where you’re paying out of pocket, but you’re not beholden to the university as part of the staff. So, really, what are the drawbacks of accepting the stipend?

Orion: Yeah, you touched on them. There is no free lunch. So grad students who accept the tuition and the stipend are expected to generate value for the university. So in addition to all of your studies, as a full-time student, you will also be expected to teach classes as an adjunct. Teaching classes requires you to create syllabi, which is incredibly time-consuming, to actually teach the classes, to have office hours, to grade papers, to be a research assistant to your dissertation chair. You will be expected to draft and edit academic papers based on that research. You will be expected to serve on committees, and potentially be involved in showing prospective students around the university, or interviewing them, or making yourself available for interviews.

The point is that there’s a lot of labor that is connected to the “free” tuition. And this is never really explicitly spelled out in the students’ contracts. It’s not like there is a 1000-hour per year maximum, after which the students can clock out. On some level, it’s very amorphous, it’s very ambiguous. And the university – which has way more power than these individual students – can sometimes lean on that in a borderline exploitative way.

So, personally, the way that I went through grad school is I paid out of pocket. I liked paying out of pocket because I could clock out. Like, once I was done with my studies, I could walk away from the university. Now in order to pay out of pocket without going into substantial debt, I had to work full-time on the side. But here’s the thing: if you’re taking the free ride, you’re going to be working full-time on the side anyway. You’re just going to be working as a research assistant, as a teacher, as an advisor. I could work full-time on the free market and make 10 times as much money as I would be making if I were a faculty assistant, for instance. So if I’m going to be working full-time anyway, I’d rather make more money and then pay the tuition out of pocket that way. Does that make sense?

Davis: No, that makes a lot of sense. And it also reminds me of the point you made earlier in this episode, which is, you know, really do the research. Understand what kind of degree you’re getting into, why you’re going to grad school in the first place. For example, if you know academia is your target job, then taking the stipend, and getting that experience, and working as an adjunct for that period of time is what you’re there for. And if your degree is going to facilitate you getting a professorship-type position, then that seems a much different, much smarter choice. It’s a different balance – as opposed to getting a degree that’s going to put you back out in the job market.

Orion: That’s certainly true. If your goal is to work in academia, it makes sense to take the free ride and get that job experience on campus. Here’s the thing about that. I’ve worked with a lot of students over the years who want to get a position in academia, to become a full professor on the tenure track. And there are two really important things to consider here.

First of all, there are just 50 times more new doctorates minted every year in this country alone than there are new openings for tenure track positions at universities. So the competition, among other really smart people who have doctorates from top universities, is absolutely fierce. And because of that, you don’t have a lot of optionality in that market. You might have to take a job wherever you are offered it, anywhere in the country.

The second thing to understand is that you should have some experience teaching, first. A lot of people have a romanticized vision of what being a professor looks like. You have this office full of books in this cozy little corner of an ivy covered, red brick building. And students come in all the time, and you get to discuss ideas, because you’re paid to think. And that’s not the reality of being a professor at a university. It’s far more tedious. The politics are insufferable. And most students don’t really care. They’re there to take your class so that they can get the credit to move on to the next thing. So you should know that you actually like teaching. Try it out. We date before we get married. So if you can, find a way to teach before you decide to put all of your eggs in this basket for five-to-10 years to become a teacher – only to realize that it’s not what you expected it to be.

Davis: I will just concur with what you’re saying there. And it’s interesting to note, as well, that – especially for the humanities, any kind of degree in the humanities – it’s doubly true what Orion has just been saying, in terms of the saturation compared to the availability of open positions in the marketplace. That was something that I faced after my graduate degree in the Bay Area, which is why I switched into the private sector and consulting. The point is: research. Know your trends. Know yourself.

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, we know that the test is changing, but there’s still one essay: the issues essay. We understand that writing, given prompts, is a reality that every student has to face in academic pursuits and other times in life. In our program, and in your GRE platform, you have something called DRI writing to address the essay. I want to focus on that today. What is DRI or DRI writing?

Orion: Yeah, I call it “DRI writing” because academic writing tends to be very arid and dry. It’s fairly boring. However, that “boringness” can actually enhance clarity, credibility, and comprehensibility. That’s the word I was looking for.

Davis: Okay, so as you said, this strategy is useful both for the issue essay of the GRE and for academic writing in general, which you, as a future grad student, will do a great deal of.

