A good high school review book might help. (My son has his regents next week and I'm helping him prepare.) Also, ask me anything anytime.

Also.

The good news is that the GRE is very very coachable and mostly tests up to, if I remember correctly, ninth grade math. So you stress out worrying that they could toss anything at you, but really they won't. Any complicated formulas they will GIVE YOU and anything else it's mostly though not entirely algebra and geometry. It's been a long time since I either took or taught the GRE but I still have a few suggestions.

- get actual tests for practice and take them TIMED. It's important to know how much you can do with the time you have, not whether you can do the stuff at all. Depending on the score you're aiming for, you may only have to complete like 60% of the questions. If you have more time, do you think you could do better? Probably. Go in being smart. Also, those hard questions? They are hard because people get them wrong. I know this is sort of a duh thing but see that answer, the one that looks like an easy answer... but it's a hard question (you know because of where its showing up in the test) it's not right. Stop looking at it, I know it's shiny. Just stop.
- Practice with real questions too. Spend the money and get real sample tests. ETA are total fuckers and your job is to beat them at their own game, not fall for their traps and not stress yourself out of a good score. So, understand how they create questions and how you can use that to your advantage.
- Find ways to work math into your life in the meantime. Learn "Please excuse my dear aunt sally" and how to apply it. Learn about right triangles and how to calculate the sides. Learn about the types of triangles. And remember as you're doing this that the amount you need to learn is FINITE and it is MANAGEABLE so don't flop down in despair, keep plugging away at it.

Good luck. I used to work for The Princeton Review and I like their stuff [you can get a book out of the library or at a bookstore] if that's helpful.

Thanks, everyone! Jessamyn, your insight is especially great. I know that I need to know things like the order of operations (I remembered what PEMDAS stood for! right?) Maybe I'll mow the lawn today in different geometric shapes and remember angle degrees, proportions, and etc.

I bought the Barrons book yesterday, so that's a good beginning. My concern now is having the self-discipline to follow through.

Oooh, and also? Maybe I'll actually comment on metafilter about things that scare me, so I can have some people school me on how my arguments suck. How better to learn, right? And I'd have to see which of the counter-arguments suck and why.

I think my main issue with math is that I have spent my life deducing things rather than knowing them. That takes time. Time is of the essence.

Well...you can still deduce, to a certain extent. Take this, for example:

the product of an odd number of negative numbers will always be negative

That's phrased in a really daunting way. Instead, I would remember that when you multiply two negative numbers together, the negative goes away, and you get a positive. If you multiply three negative numbers together - well, you're really just multiplying one negative number with one positive number, and you're going to get a negative answer. Extend that train of thought, and you'll just kind of...intuitively know that multiplying odd quantities of neg numbers will get you a negative answer.

Nicely done unsuprising

Your GRE scores will likely be similar to your SAT scores, even if they were a long time ago, on the sections that correspond (reading and vocab./math). Review still helps, though. I was able to boost my verbal t0 points (though my math went down).

The test is also given on the computer these days. I recommend getting a practice book that has a disc that simulates this. It's a different strategy from the old pencil and paper, answer as many questions as you can in the allotted time test. The computer gives you increasingly difficult questions instead until you miss a few in a row at a certain level and then it generates a score. (Double check that this is still how they do it; I took it over ten years ago and there were no more paper and pencil tests even then on the GRE, but again, double check. Instead you make an appointment at a testing center.)

If your SAT scores were low (below 500 in one or more sections), you may want to consider splurging on a course and/or tutor. If over 500, your own review will probably be fine. With such a highly rated program, though, you may want to check what kind of scores they're looking for (some schools have minimum cut-offs to narrow the application pool). Consider, of course, the average scores and GPAs of those admitted to the program in the past, maybe have a backup option or two, if geographically feasible.

In any case, best of luck!

(oops... that's 60 points, not t0 points :)

Hey Pips, thanks for all that. I took the GRE in 1995ish, and my scores were quite good but not excellent*. My SAT scores were better for math by a lot, and my verbal scores a little lower. My quantitative scores were way higher than I'd ever have expected them to be. My GPA from undergrad is good, my grades in grad school were excellent, and I feel better after talking to a friend who's in the PhD program, as her scores weren't crazy-good.

So I'll just practice, practice, practice, and study study study.

The book I got does have a CD to practice the computer version, which is good, and ETS gives you one when you sign up to take the test.

EEP! It feels real now!

*Note: I have a perfectionist bent.

Sounds like you're in good shape -- again, all the best... I'm excited for you. Part of me misses grad school.

Thanks, gal. I just have to execute the plan now.