GRE Prep

Ambbuur, RN · Nov 17, 2019

Magoosh is what I used and I thought it was great. It has lessons to help brush up on math/verbal topics and lots of practice questions. If I can remember correctly, they also have a separate app with all the vocabulary. I personally studied non-stop for 2 months and mainly focused on the quanitative section and got a 161. I spent little time studying for the verbal section and got a 155. I say this, because retrospectively I wish I would have spent an extra month (as in 3 or more) in order to studying up on the vocabulary more. The whole test is extremely difficult, but magoosh definitely seemed to help immensely.

Good luck!

HappyCCRN1, BSN · Nov 17, 2019

I used magoosh, as well, and I definitely feel it helped. It seemed like the cheaper option too--more bang for your buck. I studied 8-12 weeks and focused on both sections. Ended up moving in the middle of my studying, so I had to stop for a month and then restarted for 2 weeks before my test. 157 quant, 158 verbal, 5.0 writing. I was satisfied with those scores. During the actual test, I felt like I was doing horribly, so don't stress too much if you feel that way while you're going through it. And you can take it like 21 days later if you don't do as well as you like.

JacobIloved, BSN · Nov 17, 2019

I scored 169 verbal 166 quantitative and 5.5 writing.

I ended up doing like 10 practice tests (full sittings) on paper from any book I could get my hands on (Barrons, Princeton Review, Magoosh, Manhattan Prep, ETS, Kaplan). Nothing really beats the experience of sitting there and working through the mental stress and monotony of a 4 hour test. Doing a lot of practice questions also really helped me understand how to approach different question types.

I found drilling flashcards for vocabulary helped a lot with my verbal and writing scores.

Quantitative is kind of tough. Due to the nature of the adaptive exam, none of the books had the difficulty level of math questions they asked me in the last few sections. I ended up bombing the last three or so questions on math, but it got me a 166, so I wouldn't worry about the high level questions so much.

Asherah, BSN, RN · Nov 17, 2019

I took the GRE 12 years ago when I applied to a BSN/MSN program, so I was familiar with the format and content. However, I hadn't been in school or taken any math in quite a while when I took it again this summer in preparation for CRNA programs. I would recommend checking out GregMat (YouTube tutorials), google his website as well, he is awesome at helping folks who have been out of any the standardized testing arenas. I would agree with his assessment that the ETS-issued content (practice exams, study guides) are the most accurate reflection of question difficulty and question writing. I did not use any ancillary/private test prep. Also, I think I took four full-length practice exams to mimic the marathon of the real exam. I scored a cumulative 318, writing 5.0, after 8 weeks of studying mostly every day for at least one hour or more each day.