As you may already know, getting a couple more questions right on the the GRE Quantitative section can increase your score or percentile by a few points. Same for the SAT and ACT. So, I am always on the alert to identify “low hanging fruit.” —easy ways to accomplish a boost. Here are two suggestions.
Paper, board for practice. Are you taking notes or practicing on ruled binder paper? This kind of paper was not made to do Math!! Use unlined paper or graph paper with light lines. I have found that students can be very stubborn about trying this! But I am firmly convinced that ruled paper is an impediment to the logical processes that need to be worked out on paper. Back in the pre-pandemic days when it was possible to meet in person for tutoring, I used to bring along a small whiteboard with markers. Every student to whom I offered the choice of paper or whiteboard preferred to work on the whiteboard. I presume it was because they could write large; the college ruled lines didn’t interfere. Of course the graph paper is handy for sketching curves.
Repeat specific example problems. There are certain problems that are worth reworking a number of times until you almost have them memorized. Choosing the right ones can help solidify multiple concepts so that they become a virtual mental reference for you.
Here is an example using what the makers of the GRE call a “symbol function.”
The example above provides practice for:
Not panicking when you see a new symbol
Using substitution with expressions (not just values)
Remembering that taking the square root of both sides of the equation requires the “plus or minus” sign.