This Magoosh One Month GRE Study Schedule is designed for those of you who are wondering how to study for the GRE in a short period of time on your own. How can you effectively prepare for the GRE test at home when you have competing priorities—school, work, family, hobbies—all demanding your time (and which are likely more tempting to indulge in)? The key is to commit yourself to an established plan.

We’ve eliminated the guesswork by detailing below exactly what you should do every single day to get your highest GRE score in the one month you have before your GRE exam date, along with some bonus GRE preparation tips. (If you think you need more or less time to study, Magoosh has lots of GRE study options for you!)

We’re not going to beat around the bush: one month is not a lot of time to prepare for the GRE, but it is doable if you follow this plan! Here’s how to prepare for the GRE in one month.

GRE Study Plan 1 Month Table of Contents

How to Study for the GRE in One Month: Your GRE Preparation Game Plan

Step 1 : Take a practice test. Find out where you are compared to where you need to be. Taking a practice GRE exam early on can also help you diagnose problem areas, figure out score goals, and set priorities.

: Take a practice test. Find out where you are compared to where you need to be. Taking a practice GRE exam early on can also help you diagnose problem areas, figure out score goals, and set priorities. Step 2 : Get your foundations in place. Familiarize yourself with the test, its format, its question types, and its scoring.

: Get your foundations in place. Familiarize yourself with the test, its format, its question types, and its scoring. Step 3 : Set up your schedule. While we have everything you need to prep for the GRE in one month, you’re the one who needs to decide when and how this fits in with your other priorities.

: Set up your schedule. While we have everything you need to prep for the GRE in one month, you’re the one who needs to decide when and how this fits in with your other priorities. Step 4 : Practice daily. This includes work on both the GRE Quantitative section and the GRE Verbal section, GRE vocabulary study, and lessons on GRE-specific strategies.

: Practice daily. This includes work on both the GRE Quantitative section and the GRE Verbal section, GRE vocabulary study, and lessons on GRE-specific strategies. Step 5 : Test yourself. Complete daily practice questions on the concepts and strategies you’ve just learned.

: Test yourself. Complete daily practice questions on the concepts and strategies you’ve just learned. Step 6 : Prepare for the full exam. This includes the AWA (writing section)! How to do it? Weekend essay writing practice and mock GRE practice tests, simulating real test conditions.

: Prepare for the full exam. This includes the AWA (writing section)! How to do it? Weekend essay writing practice and mock GRE practice tests, simulating real test conditions. Step 7: Mentally and physically prepare. Get enough sleep, perform confidence-boosting exercises, and model healthy eating the days before the test

This outline will guide you to GRE mastery over the next month. It’s a simple formula with proven success!

GRE Study Plan Essential Materials:

1) Magoosh GRE Prep, including Magoosh GRE lessons and Magoosh GRE practice

2) ETS’s Official Guide to the GRE book

If you already own a 2nd edition of the Official Guide, don’t feel you have to buy the 3rd edition.

3) ETS’s Free PowerPrep Tests: When you’re done, we offer video explanations here. I highly recommend using PowerPrep Online if you can, since taking the test on a computer is a good simulation of exam day conditions.

4) A journal or notebook (yes, a physical hard copy item)

5) Magoosh’s online GRE Flashcards. They’re free and you can use them on the web, on your iPhone/iPad or Android.

6) Notecards (or Quizlet.com)

7) Magoosh’s GRE Complete Guide

This comprehensive, web-based guide to the GRE gives you the quick but very helpful overview you need to understand this test. You’ll see how the GRE is designed and scored, what skills it tests, how to find and use the best GRE prep, and how to prepare for the GRE’s different sections.

8) A Guide to GRE Practice Test Resources

This page includes instructions on where to find good full-length GRE practice exams, and how to take practice tests and incorporate them into your studies. This page also has links to Magoosh’s free GRE diagnostic quizzes.

9) Before you get started, Magoosh’s GRE expert Chris has some tips for how to use this schedule.

Okay! Let’s get started with day one.









