Reflection on a month of prep 315 (ETS prep test 1) -> 338 (unofficial GRE score)
Short Answer: Gregmat + that free manhattan 500 quant question pdf + good sleep + wholesome foods. It was a hard grind and I am glad to be done. Mostly making this post for myself (and Greg, see section 3) as no one takes the advice on here to heart.
Long Answer:
Find some perspective. I read Autobiography of Geronimo & The Fire Next Time. Working 8hrs then studying for 4 on weekdays + 9hrs weekend studying is tiring, but it's heaven compared to cruelty and misery of the American Southwest in the 19th century. You can laugh at the comparison, but perspective is important. Reading is important.
Effective studying is about systems that drive improvement. I am a slow and mistake prone math solver (didn't finish the last question on my quant section :( ). Watching videos on math topics would not have helped me score higher. Instead, I focused on practice. Every single practice question I did, I did timed. Anything that takes > 2 minutes was wrong in my system. I would go back and solve it again and again until I could do it < 2 minutes. If I couldn't do it quickly, then I couldn't do it at all. That was my system. Your system will probably be different. Thank you Gregmat for providing so many practice quant sections as well. I did them before work each day.
This part isn't advice I just want to show off a little: I am a software guy. I vibecoded my own platform to quiz myself on math and vocab. This is what let me track the time I spent of every single question. I love progress graphs. Greg, if you read this, I have attached some progress graphs as an example, highly recommend you add these into Gregmat they are awesome motivation lol. Also please add tracking and filtering by how long a given question takes.
Reading comprehension: I strongly dislike reading comprehension because I am a bit pigheaded. Even when I got a passage wrong in my practice, instead of learning, my instinct is to say 'I am not wrong. Greg/ETS is wrong! their reasoning is flawed and mine is correct' While I stand by that, it is not a useful attitude to score well. So for each one I got wrong, I forced myself to argue as to why their answer was better than mine. I dislike it but the results speak for themselves.
Sleep and food: No one performs well on low sleep and junk food. It might seem basic but trust me: hydration, exercise, and sleep are worth at least half of my test points improvement.