What's the most thorough way to prepare for the GREs?

I think the most important thing to start with is to take a timed practice test, then you can identify where you are weak and concentrate on those areas.

Agree with practice test, and knowing the logistics of the test.

I didn’t prepare, just went in there and took it, and did fine.

I would also say take the test—but the “timed” element is all important. You might be able to answer all the questions over a day, but you have to get used to doing it fast—and learning what to skip if you can’t get the answer quickly.

What practice test are you referring to? Is there a standard freely available one or are you referring to a generic paid study thingy? Which practice materials should I consider?

Learning what to skip was the toughest part for me. If you are taking the computer format of the exam, if you skip an item you can’t go back to it. Because you have to answer the questions in order, I often faced the choice of thinking hard about a question and investing time into it, or giving up and moving on. It’s especially hard because I wasn’t sure how hard the future questions would be, so it was really hard to budget my time. I was sent a practice exam on paper, but I went through it like a regular exam (skipping between questions and leaving the tough ones for the remaining time at the end).

If you have a paper exam try taking it straight through to emulate the computer format. You can’t look at any future questions, only the one you are currently on. And no returning to skipped questions. This will help with time management hopefully.

Here’s a list of practice exams by topic and I think they do use the no-returning computer format.

Here’s a list of practice problems by topic, and you will have to enforce the computer format yourself.

And finally here’s a prep guide given by ETS (the makers of the test).

@cactus_fantastico I took my GREs a long time ago, before you could take them on the computer and before there was an Internet (!!!) so I don’t know about that or what is available online, but I just got one of those big GRE study books. They have practice tests in the back of the book.

You can get two free tests from ETS; I think they even send them to you when you sign up.

This question might be helpful too: http://www.fluther.com/50699/help-with-improving-score-in-gre/