r/GRE•
GoldFilm8842

Advice to go from 160Q on PPP1 to 166Q on real thing in 4 weeks?

Advice / Protips :redditgold:

Hello all! Writing here in hopes someone has some advice for my situation:

Three months ago: Manhattan Prep Baseline: 156Q
Four weeks ago: PP2: 166Q (two dumb mistakes, misreading questions, confident I got a 170Q but)
Two weeks ago: PP1: 166Q (same thing as first time, misread a question and misplaced a decimal, was confident I got a 170Q yet again)
Today: PPP1: 160Q (For the first time in weeks, there were questions I just couldn’t do under the time constraints. I could have gotten them right but only if I had a good amount of time. Two more misreading of questions… common theme I need to address, but even if I corrected silly mistakes, my score would have only been a 162Q most likely)
2 Weeks from Today: PPP2
4 Weeks from Today: Real Deal: 166Q Goal
7 Weeks from Today: Real Deal Try 2: 168Q Goal

Today’s PPP1 Details: Missed three problems in first section (two dumb mistakes on easy questions, one problem I legit didn’t know how to figure out given time constraints). Missed three more in second section, all of which I couldn’t do under the time constraints.

My quant prep up to this point:
I started with doing all of the Manhattan Prep course. I thought that gave me a solid foundation. I finished that about 3 weeks ago and have been doing ETS materials only since then, other than reviewing some Manhattan Prep mistakes from that time period. Specifically, I have completed all problems in The Official Guide to the GRE, but found that the ones on today’s test exam were a tad more difficult, which led to difficulty getting them correct under time constraints. I have not yet gotten to the Official GRE Quantitative Reasoning that has 150 practice problems in it. I have also restrained from doing the problems in the ETS Mentor Prep course, as I have heard some are recycled and I want an accurate score on my PPP exams.

Verbal:
To be honest, I have been focusing more on verbal and vocab the past few weeks, as that was my clear weakness when I started studying. My baseline was a 155V. It now seems it’s my strength, as I got a 164V score today, even after some boneheaded RC misses. I am confident my verbal score will stay about the same at worst, as I continue to progress on the vocab front. I have learned about 1200 words (thanks to Vince’s GRE Vocab App, highly recommend!) and am now reviewing those on top of adding any unfamiliar words I see in ETS materials. And of course will exhaust all ETS verbal questions prior to test day 1 and 2.

So, does anyone have any advice for me to reach my quant goals described above? I am confident I can fix the silly mistake theme, but my worry is these harder questions I am having difficulty with. Is it better to just drill my perceived weak question types (patterns, probabilities, etc. in my case), or should I focus on doing as many different types of quant problems as possible? Should I stick with the ETS questions at my disposal or should I tap into GregMat? My current thought is to prioritize all ETS quant questions before test day, but that may be way off base.

Thank you all so much in advance for the assistance. If anyone has any clarification questions, please ask!

Posted May 10, 2026, 10:04 PM UTC

10
Loading comments…