8-Week GRE Study Plan (2 Months): Balanced Quant + Verbal Build

If you have about two months, you can build a balanced Quant + Verbal skill set without burning out by alternating concept study, mixed practice, and weekly checkpoints. This plan is designed for the shorter GRE that’s now just under two hours. You’ll write one 30-minute Analytical Writing essay (Analyze an Issue), then take two Verbal sections and two Quant sections. Verbal sections have 12 questions in 18 minutes and 15 questions in 23 minutes; Quant sections have 12 questions in 21 minutes and 15 questions in 26 minutes. There’s no scheduled break, the test is section-level adaptive (your first section performance influences the difficulty of the second), and official scores post about 8–10 days after you test. The score scales remain 130–170 for Verbal and Quant, and 0–6 for Analytical Writing.

Time budget: aim for 10–12 focused hours per week. Use four weekday sessions of 60–75 minutes and one weekend block of 2–3 hours. Keep one day truly off for recovery. Structure each session: 1) Learn a targeted concept or strategy; 2) Solve Together by walking through guided examples; 3) Test Yourself with a short, timed set; 4) Reflect by reviewing errors and updating an error log. Emphasize interleaving: mix topics and question types within and across days to keep skills from siloing and to prevent plateaus.

Start with the Exambank diagnostic to set your baseline and priorities. Then rely on its Learn → Solve Together → Test Yourself flow. Lessons teach the exact Quant and Verbal strategies you need; step-by-step walkthroughs model expert reasoning on GRE-style items; short quizzes secure retention. Because Exambank adapts in real time, it can serve you questions at the right difficulty, target your tricky bits, and auto-build mixed review sets from your history. The analytics dashboard tracks accuracy by topic, time per question, and predicted score trajectories so your weekly checkpoint decisions are data-driven instead of guesswork. When life gets busy, ask your AI tutor to plan a mini-session around the minutes you have.

Verbal pacing: 12 Q in 18 min ≈ 90 seconds each; 15 Q in 23 min ≈ 92 seconds each. Quant pacing: 12 Q in 21 min ≈ 105 seconds each; 15 Q in 26 min ≈ 104 seconds each. Build a personal “two-pass” habit: first pass answer what’s clear, flag time sinks, then return. Accuracy early matters because of section-level adaptivity, but every question still counts—avoid rushing that creates unforced errors.

Mon–Thu (60–75 min): concept focus + timed mini-set + review. Fri: light review only (flashcards, error log, one RC or QC mini-drill). Sat (2–3 h): mixed Quant+Verbal practice under test-like timing, then a checkpoint review. Sun: off or 20–30 minutes of effortless maintenance (flashcards or one AWA outline). Keep sessions distraction-free and end with a quick written takeaway: what improved, what to fix next.

Goals: set targets, learn the new format, and refresh core mechanics. Quant: arithmetic with fractions/ratios/percent, order of operations, number properties; learn the on-screen calculator’s strengths and when to skip it. Verbal: foundations for Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence (context, contrast, tone); Reading Comprehension passage mapping. AWA: study the Issue task template and outline two prompts. Practice: daily 8–12 mixed questions after learning. Checkpoint: review your Exambank diagnostic; pick 3 Quant and 3 Verbal priorities for Week 2.

Quant: linear equations and inequalities, systems, absolute value, exponents/roots. Verbal: RC purpose/structure questions and how to justify answers with line evidence; TC with multi-blank elimination. AWA: write one 30-minute essay end-to-end. Practice: 2× timed Verbal sets (one TC/SE-heavy, one RC-heavy) and 2× timed Quant sets. Checkpoint: inspect accuracy and time per question by subtype in Exambank; set speed ceilings (e.g., abandon after 2 minutes on a single Verbal item).

Quant: proportions, rates, work problems, percent change, sequences. Data skills: tables and graphs, quick ratio reads, and estimation. Verbal: deepen vocabulary-in-context via TC/SE; collect personal “trap synonyms” and opposites. AWA: outline two prompts in 10 minutes each. Practice: one mixed section simulation midweek (Verbal then Quant) using section timings. Checkpoint: update your error log and tag errors as concept, process, or careless to guide Week 4.

Quant: triangles, circles, polygons, coordinate geometry; common geometry traps and when figures are or aren’t drawn to scale. Start Quantitative Comparison intensively—test cases, boundary values, and when the relationship cannot be determined. Verbal: inference and function-of-a-paragraph questions; learn when to skim vs. slow read. Practice: two mixed sessions that intentionally interleave QC with multi-blank TC and short RCs. Checkpoint: mini-audit—what topics now exceed 70–80% accuracy under time? Which still lag?