Orion: On the issue essay of the GRE, students are expected to state their position, what they believe, and then provide arguments in support of that position. They then substantiate those arguments with evidence. Arguments are abstract; evidence is concrete.

And the best way to substantiate a given argument, both on the GRE and in the real world, is to cite a study. The best evidence is that there is an experiment that was well-controlled. These were the outcomes, and this is how we interpret them. This is concrete and specific.

With respect to the GRE, it’s better to provide evidence that is closer to the hard sciences. We want to have citations of academic studies, as opposed to evidence in the liberal arts tradition, which provides more reasons for believing something to be the case.

Davis: Okay. So let’s say that we are writing about a study. The way that we go about this is to follow the acronym DRI. This stands for “describe, report, and interpret.” Describe, report, and interpret: rinse, wash, repeat. “Describe” involves a few sentences that talk about the actual structure or design of the study or experiment.

Orion: So, this could look something like: “In 2022, at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers Kobayashi, Murakami, and Ichiguru conducted a randomized controlled trial with 500 undergraduate students. They randomized the students into two cohorts: one of which received an experimental condition of a mindfulness program and the other which received a condition of general leisure. The experimenters made sure that the two cohorts were balanced in terms of sex, age, and baseline academic status.”

Davis: So, what you just provided is an example, a description of the evidence that you’re going to cite in your paper, whether it’s the essay on the GRE or otherwise. Now, a key difference here is that on the GRE, this could be a totally made-up study; it doesn’t have to be factually based.

Orion: That is true. Yeah.

Davis: So, is the study you just talked about a factual study?

Orion: No, it was just something I pulled off the top of my head to demonstrate what describing might look like. The key here is that describing should answer the question: “What are the facts about the study?” In this case, I guess it was a randomized, controlled trial with 500 students in a matched pairs design, about this mindfulness intervention.

Davis: Okay.

Orion: So that’s just the “what”. The “results” section is where you provide just the facts or outcome data without any kind of judgment or interpretation. In this case, the results might sound something like, “After a two-week period, the researchers discovered that the students who were assigned to the mindfulness condition were 47% more likely to study in the following month than those who were assigned to the leisure condition. They also had semester grades that were 47% higher than those in the control condition.”

Davis: That makes a lot of sense. So, for “describe”, you’re just laying out the framework of what the study did, and for “results”, you’re just giving the statistically relevant facts of what happened.

Orion: That’s right. It’s just the outcome measures. However, that’s not enough; we have to make sense of that data. The “I” in DRI stands for interpretation. In this case, we want to make sense of what those statistics might mean from a human perspective or for a broader understanding.

So, what this suggests is that mindfulness may stimulate student study behavior because it led to an increase in studying in the subsequent month. Furthermore, it may be linked to better academic outcomes compared to merely engaging in personal leisure time, given the higher semester-end grades. This interpretation brings the data down to a relatable, human level and provides a comprehensive summary of the study.

Now, with respect to the issue essay of the GRE, if students focus on writing just two sentences for each of these three components—two sentences for “describe,” two sentences for “report,” and two sentences for “interpret”—in conjunction with a beginning topic transition sentence, a student will be able to produce substantial body paragraphs one after the other under the time limit. It’s a structured format that students can rely on to generate many words in a limited amount of time.

Davis: And so, that’s really important because we’ve talked about this strategy in the context of the GRE where, you know, you have 30 minutes to generate at least 800 words for a top-level score. You can fabricate the studies, but as long as you’re following this two-sentence describe, two-sentence report, and two-sentence interpret structure, you can produce a well-organized essay that demonstrates you understand how to respond to the issue prompt and create a convincing paper.

Obviously, in an academic setting, you wouldn’t want to fabricate any of this; there’s no time limit. But within the time constraint, as Orion was saying, this can be very powerful. So, we’re just scratching the surface of what’s called the DRI writing strategy provided by StellarGRE: describe, report, interpret, especially when citing evidence for the writing section.

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, I’ll be straight, simple, and sweet to the point this time. Study buddies: should you have one for the GRE? Pros? Cons? What are your thoughts on study buddies?

Orion: Yeah, it really depends on personal preference. I think. Well, I taught a class in San Francisco for many years around the Stellar system. I had a great time teaching that class. It was also very social. I believe the fact that these folks developed relationships with the other people in the class made it more likely that they were consistent. They showed up week after week to put in the time, especially since the classes were held after work on a weekday. At such times, it might be difficult to muster the focus and willpower to sit through a GRE prep class. So, those relationships, I think, actually helped people adhere more closely to the system. I do believe that having a study buddy can help maintain commitment to a program.

