Introduction

This post is a loose collection of advice for those preparing for GRE1 and TOEFL. What worked out for me was consistent preparation instead of say an entire week dedicated to preparing for the above exams. I squeezed in preparation for both exams in between my semester workload (classes, assignments, etc.). This post assumes that you know the basic structure of both tests (sections, allotted time, etc.). If you aren’t aware of these, please check out some other resource before reading this post.

A bit of background: I’m a final year engineering student in India. As a result, the quant section in GRE wasn’t a major issue. On the other hand, I had to put in some effort to score well in the language section of GRE (and obviously all the sections of TOEFL). I first appeared for GRE, which made TOEFL prep pretty straightforward since the language component of GRE requires a good amount of preparation. I appeared for TOEFL two weeks after GRE (although some of my friends did so after a week). I scored 333/340 in the MCQs and 4.5/6 in the analytical writing section of GRE while 120/120 (major imposter syndrome) in TOEFL!

GRE

Vocabulary

A good vocabulary is essential for scoring well in the language section of GRE, not only because direct questions are asked (such as which word is closest meaning to X?) but also because they help in understanding the passages. I practiced words from the following resources:

  • Magoosh - I went through the basic and common lists. If the smartphone app slows down your preparation, you can also find pdf versions for all the lists online.
  • Majortest - 10 lists (some words are difficult to memorise)

Magoosh, unlike Majortest, also provides an example of word usage in a sentence, which makes it easier to understand and memorise. Also, spaced repetition i.e. going back to the lists periodically, was very helpful.2

Writing

For writing, I highly recommend the templates provided by GregMat on his YouTube channel. When you practice with such templates, you can save precious time (and focus on the content) which would have been otherwise spent in deciding on the structure of your response. A large pool of topics is available on the official website. I randomly picked 5 issue and 5 arguments and timed my response since speed is extremely important. I also discussed my responses with a friend who was also preparing for GRE (we reviewed each other’s work). Why? Because it might sometimes give you a different perspective on some topics. Also, try to make sure that the word count exceeds 400 because irrespective of what the official pdf says, it is well known that word count matters a lot. Anything above 400-500 is safe; anything below and your score will be heavily dependent on the quality of your arguments/ideas.

Reading

I found the practice sets given in the official pdf to be more than sufficient.

Quant

As mentioned in the introduction, I was confident about the quant section. I simply went over the official pdf to jog my memory when it comes to topics such as quartiles, the 66-95-99.7% rule, etc. Anybody with a math background should not be too worried. What if you aren’t from a math background? I don’t know. Good luck! One important tip: if you are from a math background, you might finish the quant section well within the stipulated time. My advice: go through your answers again. Please. Review them. If required, solve them again. I committed a silly mistake during my GRE (also during practice tests) which I luckily spotted when reviewing the answers. I understand it’s boring to go through them again but if you don’t, there are chances that you’ll regret not scoring 170/170, which is very gettable!

Practice tests

Finally, when it comes to practice tests, I appeared for three full-length tests. Two of these were the official PowerPrep tests which can be accessed on the official portal for free. I gave the first one two weeks prior to my scheduled GRE date to understand the areas where I need to improve; appeared for the second one a week before the GRE. I made a few silly errors in the quant section of the first test while I caught some while reviewing the quant section during the second test. For some extra practice, I also appeared for a free test provided by Princeton. I scored lower than 333 in both tests and so there’s no need to panic unless there’s a drastic drop in the score (how is drastic defined? For me, my target was to score above 325)

TOEFL

Reading

The reading section was much easier than the corresponding section in GRE. The answers to almost all questions can be found directly in the passage (unlike GRE, which requires the reader to analyse the passage carefully). As a result, passages from the official pdf were more than sufficient.

Listening

I adopted the practice of noting down as much as possible (keywords, phrases, who said what to whom, etc.), not because my notes turned out to be crucial in answering the questions but because it helped me focus and prevented my mind from wandering off while listening to the recording. The answers to most questions will remain in your memory (sometimes, your notes might help in answering some random question). Again, the official pdf and the accompanying audios were sufficient. I practiced them to get in the habit of scribbling down important details as quickly as possible.

Writing

After extensive preparation for GRE, the writing section wasn’t an issue. I went through some official responses and stuck to the GregMat template (refer to the writing subsection in the GRE section above). Practicing a few responses from the official TOFL pdf is sufficient.

Speaking

This was the trickiest section. I am awful when it comes to extempores and I just couldn’t gather my thoughts during the given window for preparation of task 1. After going through some responses online, I concluded that fluency is more important than content. During the preparation window, I tended to focus on presenting as many facts/opinions as I could but during the actual speech, I’d fumble because I did not have a clear flow in mind. I’d recommend setting up a template (e.g. 10 seconds for the introduction, 30 for the content and 5 seconds for wrapping up your speech). For practice, I asked a friend to randomly pick a prompt from the official website and I’d time myself during both the preparatory stage and the response. The remaining three tasks, which are integrated, are easier in my opinion but its always good to have a pre-decided structure for your response (e.g. connecting phrases, introductory statements, etc.)

That’s it! All the best! Feel free to contact me in case you need any guidance.

  1. Due to the pandemic, many schools (at least in the US) have made GRE scores optional. Check this for more details. TOEFL scores, on the other hand, are mostly mandatory. ↩

  2. I noted down the words which I forgot repeatedly and wrote a short Python script which randomly sampled from this word list and displayed a word. On pressing a key, it then displayed its meaning. Depending on whether I knew the answer, I’d press a key which adjusted the probability of that word reappearing (lower probability if I knew the answer and higher probability if I couldn’t recollect the meaning). With some basic knowledge of coding, it shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes to code this up; email me in case you are interested in the script! ↩