It is possible—though barely—to prepare for the GRE in just a single month. But you will have to buckle up and work hard each day, while you faithfully follow our 4-week plan.

In an ideal scenario, you’re able to reserve maybe 4 to 6 months for your review schedule to prepare for the GRE. That’s an ample amount of time, which still gives you enough time for school, work, and other facets of your life.

It’s a very different matter if you only have a single month to prepare for the GRE. We will assume that this happened due to some special circumstances, and not because you’re a habitual procrastinator.

If you do have this unfortunate tendency to leave things for tomorrow what you can do today, then you’re in trouble. That attitude just won’t wash with this 4-week plan. There just isn’t enough time for you to dawdle.

So, set aside your 4 weeks of study, and start on a Monday. Make sure the plan ends a few days before the actual test, as you’re going to need that time to rest and recuperate from the frenetic review pace. But if you stick to the plan religiously, then you may end up getting the GRE score you want.

Required Study Materials

Like a mechanic who’s about to work on a car, you’ll need the right tools and spare parts for the job. In this case, you need to get the right sort of review resources that cover all the topics that may come up in the GRE.

The core resources you need will come from the ETS, which is the same organization that owns and runs the GRE in the first place. Obviously, that makes the folks at ETS the leading experts on anything GRE-related. Other brands that offer tutors and online prep courses for the GRE hire people who previously received the highest scores in the GRE.

But the folks at the ETS are the same people who created the GRE test in the first place. No one knows better about the GRE than the ETS experts. That means you start your treasure trove of GRE review materials with the books and other materials offered by these people.

ETS Website

Your first stop is the ETS GRE website, which you ought to bookmark right away. You’ll likely return to this site again and again to check out the GRE information you need.

On the days leading up to your review schedule, read up on everything about the GRE on this site. Focus on how you ought to prepare for the test. Download every free GRE resource the site offers. It’s also highly recommended that you buy as much of the resources they offer for sale.

ETS Big Book

This is the monster book prepared by the ETS, in which you get 27 past copies of the GRE tests. Buy this, pronto.

With this book, you’re getting the actual questions that have been asked before. No other organization or brand can ask these particular questions, as they’re owned by the ETS. The other brands are only able to offer practice tests and questions designed to be similar to these tests. But with this book, you get the actual historical tests and questions.

Forget about getting the print copy of this book, as it’s out of print and therefore hard to find. Even if you find it, it’s rare enough that it will cost you a pretty penny. And even if you can afford it (it costs more than $800 from some sellers), a bulky book isn’t really all that portable.

Instead, just get the eBook version of the eBook. It’s readily available, easy to download, quite affordable, and certainly portable.

ETS PowerPrep GRE Tests

These PowerPrep GRE tests are better practice options than any alternative. That’s because these practice tests were created by the very same people who also created the actual GRE tests.

In fact, these may even be better than the practice tests in the Big Book, since those tests in the Big Book may be somewhat outdated.

You can (actually, you must) download 2 GRE practice tests for free. These practice tests are invaluable in giving you a very fair idea of what you’re in for when you take the real GRE. Also, you can use them as your diagnostic tools, as they can help you identify GRE topics for which you still need improvement.

There are 3 additional GRE practice tests (PowerPrep Plus) available, which you can get for about $40 each. Get at least 2 of these tests.

ETS Super Power Pack

There are 3 books in the ETS Super Power Pack, and it’s recommended that you get at least the 2017 edition. That set takes into account the crucial changes made for the GRE in 2016. The books include the official Guide to the GRE (3^rd edition), the Official GRE Quantitative Practice Questions (2^nd edition), and the Official GRE Verbal Practice Questions (2^nd edition).

The practice questions cover all the possible topics that may come up in the GRE. This gives you 4 real practice tests, with 2 tests published in the book and another 2 delivered online at no extra cost. The Quant book offers 150 new practice questions, and you get another 150 questions in the Verbal book.

Manhattan Prep 5 lb. Book of GRE Practice Problems

While the verbal section here is barely adequate, you’ll get a lot of use from their excellent chapters on various math topics. You can use the math questions here to help improve your math skills.

Supplementary Resources

Once you’ve secured the must-have items above, the next step is to get these extra study materials. These can help you in various ways. These include apps, online videos, and a planner to help you monitor your review progress.

• Math games: arithmetic, times tables, mental math (for Android)
• Mental Math Cards Challenge (for iPhone)
• Vince Kotchian Test Prep YouTube video channel
• Any productivity planner or journal (such as the Intelligent Change Productivity Planner)

The 1-Month (4-Week) Study Plan

Let’s assume you’ve already set aside 4 weeks for your review, and you start the review on a Monday. Try to relax on the weekend before, though use that time to secure all your study materials.

While the 4-week study plan may seem a bit rigorous, it doesn’t actually force you to study from sunup to sundown. It’s not as if you’ve enlisted in the Marine boot camp.

With just a single for your study review, you’ll have to put in about 3 to 4 hours of work daily, though on Sundays the plan does cut the daily workload to just 2 hours.

It’s best that you forget about procrastinating and take the review seriously.Don’t put off for tomorrow what you need to do today. Still, if you were unable to finish tasks meant for one week, you can do them over the course of the next few weeks (in addition to the tasks meant for those weeks as well). Just minimize these instances, or you’ll feel too harried.

