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Representativeness of ETS free practice test

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 8:32 pm
by Zetetic
I took the freely available ETS test located http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/GRE/pdf/Math.pdf and found it surprisingly easy. I've started on the Princeton Review (cracking the math subject) 3rd edition and it seems much more time intensive because of the focus on algebraic manipulations, which the ETS sample didn't seem to focus on nearly as much. I also found it to be somewhat more difficult because of this, but it should be simple enough to review all of the little algebraic tricks they want you to use.

My question is this: Is the ETS sample representative of what I can expect, or is the Princeton Review more in line with it, or neither? I'm wondering how much I should focus on cranking out tedious examples. Is speed the major factor of difficulty of the test?

Re: Representativeness of ETS free practice test

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 6:48 am
by Max
1) ETS sample test is representative of real test, but expect real test to be harder on average (there will be more harder problems than in sample test, but hardest problems on real test are not harder than sample). Bear in mind, that "sample test" is real test that was given in 2005. You should also find 3 more real practice test and train on them. I did all of them in isolated timely manner and they've been good predictor of results of real test.
2) Time is a major factor on real test. You definitely won't have time to solve all problems using brute force, but all of them should be solvable by using some tricks, knowing some facts in advance, etc.