One Month GRE Study Plan: Week One







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One Month GRE Study Plan: Week Two

Week Two, Day Six Watch the following lesson videos: 1 Issue Task Essay : 30 minutes *

1 Argument Task Essay : 30 minutes * 1) Today, you are going to write two essays, half an hour each. You will write one Issue essay and one Argument essay. For topics, go back to the topic pools on the ETS website, and pick a topic. Write the essays in Word. When done, share the essays with a trusted friend/mentor, or post in TheGradCafe, or set aside and critique it yourself with the Official Guide rubric in a few days. 2) In the Official Guide: a) do the Verbal Reasoning Practice Sets 1-6 b) do the Quantitative Reasoning Practice Sets 1-4 Treat this as a mock GRE. You might even combine it with the two essays, and do consecutive batches 2-3 sets without interruption, to simulate more effectively a real GRE. Set a timer for the time limits. Here are the time limits to observe: Verbal Reasoning Set 1 = 9 minutes Verbal Reasoning Set 2 = 10 minutes Verbal Reasoning Set 3 = 9 minutes Verbal Reasoning Set 4 = 10 minutes Verbal Reasoning Set 5 = 10 minutes Verbal Reasoning Set 6 = 10 minutes Quantitative Reasoning Set 1 = 22 minutes Quantitative Reasoning Set 2 = 23 minutes Quantitative Reasoning Set 3 = 24 minutes Quantitative Reasoning Set 4 = 11 minutes After you are done, check all your answers. For any question you got right, skim the explanation to verify that you got it right for the right reason. For any question you got wrong, read the explanation thorough, taking notes in your journal on any concepts you didn’t understand and anything about the question format that psyched you out. If you still can’t make sense of the question after reading the explanation, email us at Magoosh.







One Month GRE Study Plan: Week Three

Week Three, Day Six Take a full-length practice test. If you’re not a Magoosh student, you can use the free GRE practice exam on our site! For the two essay questions, write the essays in a word processing program. These essays you will either share with a trusted friend or mentor, or post in the online forums asking for feedback, or critique later with the Official Guide rubric. As much as possible, try to mimic the GRE conditions. Give yourself relatively short breaks in between sections. Only eat the kinds of snacks that you are planning to bring to the real GRE. Note how your sleep the night before affects your work. Note how what you had for dinner the previous night and what you had to eat earlier that day affects your energy level and concentration. Write any observations in your journal. You can take a short break when you are done, but before too long, grade the entire thing while it is still fresh in your mind. Study the solutions for any problems you got wrong, and right observations in your journal.details







One Month GRE Study Plan: Week Four

Week Four, Day Six Take a full-length practice test. * Today, you are going to take the PowerPrep test on your computer. As much as possible, try to mimic the GRE conditions. Give yourself relatively short breaks in between sections. Only eat the kinds of snacks that you are planning to bring to the real GRE. Note how your sleep the night before affects your work. Note how what you had for dinner the previous night and what you had to eat earlier that day affects your energy level and concentration. Write any observations in your journal. At the end, copy the essays you wrote into a Word doc, and as before, these you will share with a trusted friend or mentor, or post in the online forums asking for feedback, or critique later with the Official Guide rubric. Give yourself a short break when the test is done, and then check all your work, studying carefully the questions you got wrong.As always, try to mimic the GRE conditions. At the end, copy the essays you wrote into a Word doc, and as before, these you will share with a trusted friend or mentor, or post in the online forums asking for feedback, or critique later with the Official Guide rubric. Give yourself a short break when the test is done, and then check all your work, studying carefully the questions you got wrong.

GRE studying tips for any remaining days

Keep working on GRE math and verbal every day. Need suggestions for how to stay focused? Read on!

Keep watching 10-12 Magoosh videos a day. Go back and re-watch any videos in which you think you need to learn the topic more thoroughly.

You should have answered most of the Magoosh questions at this point; you can finish any remaining questions. You can try again Magoosh questions that you have already answered, and see if you do better on the question the second time around.

