168 q, 157 v, 5 writing
Studied for 20 days for the q section, did it in 1 try
How long did you study for the GRE?
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Here’s my data point:
Took it once after only studying 3-4 days and got 167Q. This almost led to me abandoning academia, really kicked me into a depression hole. I retook it almost 2 years later (was way to traumatised to retry before that) and did manage to get 170Q. This time I studied for just under a month, but unlike my first try, for which I studied full time, here I was only able to put in 1-2 hours each day.
Interestingly, my verbal score actually fell in the second try. Both times got around 168.
As for writing, I got around 5 in each test. Studying for this seemed to make no difference. I used to think that this score is pretty meaningless, but then I met someone who writes really well and he did get a 6.
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I took the GRE three times. For the first two attempts, I spent ~2 months studying both verbal and quant at a very leisurely pace, not focusing a lot on speed/timing. Got 162V, 162Q both times. AW5.0 the first time, AW4.5 the second time.
Retook the GRE for the third try the following year. Purposely gave myself only 20 days, only studied for quant, timed myself on each question and focused on finishing each question in under 90 seconds. Got 166V, 169Q, 5.0AW.
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I took the old exam in 2002, pre-AW. I had spent a couple months studying for the LSAT, so the analytical part was a piece of cake. For the GRE, I only took a couple practice exams and scored similarly on the actual exam as I did on practice: 800 Q, 800 A, 680 V.
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Alright, I've been a paid tutor for GRE exams for a wide spectrum of students, over 20+ clients in total. Let me give my honest suggestion:
For a realistic econ applicant, any more than 20 hours spent on the GRE is a mistake, unless you've always been extremely poor at test-taking and need that preparation for the quant section.
On the other hand, any less than 3 hours is probably a mistake too, unless you are extremely experienced/talented at test-taking and already know the coverage of the verbal/writing section. These two sections are mostly irrelevant, but still worth investing 3 hours in familiarizing the structure, for a likely substantial improvement in score.
Myself: I took the GRE 1 time without prep, got 169/167/4.0, got into grad school. Then decided to take it again when I was looking for GRE tutor jobs (they pay a lot). Before the second test I decided to spend 3 hours looking into the test structure, especially the writing section, and fixing some holes in my understanding. And quickly memorizing 300 vocabs using a technique for short-term memory (google for how to do that). That was sufficient. Then got 170/169/5.5. If you count the duration of my first test , that's about 5 hours invested for probably the most improvement a typical grad econ student can make on the test, subject to randomness.
Compared to most people I'm definitely experienced in test-taking (comes from a test-focused education system). Econ applicants from US system should probably spend 15-20 hours, more on math than on the other two sections.
But seriously, there's no way an econ applicant should spend more than 20 hours on the GRE. If you're on the right track in terms of applying to grad school - i.e. you're taking rigorous econ courses and working on research assistance projects - there are much better ways to spend your time.I have probably spent already 150 hours on the GRE and failed twice. And guess what, I will try it again. I consider myself as good as an economist as anyone else trying to go to a top 20. I believe being a good economist is much more about arithmetic and quick math. Btw, you arrogance is repudiating and is the reason why you will fail no matter how good you think you are.
Cant tell if this is a meme or not