Quant: statistics (mean/median/mode, range, standard scenarios), weighted averages, probability basics, permutations vs. combinations, and everyday data interpretation. Verbal: synthesis questions, author’s attitude, strengthen/weaken; sentence sets that hinge on contrast markers. AWA: write one timed essay. Practice: one 45–60 minute “ladder” set that starts with easier items and finishes with hard ones to train composure. Checkpoint: decide your final content gaps and set Week 6 targets.

Early week: targeted tune-ups on your remaining gaps. Midweek: take a full-length mock in a single sitting, AWA first, then randomized section order. Recreate conditions: no scheduled break and strict section timing. Post-test: do an after-action review—classify every miss, note any pacing stalls, and record careless patterns. Late week: rebuild by drilling those specific issues with short, focused sets. Checkpoint: adjust your score goal if necessary and schedule your official test date so scores arrive 8–10 days before deadlines.

Quant: integrate across topics (e.g., geometry inside a rate problem, stats inside data interpretation). Verbal: long-passage endurance, tricky TC with subtle tone, SE pairs that aren’t obvious synonyms. AWA: one more 30-minute essay with a 5–20–5 minute plan/write/revise split. Take full-length mock #2 at the same time of day as your real test; compare section-by-section timing to Mock #1. Checkpoint: confirm that your average time per question and accuracy are stable on your hardest subtypes.

Lighten volume and raise quality. Early week: short daily mixed sets at your target difficulty; micro-drills on weak formulas or RC question types. Midweek: one half-length sharpen session only if you need a confidence refresh. Final 48 hours: AWA outline practice, flashcards, error log skim, and rest. Logistics: confirm ID, test center route or at-home setup rules, and remember that only test-center takers may take an unscheduled break—and the clock won’t stop. Night before: set a pacing mantra for each section and visualize the first five minutes of test day.

Arithmetic and proportional reasoning; exponents/roots and scientific notation; linear equations and inequalities; systems; absolute value; functions basics; geometry rules for triangles, circles, and coordinate plane; statistics (mean/median/range), weighted averages; probability and combinatorics; data interpretation. For Quantitative Comparison, practice: plugging simple numbers, checking extremes and zero/negatives, and recognizing when the relationship cannot be determined.

Text Completion: read for structure first, predict before you look, and eliminate by logic not vibe. Sentence Equivalence: hunt for the sentence’s pivot and choose two words that produce the same overall meaning. Reading Comprehension: map purpose and structure, answer from evidence, and treat strengthen/weaken and inference questions as precise logic tasks, not opinions. Build vocabulary by context families (e.g., concession, criticism, praise) rather than giant memorized lists.

• Review Exambank analytics: accuracy by subtype, average time per question, and recent score trajectory.
• Pick 1–2 Quant and 1–2 Verbal skills to emphasize next week; deprioritize what’s already consistently strong.
• Curate a 12–15 item mixed set that blends those targets with maintenance items from mastered areas.
• Update your error log with root cause and a fix-it rule (e.g., “For QC, test 0 and negatives when variables are unrestricted”).
• Write a 1–2 sentence plan for your very next session.

• Two-pass navigation: fast first pass, flag and move, then return.
• Micro-budgets: if you hit 2 minutes on any one Verbal question, guess strategically and move; on Quant, cap algebraic wrestling at ~2 minutes unless you see a clean path.
• Estimation first on data and geometry; exact arithmetic second.
• For TC/SE, predict, then match—never hunt blindly.
• On AWA, pre-build a flexible template: intro with claim and roadmap; 2–3 body paragraphs with reasons and concrete examples; a concession paragraph if time; quick concluding synthesis.

If Quant is already a strength, keep two short maintenance sets per week and reallocate that time to RC and TC/SE. If Verbal is stronger, hold a daily 10-minute mental math and QC drill and put weekend long blocks toward geometry and data interpretation. If you’re working full-time, compress weekdays to 45 minutes and make Saturdays your deep work day.

Exambank learns from every response to adjust difficulty and mix exactly the right topics, so you spend time where it yields the biggest return. It regenerates fresh GRE-format questions matched to your level, builds personalized review sets from past mistakes, and keeps score and pacing trends visible so you can correct course weekly. When you open a session, tell your AI tutor you want Quant, Verbal, or both, and how long you have; it designs the right drill on the spot.

AWA always comes first. Verbal and Quant can appear in any order afterward. There is no scheduled break. Plan your hydration and focus accordingly, and if you test at home, know that unscheduled breaks aren’t allowed. Because official scores post about 8–10 days after you test, pick a date that safely precedes your deadlines. Use ScoreSelect to send only the scores you want schools to see, and include four free recipients with your registration.

Eight weeks is enough to build real, balanced strength if you interleave practice, measure progress weekly, and keep your workload sustainable. Use the schedule above, protect your rest day, and let adaptive practice do the heavy lifting so you improve exactly where it matters most.