Keep drilling your stack of vocab cards every day.

There’s a second PowerPrep test you can take on the computer. There’s also another paper GRE in the back of the OG: even if you don’t take that under “test like” conditions, it still would be good to work through all the problems.

Day Before the GRE Exam:

1) No GRE preparation all day

2) Eat a large, healthy, leisurely dinner – no alcohol!

3) Go to bed earlier than usual.



Day of the GRE:

1) ABSOLUTELY NO LAST MINUTE GRE PREPARATION!

2) Eat a large breakfast, full of protein

3) Do relaxing, fun activities to pass time until the test

Bring to the GRE test:

1) A liter of water

2) Healthy energy-packed snacks (nuts, protein bar, etc.)

3) On breaks, make sure to get up, move & stretch – moving & stretching the large muscles of the body (legs & torso) will get oxygen flowing throughout, which will help keep you awake and keep you thinking clearly.

Wait! I Want to Know More About How to Prepare for the GRE in One Month!

Not done yet? Fabulous! We have even more suggestions for how to boost your GRE score in a month. Check out the resources below to get that score sky-high.

GRE Preparation Supplemental/Optional Materials:





A Few Notes on GRE Study

A note on learning GRE vocabulary: first of all, it’s important not only to learn the literal dictionary definition (the denotation), but also to understand the metaphorical use of the word in context (the connotation). For example, the word “opaque” literally means “not transparent”, but metaphorically it can means “hard to understand” or, describing a person, it can mean “thick-headed, stupid.” Ultimately, you should strive to learn both the denotation and the connotation of each word.

Daily review of vocab is vital. I wrote this schedule recommending the Magoosh’s GRE Flashcards, but DO NOT limit yourself to just these words. As you read and find more words you don’t know, look them up, make flashcards (including context), and make your own flashcard decks. You could have one pile for words whose denotation you are trying to master, another containing words for which you know the denotation but not the connotation, and a “done” stack that gets reviewed only rarely.

A note on the prep books: Don’t write in any of the test prep books, because for any of them, after a period of time you may want to go back and do a problem again that you haven’t seen for a while. You can only start it fresh if the page is free of your marks.

This one-month plan is a furiously intense pace, designed to have a person improve as much as possible in a month’s time. It’s not your high school level, 30 minutes a night study plan; this is the big league, graduate school level. I have designed four weeks, assuming 2-4 hours for each of the five weekdays, and one 5-6 stint on the weekend (“Day Six”). If you would prefer to work on both weekend days, and free up some weeknight time, feel free to make those changes. Note: Many folks find that each day’s assignments take 2-4 hours, although times to complete them will vary for different students. It is possible that a day’s assignments will take significantly longer, and you may have to devote longer weekend sessions to finishing the week’s work.

Also, as much as possible, get enough sleep during this month. REM sleep plays an important role in encoding long term memory, and in an eight hour period of sleep, the last hour has the most REM. If you are getting 7 hours/night instead of 8 hours/night, you are depriving your brain of one of its most powerful systems for learning and remembering. Caffeine and energy drinks will keep you feeling awake if you don’t get enough sleep, but they don’t do bupkis to replace the lost opportunity to encode more information into long term memory.

A note about additional materials:

Magoosh contains all the information test takers need for wild success on the exam so they can get the school admission letters they want. Many students have achieved spectacular results using nothing but Magoosh—no GRE tutors, no extra books required. Nevertheless, we are recommending that you obtain additional materials and use them, in addition to the Magoosh materials. Here’s why: These plans were structured with far-reaching pedagogical principles in mind, and a deep consideration for how the human brain learns. Most people cannot hear or read something just once and, from that single hearing, remember it completely and understand it fully.

At Magoosh, we are very ambitious for our students; we want them to learn as thoroughly and as masterfully as possible. We recommend using these additional resources to provide additional practice, alternative explanations, and extra review. Not every student will need or want additional materials, but for those who do, the books we recommend are the best for the overall goal of doing very well on the exam and getting your target scores.