Hey r/GRE! Looking for some strategic advice on Verbal — specifically TC and RC — from people who've been through this grind. Test is about 1.5–2 months out and I'm targeting 155–157 Verbal.
My current setup:
• Vocab: GregMat (completed the 2-month plan)
• Practice material: Big Book for both TC and RC
• Method: Untimed practice → then watch video walkthroughs to understand mistakes
• TC score: Consistently 5/7
• RC score: 4/4 on easier passages, drops to 2/4 on hard/abstract passages
What's going well:
• For TC: I can almost always identify the correct strategy (support/contrast), spot pivots, and get the connotation direction right
• For RC: I handle straightforward passages confidently
Where I'm getting stuck:
TC: My errors are almost entirely subtle connotation traps — I narrow it down to the right direction but pick the slightly wrong shade of meaning between two very close answer choices. The clear gap in nether strategy nor vocabulary.
RC: On hard or abstract passages, I consistently lose points on author's attitude/tone questions and sometimes hard inference questions . I can follow the logic of the passage but misjudge how strong or nuanced the author's stance actually is.
My questions for the community:
On improving from here: Given my errors are connotation-based for TC and tone-based for RC, what's the most targeted way to improve? Is it more vocab drilling (near-synonyms, word pairs), or is there a specific technique/framework for both that helped you break through this plateau?
Should I keep doing Big Book or move on? I've been at it for 3–4 weeks and my scores feel stagnant — I'm not making new mistakes, but I'm also not improving. The patterns feel repetitive. Should I:
• Keep grinding Big Book until I exhaust it, or
• Move directly to ETS Official Guides / PowerPrep questions now?When should I start timed practice? I haven't done a single timed session yet. With 1–2 months left, when is the right time to make the switch — or at least start mixing timed sections in? Should I wait until accuracy is higher, or is staying untimed actually holding me back at this point?
What does the next 15–30 days ideally look like? Would love a rough framework — e.g., when to transition materials, when to go timed, how to balance TC vs. RC drilling — from anyone who navigated a similar situation.
I've checked the wiki and searched past posts — lots of great general advice there, but would love to hear what specifically worked for people in a similar spot. Thanks! 🙏