Format note: the GRE has been the shorter test since September 2023. Everything below is checked against the current format — and one famous entry carries a warning label.
ETS POWERPREP (Official Free Tests)
Non-negotiable, and first for a reason: ETS gives you two free practice tests that run on the real section-adaptive algorithm — the only free tests that behave like the actual GRE. Add the free ~100-page Math Review PDF and the official writing prompt pools.
Best for: Your baseline diagnostic and your final readiness check. There are only two — ration them.
200+ free videos from tutor Philip — a 340/340 scorer in review accounts — with a strength in Verbal: Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence strategy, Reading Comprehension trap patterns, and full practice-test walkthroughs showing a top scorer's reasoning in real time. A published perfect scorer credits this channel for his verbal approach.
Best for: Verbal strategy and worked ETS-style questions.
A GRE-only tutor since 2007 whose free material is unusually complete: 1-month and 2-month study plans, a complete GRE Math concept list with free lesson links for every topic, a daily vocab cartoon, and 200+ YouTube videos — much of it built around one rule: Verbal practice only counts if it's real ETS questions.
Best for: High scorers and MBA applicants targeting 320+; anyone who wants a free plan with a point of view.
Freemium (plans/blog/videos free; courses and tutoring paid)
There is no GRE course on Khan Academy — instead, ETS publishes a mapping from every GRE Math concept to the specific free Khan lessons that teach it. It's the fastest way to rebuild rusty arithmetic, algebra, geometry and data skills before touching GRE-level questions.
Best for: Quant foundation repair in your first two weeks.
The forum alternative to Reddit: thousands of free practice questions with peer explanations, vocab lists, daily questions, error-log templates and study-plan threads. Very active, and registration is free.
Best for: High-volume free practice and a daily-question habit.
Free / Freemium (some test features unlock with participation)
Community Vocabulary Lists — the Vocab Mountain approach
GRE vocab is a list-picking problem, and the community has converged: pick ONE list and finish it. The most-copied is the "Vocab Mountain" (960 words in 32 groups of 30, reviewed cumulatively), circulating free as student-made Quizlet, Knowt and Vocabulary.com sets; Vince Kotchian's ~1,300-word cartoon-illustrated list is the main alternative.
Best for: Anyone — this is the highest-return free GRE habit there is.
Free (on Quizlet / Knowt / Vocabulary.com)
@GRE_vocab_cartoons
Vince Kotchian's hand-drawn vocabulary cartoons on Instagram, with weekly Story quizzes — the lowest-effort daily vocab exposure in the GRE ecosystem.
Best for: Mnemonic learners and anyone who studies in five-minute gaps.
Score reports, "what I used" debriefs for the current shorter test, and free-only prep routes — including a much-shared account of scoring 337 without spending anything on prep.
Best for: Recent test-day reports and free-route study plans.
ETS's own 1995 "Big Book": 27 real paper GREs. Its Reading Comprehension passages and sentence-completion-style questions are still genuinely useful — some RC material is recycled into current official prep — which is why tutors still build trackers for it.
Best for: Extra official Verbal volume when modern questions run out.
