GRE vs. LSAT Forum

[cheesy143]

I took the LSAT twice but am considering grad school. Justcurious if anyone knows anything about the GRE. Do people usually study for it? How long? I studied for four months for the LSAT each time. It seems like people don't do that for the GRE. Would it be crazy to schedule my test two weeks from now?

[lymenheimer]

I took the LSAT twice but am considering grad school. Justcurious if anyone knows anything about the GRE. Do people usually study for it? How long? I studied for four months for the LSAT each time. It seems like people don't do that for the GRE. Would it be crazy to schedule my test two weeks from now?

GRE is very different from the LSAT. You should definitely take a PT and see where you stand currently, but studying isn't out of the ordinary. The benefit of the GRE testing is that the schedule is much more frequent and I'm pretty sure you can register much closer to the actual test day. I don't think that since you are asking these questions today, you will be comfortable with the GRE in two weeks. The format and question styles are way different. But I guess it's possible.

[wellitsover]

I took the LSAT twice but am considering grad school. Justcurious if anyone knows anything about the GRE. Do people usually study for it? How long? I studied for four months for the LSAT each time. It seems like people don't do that for the GRE. Would it be crazy to schedule my test two weeks from now?

It depends on the type of program you are applying to and how much it values the GRE. When I was thinking of applying to graduate programs I did study before taking it, but generally the programs I was interested in took a much more holistic approach than law schools do, so it wasn't as big of a deal. I have personally never heard of anyone studying for the GRE for as long as people typically do on the LSAT, nor did I myself feel the need. The RC sections were much easier than on the LSAT; the quantitative sections required more attention given my humanities background, and it entailed mostly brushing up on some general math skills I hadn't used in years more than anything. The best way to know whether you should study is to take a practice exam to see where your strengths are and focus on your weaknesses or improve in sections valued by the programs of interest.

[oil]

I took the LSAT twice but am considering grad school. Justcurious if anyone knows anything about the GRE. Do people usually study for it? How long? I studied for four months for the LSAT each time. It seems like people don't do that for the GRE. Would it be crazy to schedule my test two weeks from now?

If you have any sort of serious quantitative background not much. The reading is easier than the LSAT and the math is pretty basic if you've been using any in your day to day.

[Procyon]

I don't think any other discipline places as much weight on rankings as law. As a result, eking out every last point in the GRE is unimportant except in certain circumstances. As I understand it, if you're trying to enter a quantitative field (math, physics, economics), a near-perfect score on the very basic Q section of the GRE is expected as a formality.

I agree with the other posters. Take a practice exam and see how much work you need to do. If you can attain 160+ scores in both sections, that should satisfy almost every program. Your grades, writing sample, research experience, letters of recommendation etc. drive admissions exclusively after meeting that basic threshold.

I think the GRE is very easy. The LSAT took me months of prep. I registered for the GRE on a whim, took it hungover, and I did well in every section.

[cheesy143]

Thank you guys that helps! I'm naturally a good test taker so I think I'm gonna take a few tests, study for a few hours and not stress over this. My program is not math or science based so this shouldn't be too bad.

[fliptrip]

I think the GRE is very easy. The LSAT took me months of prep. I registered for the GRE on a whim, took it hungover, and I did well in every section.

I would never go so far as to say the GRE is easy, but I am not at all surprised by this. The GRE rewards your prior knowledge quite extensively. The LSAT actually uses your prior knowledge and tendencies to trick you into making errors. Totally agree with others that it is like night and day.

[banjo]

GRE is easy, but you probably shouldn't go to a non-math non-science grad program.

[totesTheGoat]

I took the LSAT twice but am considering grad school. Justcurious if anyone knows anything about the GRE. Do people usually study for it? How long? I studied for four months for the LSAT each time. It seems like people don't do that for the GRE. Would it be crazy to schedule my test two weeks from now?

I studied for the GRE for about 2 weeks, and for the LSAT for about 4 weeks and got a somewhat higher percentile on the LSAT. I was an engineering major, so I didn't study for the QR section of the GRE. It's been about 5 years, but any questions I missed in the QR section were because I half-assed the entire GRE (I had accepted a job and was taking the GRE on the off chance that I decided to do a Masters degree/PhD with one of my profs instead), so I wasn't exactly checking my answers. I spent two weeks memorizing a deck of a few hundred vocab flash cards for the VR section in my free time, and I could have done even better on that section if I had put a couple more weeks' preparation into it. I can't remember a single thing about the writing section.

LSAT is much more easily learnable than the GRE (thus why people prepare so much more for the LSAT), but the GRE material was much easier (just a bulked up verson of the SAT). Either way, your score is more comparative than absolute, so easy or hard is relative in a sense.

[fliptrip]

Definitely agree that your context matters a ton for GRE. If you're applying for an Econ PhD, you basically have to get a perfect or near-perfect quant score and if you're applying to a top program in humanities or social sciences, you need an incredible verbal score.

In most other contexts you just have to clear a certain bar. Like for an ed. masters, I think if you can fog the mirror with your GRE, you're in pretty good shape except in maybe one or two cases.