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The GRE can exist intimidating: you know you need to study to become a expert score, but what does that actually mean? Should you spend two hours or ii months prepping? How long should y'all study for the GRE?

Knowing the correct amount of time to study for the GRE will assist you lot maximize your score and avert wasting time by over-studying. This guide will walk you through the exact process of figuring out exactly how long to study for the GRE, when you should start preparing, and how to create a written report schedule.

How Long Practice Most People Study For the GRE?

Every bit mentioned above, there's a wide variation in the amount of time people choose to ready for the GRE.However, most people spend about one to three months studying a few hours a calendar week for the GRE. This ways the amount of studying for the GRE could range roughly from eight hours (studying two hours a week for iv weeks) to 120 hours (studying ten hours a calendar week for 12 weeks).

That'south a wide range, and information technology also doesn't account for the different ways in which people prepare for the GRE. People may take practise tests, read upward on the different test sections, skim old notes from school, buy and read a GRE prep book, or a combination of the above.

So, the corporeality of time people spend preparing for the GRE and how they written report for information technology can vary widely. How long should you study for the GRE? Read on to figure out your individual study programme.

How Much Do You lot Want to Better Your Score?

In lodge to figure out how long to study for the GRE, you first demand to gear up a goal score and figure out how far you are from information technology.

Step 1: Effigy Out Which Score You Should Be Aiming For

First, research the average GRE scores of the schools you're interested in applying to. Look for this information on the programme'southward Admissions page. Non all schools listing this information, and, if you lot tin can't find it, you tin effort emailing or calling an admissions person at the schoolhouse straight to see if they can tell you more than.

Brand a list of this data for each of the schools you're interested in. And so, find the highest scores for both the Exact and Quantitative sections.Add two points to each of these scores to become your GRE score goals.

This process ensures that, if you come across your score goals, you'll exist higher up the adequate score range for the schools you're interested in, but it too doesn't set your goal score then high that you're spending a lot of fourth dimension trying to get an unnecessarily high score. (Remember, your GRE score is just one part of your awarding, and having an peculiarly loftier score probably won't give your awarding that much of a boost.)

To learn more about finding information on school GRE averages and setting goal scores, check out our guide "What Is a Good GRE Score?"

Pace 2: Take and Score a Do GRE

Your next pace, if you oasis't already done and then, is to take a GRE practise exam so you can get an idea of how you're currently scoring. You can download software with two official do tests to become started. Take this test timed, with only the breaks that are given, and with minimal distractions in social club to go the most accurate score.

Your Verbal and Quantitative sections will exist automatically scored, and there are scoring instructions for the Analytical Writing section.

Stride 3: Figure Out How Much You Need to Study to Meet Your Score Goal

Now, compare the scores you got on the practise test with your goal scores. How many points away are you lot from your goal scores in Exact and Quantitative Reasoning? (Analytical Writing is generally the section schools are least interested in).

Below are estimates of approximately how many hours yous need to study in order to heighten your score by a certain number of points.These numbers indicate how much you need to study to enhance your GRE score by that many points across BOTH sections. So, in 40 hours, you could raise your score for each section by about  two.5 points (5 points total).

      • v points = 40 hours
      • x points = 80 hours
      • 20 points = 160 hours
      • 30 points = 240 hours

These are very rough rules of thumb. Depending on your private circumstances, you may need more than or less time – we'll explicate more below.

If yous're looking to better your score more than 30 points, know that it will probably exist difficult and accept a lot of time. The GRE tests noesis yous learned from over a decade of school, and information technology's difficult to build upwards the content and skills you demand to heighten your score by that amount. If you are hoping to make large improvements in your GRE score, you may desire to look into hiring a tutor to assist with your studying.

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A tutor may help you brand big improvements in your GRE score.

How Long Should You Written report for the GRE?

Now you lot tin figure out exactly how long to report for the GRE in social club to become the score yous want. Information technology may seem like at that place are a lot of steps, just they're quick to go through, and by the finish yous'll be able to create a customized GRE study schedule.

Stride 1: Figure Out How Many Hours You Demand to Study

If you haven't already, use the guidelines above to get the total number of hours you need to study based on how much you want to better your score.Remember, you can heighten your score by about v points per forty hours of prep.

So, if you want to improve your score by 10 points, you'd need to study fourscore hours.

Footstep ii: Make Whatsoever Necessary Adjustments

You may need to tweak the total number of hours y'all demand to study based on your circumstances. If y'all've already studied a lot, yous may want to add some other 10-xx hours to the time yous need to study since it will probably take you longer to make significant progress.

The more studying you've already put in, the harder it will be to raise your score. The first few hours of studying you do for whatever subject are always the most productive considering you lot'll get the "depression-hanging fruit": equations you were mixing upwards, devil-may-care mistakes you were making, a certain question type you had no experience with etc.

Also account for how quickly you pick up new material. Can you pick upward and retain information the starting time time you come across information technology, or do yous demand to run into it a few times before it really sinks in? If you're a fast learner, you may want to decrease the number of hours you need to report by about ten-25%, while if learning new topics unremarkably takes you longer, yous may want to increment the time by 10-25%.

Finally, the better the prep materials yous utilize, the faster you'll better. If y'all're using unrealistic do questions or bad instruction materials, you'll make less progress. If you use top-of-the-line realistic questions with lessons that teach you great strategies, you'll be much more efficient.