Davis: I completely agree. As someone who took that maybe six years ago with you in San Francisco, having a place to go and a community of people who were all in the same boat together was a bulwark. It truly bolstered my ability to make it through the program and achieve the results I wanted. Additionally, another benefit I found was that people would ask questions I hadn’t necessarily thought of. So, I gained exposure to more questions and content sooner.

Orion: So you’re talking about a group setting that was like seven or eight people minimum?

Davis: If I remember correctly, it was maybe 10 people max, or something like that. You know, if that kind of environment is not available, how can someone still derive the same benefits at home? Is just one other person enough?

Orion: Sure, just having one other person, I think, can help maintain compliance. This is true for all kinds of things. If you have a new habit that you’re trying to start, like going to the gym, dieting, or starting some other new hobby, it’s sometimes very useful to have a friend with whom you’re doing this to keep each other accountable. This is because habits are easiest to break when they’re new.

Davis: Right.

Orion: They haven’t yet really become ingrained in that person’s lifestyle and their behavioral repertoire. Having someone to keep us on track when necessary can help ensure we put in enough time and repetition, so that we see the results we’re looking for when initiating a new activity. I think you just need one other person as a study buddy. Building on what you just discussed regarding one of the benefits of the class — where people would ask questions that you hadn’t thought of — that kind of accelerated your growth.

Davis: I think that observation was really interesting and well said.

Orion: Another real benefit to having a study buddy is that most likely, you’ll have complementary strengths. It’s almost impossible for two people to be exactly the same with respect to their performance across all three sections of the test. This is great because one of the best ways to learn is to teach. I learned that a long time ago when I started my teaching career. If you’re going to get in front of a group of people and demand their attention for hours at a time, you really need to know your stuff. You have to be prepared for any question that could possibly be asked, or else you’re wasting people’s time. So, the need to teach drives the necessity to understand.

Davis: Okay, so if you’re working with somebody and they are weak in sections in which you are strong, and vice versa, you can consolidate and solidify your own understanding through the necessity of teaching those concepts to your study buddy.

Orion: Actually, the best way for you to learn is to be able to teach your strengths to someone with a complementary profile.

Davis: Is there another perspective? Have you been exposed to anything in your psychology background and work? Is there evidence to suggest that learning material in a group setting, or with another person, because of an emotional connection, a novel emotional environment, or the need to teach—or having someone to rely on and learn from—does that aid in memory retention? Does it compare to, for instance, studying alone under a desk light at night and then falling asleep halfway through your study session?

Orion: You know, I’m not aware of any study like that. What I am aware of is that when people get together in real time to study, they need to have some structure to that activity. Otherwise, others can be distracting if not managed properly. That’s why, in settings like libraries, there’s a strict protocol of silence. People are generally together, but they remain separate and isolated.

The best way to study in a group is to structure periods of quiet, intense individual focus, interspersed with opportunities for socializing. Everyone should be on board with this arrangement. It could look something like 30 minutes of focused, quiet study, followed by 15 minutes of socializing, where group members chat, talk, or ask each other questions. Then, it’s back to another 30 minutes of quiet, individual studying. This approach helps people stay on track. It makes the study session more enjoyable by blending study time with social interaction, while also limiting distractions that could hinder memory consolidation and lead to frustration.

Davis: That’s an excellent point, and one I can attest to as well. When you’re picking a study partner, it’s really important to be careful about compatibility. As you said, it’s crucial that your goals are aligned and that you can agree on a systematized or structured interaction period. This will drive success much more than just an amorphous, unorganized “get together and let’s try to figure this out” approach. So, compatibility is really important when picking study partners.

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, Orion, today I have a special request. We’ve talked a lot about individual strategies in past episodes, such as diagnostics, offensive versus defensive problems, skipping, going straight to answer choices, and the process of elimination, among others. I want to know: can we go over a single verbal question orally here as an experiment? I’m curious to see how we can integrate all these strategies to tackle a single question from the GRE in this episode.

Orion: Yeah, let’s give it a shot. We’ll see how it goes. I think it’s easier if you can see the question, but we’ll do this as an experiment.

Davis: I think one of the easiest verbal problems to start with in this oral format would be a sentence equivalence. This is a question that I’m taking from my program on stellargre.com. So, let’s assume that we’ve just been presented with a sentence equivalence question.