Additional Notes

Here are some tips that should help explain certain instructions:

• When the plan says “Answer 60 math questions”, that means you should solve 60 questions. Start first with the official ETS materials. But don’t get stuck on a particular question. Just skip the question if you’re unable to figure it out after a couple of minutes. Later on, you’ll get instructions about reading up on the detailed explanations if a particular math topic is fuzzy for you.
• For some weeks, you may have to “answer sentence equivalence” or “answer text completion on reading comprehension” questions. In this plan, you should start with the questions in the ETS Super Power Pack books first. Whether you get the answer right or not, check out the explanations for getting the right answer.
• When it’s time to “answer critical reasoning questions”, work on the ETS Big Book questions in the “analytical” sections. When you’re done with these questions, transition to the critical reasoning questions found in the ETS Power Pack.

Daily Tasks

These tasks, combined, take about an hour and a half each day. You’re to do this in addition to any tasks you’re required to do for the week.

1. Study at least 25 vocabulary words.
2. Play 5 minutes of the math game apps.
3. Check out the verbal sections in the ETS Big Book, and read a long reading passage.
4. Brainstorm and think about2of theIssue Topics from the ETS website.
5. Brainstorm and think about 2 of theArgument Topics from the ETS website.
6. Check out the ETS Math Review on the ETS site, and learn about the math concepts you need to know about. You need to finish these items as quickly as you can.
7. Watch at least 1 or 2 videos from the Vince YouTube channel.
8. At the end of the day, note down your completed and uncompleted tasks.

Now we start with the breakdown of the tasks assigned for each week. It will be up to you to schedule these tasks throughout each week.

Week 1

1. Answer 60 math questions, starting with the ones in the ETS Big Book. You can spread out these questions over the whole week, meaning you can do maybe 10 or 12 questions each day.
2. Answer at least 10 questions from these particular Manhattan Prep 5-lb book chapters: Chapter 7, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 14, and Chapter 20. That’s a total of at least 50 questions. You’re aiming to complete at least ¾ of each chapter, so you can spread out the questions over the course of the 4-week plan.
3. Get the ETS verbal book, and read the essay chapter.
4. Answer 16 sentence equivalence questions from the ETS books.
5. Answer 16 text completion questions from the ETS books.
6. Answer 32 reading comprehension questions from the ETS books.
7. At the end of the week (ideally on Saturday), take the ETS PowerPrep Online Test 1. Do this under realistic conditions, meaning you need to set the time limits accordingly.
8. On Sunday, correct your test and note which questions you got wrong. These questions will indicate which areas will require more work, and you should try to do more than the minimum for these areas.

Week 2

1. Answer 16 sentence equivalence questions from the ETS books.
2. Answer 16 text completion questions from the ETS books.
3. Answer32reading comprehension questions from the ETS books.
4. Answer 8 ETS critical reasoning questions from the ETS Big Book. Use the passages which come with only a single associated question for each passage.
5. Try to solve 90 ETS math problems, and check out the detailed explanations especially if you get the answer wrong.
6. Answer at least 10 questions from these particular Manhattan Prep 5-lb book chapters: Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 17, and Chapter 28. Again, you’re aiming to finish at least ¾ of the questions for each chapter.
7. On Saturday, take the ETS PowerPrep Online Test 2. Do this under realistic conditions, meaning you need to set the time limits accordingly.
8. On Sunday, correct your test and note which questions you got wrong. These questions will indicate which areas will require more work, and you should try to do more than the minimum for these areas.

Week 3

1. Answer 16 sentence equivalence questions from the ETS books.
2. Answer 16 text completion questions from the ETS books.
3. Answer32 reading comprehension questions from the ETS books.
4. Answer 8 ETS critical reasoning questions from the ETS Big Book. Use the passages which come with only a single associated question for each passage.
5. Answer at least 10 questions from these particular Manhattan Prep 5-lb book chapters: Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, and Chapter 26. Again, you’re aiming to finish at least ¾ of the questions for each chapter.
6. Try to answer 90 ETS math problems.
7. On Saturday, take the ETS Power Test 1 with a timer.
8. On Sunday, correct your test and note which questions you got wrong. These questions will indicate which areas will require more work, and you should try to do more than the minimum for these areas.

Week 4

1. Answer 16 sentence equivalence questions from the ETS books.
2. Answer 16 text completion questions from the ETS books.
3. Answer32 reading comprehension questions from the ETS books.
4. Answer 8 ETS critical reasoning questions from the ETS Big Book. Use the passages which come with only a single associated question for each passage.
5. Try to answer 90 ETS math problems.
6. Answer at least 10 questions from these particular Manhattan Prep 5-lb book chapters: Chapter 16, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 27, and Chapter 29. Again, you’re aiming to finish at least ¾ of the questions for each chapter.
7. On Saturday, take the PowerPrep Online Test 2 under realistic conditions.
8. On Sunday, check out your test and note your wrong answers.

Ideally, your last test should give you a score you’re happy with. You may spend maybe a day on a problem or two that still give you problems. But you need to rest, at least the day right before the actual test.

Conclusion

After the last practice test (PowerPrep Plus Test 3), you should have an accurate idea of how you will do in the real GRE. Take some time off for a few days, get a good night’s rest right before the GRE test day, and do your best in the actual GRE!