Over the last few months I have written several reviews and critiques on some of the most well known GRE books available and used by students in Pakistan for their GRE preparation. For my readers it has been difficult to go through all of this information to make a sense of what is best for their GRE preparation. Today I will attempt to help you make a study plan for yourself which you can follow for your prep of the new revised GRE.

If you are a beginner and you need help with the verbal section then start off with the basic strategies in the book by Princeton Review. This book is a good starting point for your verbal preparation and you must try to read and apply all the techniques taught in this book. It is also easily available in all Pakistani book stores. However, be aware that the practice questions in this book are ridiculously easy compared to the actual GRE – this is why I mentioned that this book is a starting point in your verbal preparation.

For many GRE students in Pakistan, GRE verbal is a very difficult section to do well at. Therefore I have made this plan strictly by assuming that you guys are at a very basic level.

Once you finish off reading and implementing what you have learned, next step is to practice and work through the difficult and actual GRE questions. Kaplan is a bit difficult on reading comprehensions so you can strive to go through that after you finish Princeton review. Once you do each and every question and get the hang of things, it is the best time to get hold of the official guide to the new revised GRE by ETS. This book has been written by the actual GRE test makers and is therefore the closest one can get to practice real questions before the GRE exam. This book is not good at providing test taking strategies or short cut methods to solve GRE questions, but it has very good practice exercises and examples. Do every verbal question in this book and that is it – you will be all set.

Now if you are a novice and are struggling with Quant or the Math section of the new GRE, then start off by working on the GRE math book by McGraw-Hill. It is called Conquering the GRE Math and make sure you cover everything in this book. For those of you who are very rusty at math should start with the Princeton review book and then come directly to McGraw-Hill. For those of you who are really poor on math should also work on read the SAT College Board book since it has 600 practice questions, which will help you, get in touch with basic simple math alongwith load of practicing.

Now many of you would think why the heck did I omit Barron’s from the above list? Well the answer is simple – Barron’s is a big ugly book and it assumes that its readers have a certain level of concepts. It must be done thoroughly but in the end – after you have studied from the above books. Once you are done with Barron’s, you must do the official GRE guide questions for Math as well. As I mentioned earlier these are actual GRE questions and will all help you master the GRE test.

For vocabulary pick up the word smart book from Princeton review and prepare that. I must warn you guys that make a habit of reading good quality articles and comprehensions for the GRE - such as from the newyork times website. Unless you don't read regularly you will not be able to make much difference to your GRE scores.

Let me list this down for you in an organized way:

For verbal:

• All strategies, techniques and questions from Princeton review book
• All reading comprehension questions from Kaplan
• All verbal questions and examples from official guide for the new GRE

For quant:

• Start from Princeton review and do all questions
• All questions and strategies from McGraw-Hill
• Every thing from Barron’s
• If you are very bad at Math then do the SAT book as well

For Vocabulary:

• Word smart by Princeton review

Please note that the above preparation will ensure that you do well on the GRE. For something in the top 10% you need to follow my other post, which will follow this post.

Good luck and let me know if you’ve used any of these books and or if you have any questions