California State University, Dominguez Hills
Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), Educational Leadership
Tips for GRE Preparation
The GRE is an important part of your application to graduate school.
This website is replete with helpful GRE information: http://www.ets.org
Three useful tips that students generally find helpful are as follows:
1. What's the ideal timing?
Ideally, students should take the GRE as soon as possible - earlier the better. The purpose of
taking it early is to provide ample time to retake it if necessary in order to be prepared for the
program application process.
2. How should you organize yourself?
Past GRE test takers and research indicate that students need to be strict with themselves. The
following is a recommended "plan of action" (see: http://www.syvum.com/gre/tips.html)
Start by doing a mock GRE, putting yourself in exam mode (get up early, no long breaks
between sections, silence, etc.).
Depending on your first score, decide on the amount of work you're going to have to do.
If you think you'll need to work a lot, set aside weekly blocks of time.
Go over word list for the vocabulary questions. Get into the habit of reading as much as
possible - magazines and also have the benefit of improving your awareness of current
affairs.
At the same time, keep testing yourself with questions from past exams.
Half-way through, do another practice GRE test under exam conditions so you can check
on your progress. Depending on the results, you can turn your undivided attention to the
question types that still cause problems. Learn to recognize such questions, so that you do
not waste an inordinate amount of time on these weaknesses during the real test.
Lastly, finish your preparation with one or two practice GREs under exam conditions.
The last one should be close to your set target.
3. By the time you have finished your GRE preparation, you should know:
the type of questions that will appear in the GRE Test.
how long each section is and the time limits. This will help you pace yourself through the
test.
know the directions for each question. This will save you valuable time. But remember
the directions for the questions in the GRE Test might be slightly different from the ones
in your study material. So always read the instructions but do it quickly.
Remember, the GRE Test is about "optimizing". Think about the process of "selection by
elimination". This means that you should devote just the right amount of time to each question.
The questions at the beginning generally affect your score more than those towards the end. Take
your time with those questions. Getting these correct will dramatically improve your score.
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