Whenever you do practice GRE
problems, you should spend significantly more time reviewing each problem than
you spent doing it. Many students have asked me this very reasonable question,
though: “What am I supposed to actually do when I review?” Here’s the answer.
This review process will help you squeeze more out of every problem you do.
Revisit your solution.
Once you’ve finished a timed
problem set, don’t check your answers immediately. Instead, revisit each
problem and your own solution. Are you satisfied with your answer, and with how
quickly you arrived there? If not, redo the problem, spending as much time as
you need. Try solving it in different ways, until you find one that feels
right.
If you still just can’t figure it
out, then before you do anything else, decide what you’d need to know in order
to come up with a solution. Is there a vocabulary word you can’t define? A
geometry rule you can’t remember? In that case, feel free to look up the facts
you need and keep trying. Are you struggling to translate the words into
equations, or to identify the conclusion of the argument? Make a note of any
skills you need to improve.
If you do understand the
problem after a second attempt, ask yourself two questions:
- Why did you get it wrong the first time?
- How would you approach the problem if you saw it again? Generalize from your failure on this problem, to success on different problems you’ll see in the future.
Next, work from the right
answer.
Now it’s time to look at the
official answer. Don’t read the explanation, though — just peek at the answer
itself. If it fits what you’ve come up with, you can move on to the next step.
If it doesn’t match, or if you didn’t come up with a satisfying solution on
your own, you’ve got more work to do.
Redo the problem again,
looking for a solution path that would lead you to the correct answer. If you
find yourself saying “Oh, that makes sense,” you’ve taught yourself how to do
that problem correctly next time! If you’re still flummoxed, read on…
Finish up with a complete
solution.
This is the step where you check
the official explanation for the first time. If you found a solution on your
own, you’re looking for different perspectives on the problem, or clever ways
to save time while solving it. If you didn’t, then read just enough of the
explanation to give yourself a hint. Reading the whole explanation is a last
resort — if you have to do this, the problem is probably too tough to bother
with right now!
If the explanation doesn’t help
you, Google the first few words of the problem. Many problems have been
thoroughly discussed by instructors and students online.
Finally, record what you’ve
learned.
Take notes about GRE problems as
you review them. These notes can be as simple or as elaborate as you like, but
here’s what really matters:
- Are you going to do the problem again later?
- What can you take from this problem that would help you on other problems?
When you’re answering that second
question, be as general as you can. Great takeaways are ones that tell you how
to react to a specific clue in the problem: “When I see this, I’ll do this.”
Suppose that you missed a two-blank Text Completion problem because you didn’t
notice that the phrase “instead of” reversed the meaning of part of the
sentence. Don’t just write down “look for ‘instead of'” in your notes. Instead,
record a general lesson like this: “When I see a two-blank Text Completion
problem, look for words and phrases that tell me whether the blanks are
similar, or opposites.” You might even go on from there to brainstorm a list of
those critical words and phrases.
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