Orion: The first place we’re going to look is the answer choices. We’ll examine the answer choices for several reasons. First, we’ll glance at them to ensure that we understand the meaning of most of the words. If we don’t recognize the majority of the words, we should guess and move on swiftly because our chances of answering the question correctly are quite low. In this instance, the answer choices are “erudite,” “complex,” “clear,” “lucid,” “involuted,” and “brilliant.” Most of these words, with the possible exception of “involuted,” are fairly common. Let’s assume we know the meaning of all these words, so we’re set to proceed.

Upon examining the answer choices, we want to start pairing them together. Since this is a sentence equivalence question where we select two words to fit into a single blank, these words must logically be synonyms. We can immediately eliminate any word that doesn’t have a synonym among the choices. For instance, “clear” and “lucid” are synonyms, as are “complex” and “involuted.” However, “erudite” and “brilliant” do not form synonym pairs, so we can discard them right away. Without even delving into the question, we’ve already eliminated two of the six answer choices, streamlining our decision-making process.

So, rather than read the question and then try to figure out the best word that we know from our vocabulary, out of the entirety of the English language, that will fit in the blank, we now know that the answer is something like “clear” or something like “complex.” That’s what I mean by a forced choice. Those two options are actually fairly different from each other. So, it shouldn’t be too hard to determine whether we’re looking for a word that means “clear” or a word that means “complex.” However, since we have these centered pairs, we do need to read the question. When we read the question, we should do so actively, using the word search technique. The word search technique is how we answer all vocab-based questions. We’re basically looking for two kinds of words: keywords and trigger words. Keywords are the words that directly relate to the blank. Trigger words reveal the direction of that relationship. That is, the blank and the keyword can either move in the same direction and be synonyms, or they can move in opposite directions and be antonyms.

Davis: So, let’s actually read this sentence and see what happens. Here it is: “Given the professor’s often obfuscating methodology of instruction, it came as some surprise when his lecture on quantum mechanics was acknowledged as blank by some of his students.”

Orion: Alright, in this sentence, as in most sentences, it’s often easier to identify the trigger word or words. In this case, that would be “it came as some surprise.” Things are surprising when our expectations are betrayed, so this must be a change-of-direction trigger. Thus, the way this professor’s lecture was acknowledged by students must differ from how he is usually expected to behave.

The sentence tells us that the professor often uses an “obfuscating methodology,” so “obfuscating” must be the keyword. This aligns well because “obfuscating” in this context is a gerund being used as an adjective. All the words in the answer choices are also adjectives. A trick for identifying key words is that the vast majority of the time, the keywords in a question will be the same part of speech as the words in the answer choice.

This holds true here: adjectives in the answer choices and an adjective as the keyword. “Obfuscating” means to darken or make difficult to understand. Therefore, if he’s usually difficult to understand, it would come as a surprise if his lecture was easy to understand. This would align better with “clear” and “lucid” as opposed to “complex” and “involute.”

So, once we understand that, we would choose C and D and move on with our lives. I’ll pause for a moment here to explain why so many of these other options exist. We’re discussing a professor of quantum mechanics, and quantum mechanics is complex. People who master this study are often erudite or brilliant. About half of the answer choices here are what I call “Psychological Association Trap” answers, or “PAT” answers. These vocabulary words are psychologically associated with some aspects of the problem but have nothing to do with the deep structure of the question, which is what students are asked to respond to.

You should be able to solve this question in real-time in less than a minute at a very casual pace if you don’t hesitate and if you understand the sequence of the strategy. And, of course, if you know most of the words.

Davis: Thank you, Orion. That was very illuminating.

Orion: I hope it wasn’t too complex for anybody. However, one thing I wanted to clarify is that to apply these strategies, you have to recognize the type of problem immediately. For instance, when there’s one blank in the sentence, it indicates a specific type of problem, but not necessarily, because there are single-blank text completion questions. The way to differentiate is by examining the format of the buttons next to the words in the answer choices. Vocab-based questions will always have vocabulary as answer choices, which is easy to spot. Text completion questions will have a “choose one” option, whereas sentence equivalence will have a “choose many” option. For sentence equivalence, there will be small checkboxes next to the answer choices, whereas for text completion, the words themselves will be boxed. The design of the answer choice buttons is the quickest way to distinguish between a single-blank text completion and a sentence equivalence question.

Davis: Awesome. That completed the puzzle for me. Just a walk-through of the little tips and tricks, once you practice them and string them all together, as was just demonstrated at a much more leisurely and explanatory pace, every question can be very easy to solve.

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.