Step 3: Decide How Many Hours You Tin Report in a Calendar week

Adjacent, figure out how many hours you tin gear up bated each calendar week to written report for the GRE.Make sure you're realistic when you cull this number considering, if you overestimate, you could finish upwardly burned out and frustrated, which could lead to you lot not doing as well as you lot'd similar on the examination or abandoning your study plan all together.

If it'southward summertime and y'all accept a lot of free time, y'all may exist able to fit in xx-40 hours of studying a week. Nonetheless, if you're already balancing school and/or piece of work, 5-10 hours of GRE study a week might be more realistic.

To a certain extent, the more hours you tin study a week, the fewer overall weeks you lot'll take to report. Withal, don't think that cramming 40 hours over a weekend volition have the same issue as spreading that studying out over several weeks. If you effort to fit a lot of studying into a single day, you'll probably wear yourself out and terminate retaining data after a certain signal.

Similarly, if you but study an hour every week or two and stretch your studying over a long period of time, you'll probably forget what you learned at the commencement by the time of the GRE.

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Step 4: Calculate How Long You Need to Written report

Hither'south where you figure out how long you need to study for the GRE.Take the total numbers yous need to study and divide information technology past the number of hours you can study each calendar week. The number y'all come up with is the number of weeks you need to study for the GRE.

So, if you demand to study 90 hours (80 hours to improve 10 points plus 10 hours considering it takes you longer to remember material), and you think you can report 10 hours a calendar week, 90 divided by x gives you 9, which means y'all'll need to study nine weeks for the GRE.

Step 5: Include Time for Retakes

If you think you may desire to retake the GRE if y'all're not happy with your first score, exist sure to budget time for retakes. You have to wait at least 21 days between GRE tests, merely, to exist condom, requite yourself four weeks for each retake so yous'll accept enough time to effigy out what you did wrong and meliorate. For near people, ii retakes are enough.

To keep the case from in a higher place, if y'all needed nine weeks to set up to take the GRE for the starting time time, and y'all want to upkeep time for 1 retake, you lot'd need a total of 13 weeks from when y'all beginning studying to when you take the GRE a 2nd time.

Step six: Double-Check School Deadlines

Once you've decide how long to study for the GRE, you'll want to make sure you lot'll accept enough time to prepare for and have the exam before grad schools need to take your scores.

If you lot're not applying for grad schoolhouse for at least 6 months, this stride doesn't employ to you because yous'll have plenty of time to take the GRE if you start relatively soon. If you choose which schools to send your score reports to at the examination heart immediately after you cease the GRE, it will take 10-15 days for those schools (and you)  to receive your official scores, then, to be safe, be certain to accept the GRE at to the lowest degree three weeks before deadlines.

And then, accounting for iii weeks for schools to receive scores, the person in the example would need to begin preparing for the GRE xvi weeks before their outset application deadline (9 weeks to prepare for the kickoff exam + four weeks to fix for a retake + three weeks for schools to receive the scores).

What if you tin't fit in your studying before schoolhouse deadlines? In that location are a few things y'all tin can practise. Start, if you factored in time for retakes, y'all can decide to prepare actually well and but take the GRE in one case, although there is more than risk involved.

Second, you can attempt to encounter if you tin can fit in more hours of GRE prep each week. The more than hours you tin can study each week, the fewer weeks yous'll need to study for the GRE.

Step 7: Create Your GRE Study Schedule

Once yous know when y'all need to begin studying and how long you'll need to study, create a study schedule and so you can track your progress and reach your score goals.

First, attempt to schedule your study times for the same times each twenty-four hour period or week. This volition help y'all program the rest of your schedule, and yous'll be more probable to do the studying you need to if it's always at the same time.

When you written report, remember to take regular practise tests, most every month or so, to track your progress. Y'all'll too want to gear up goals to achieve at the end of every study menstruum. You could take daily, weekly, or monthly goals depending on your schedule and what works best for you lot. The goals could be covering a new topic or increasing your score a certain number of points on a practise exam.

How Long to Study for the GRE: Final Verdict

Some people report months before they take the GRE, while others don't set up at all. Nonetheless, to get your best score, you demand to know how long you should written report. Later on figuring out boilerplate GRE scores for the schools you lot're interested in and taking a do exam, you'll know how many points you'll need to improve in gild to encounter your goal scores.

Accept into business relationship how busy you are, when school deadlines are, how quickly you study, and how much you've already studied in order to fine tune how long y'all demand to study for the GRE.

Developing a study schedule once you've figured out how long you need to study will help you track your progress and meet goals throughout your preparation.

What's Side by side?

Want more information on the GRE? Check out our guide to everything you need to know near the GRE, including how long it is, what it covers, and how yous should set.

Once you've decided when to accept the GRE, how do you register for the exam?Read our step-by-step guide to GRE registration for everything you need to know.

Thinking nearly taking a GRE Subject Examination? Learn who should take them, how important they are, and how you lot can prepare.

Set up to ameliorate your GRE score by 7 points?

We've written a eBook about the top 5 strategies yous must be using to take a shot at improving your GRE score. Download it for free now:



Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biological science and Geography and received her Principal's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries. View all posts by Christine Sarikas