An important part of preparing for the GRE is practice questions, and lots of them! But where can you find good practice questions for the GRE? Today, we’ll look at a few reputable sources.
GRE practice questions from ETS, the maker of the GRE
They say there’s nothing quite like the real thing, and this is especially true when it comes to good practice materials for the GRE. You’ll be happy to know the ETS, the company that makes the GRE, offers many real practice questions, taken from actual GRE exams.
ETS’s GRE Powerprep package offers two full practice exams, downloadable online for free. The ETS website also has tons of free practice questions for the GRE AWA. Start out at ETS’s official GRE Analytical Writing homepage to get links to a pool of Issue AWA questions, a pool of Argument AWA questions, and sample essays with scorer commentary.
All of the web-based practice question sets I just mentioned are free, along with several other question sets linked to the GRE general preparation page. And for a reasonable price, you can get many more GRE practice questions in ETS’s official GRE books. The Official Guide to the GRE includes practice tests, additional practice questions, and strategy tutorials. In addition, ETS has put out full books of GRE Verbal Reasoning and GRE Quantitative Reasoning practice questions.
GRE practice questions from other sources
There are quite a few third party providers of GRE practice questions. But be careful– the quality of these questions can be hit or miss. To properly prepare yourself for the exam, you’ll need to choose unofficial GRE questions that are very similar to the real stuff from ETS.
Manhattan Prep’s GRE books are excellent for GRE math practice. The quality of Manhattan’s Verbal practice questions are not quite as universally good. Their Reading Comprehension practice is decent, but Manhattan’s Sentence Equivalence and Text Completion are more complex than the ones on the GRE, focusing on harder vocabulary words that you won’t actually need to know on test day.
For the best unofficial GRE Verbal practice questions, look online. Magoosh GRE offers hundreds of GRE Verbal questions through a web-based subscription. Magoosh’s quantitative GRE practice questions can also be a nice companion to Manhattan and ETS Quants practice.
How to find other good practice questions
This mini-guide to finding GRE practice questions covers three top sources of practice materials for the GRE. But there are many other GRE prep resources out there. As you look for other sets of GRE practice questions, be an informed consumer. Always compare third-party practice materials to the ones from ETS so that you can check for accuracy. And be sure to read customer reviews before you use any non-ETS materials that you come across.
David is a test prep expert at Magoosh. He has a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a Masters in Teaching English to Speakers of other Languages from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. He has been teaching K-12, University, and adult education classes since 2007 and has worked with students from every continent.
Related Resources:
• Planning on Taking the GRE? How Much it Can Run You?
• Making Friends with the GRE: How To Overcome Test Anxiety & Perform at Your Best
• Important Facts About GRE Scoring
