Verbal Prep Material

[courrier]

Hi!

 

I am looking for some materials to improve my verbal scores. Many online resources- Magoosh, Kaplan, Manhattan Prep, etc.- have lots of materials on quant but not as much on verbal. English is my second language and I really want to improve the verbal and writing. My verbal score now is 150 and I want to raise it to 160 at least. I know it'd be really hard but I need that score.

 

Any advice would help. I am willing to pay some money if that's necessary.

Tell me what helped the most for you? Or if you know which of them that has a good reputation for verbal?

 

Thanks!

[ToomuchLes]

I'd recommend buying Kaplan, and Manhattan's GRE (two sets) Flashcards from amazon. Each set holds about 500 words with synonyms; therefore if you manage to memorize all three sets, you'll increase your vocabulary list by at least 2000 words. Afterward, I would buy a set of blank flashcards from your local grocery store (cut them in half to save money ;D) and make your own flashcards. Contemporaneously, you should read esoteric articles, books, and newspaper, and make sure to add words, of which you're unfamiliar with, to your flashcards, along with the sentence that you found them in. 

 

Likewise, there are many fun (and quite addicting) smartphone games that you can download. I know Magoosh has one. Similarly the internet has them too. Heres my favorite one :  http://gre.tyrannosaurusprep.com/Vocabulary/Quiz-Games

 

 

On a personal note, I'd recommend starting small. When I first started studying for the GRE, I felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of abstruse words that I had to learn. In the first week, I'd recommend doing about 20-30 flashcards a day; however make sure to review previous day flashcards before going further. After the second week, then you can increase the number of flashcards to 30-40. Remember to be diligent in your determination to raise your score to 160, and with that image inculcated in your mind, after a month, or even sooner, you'll notice a significant improvement in Verbal scores. 

 

Also, dont forget to take a practice test once every two weeks. You dont necessarily have to do a whole mock test, since they can take 3-4hrs, instead you should do one section of Verbal, and Quantitative, or about 20 questions each.  

 

Best of luck!! ^.^

[courrier]

Hi, LeventeL!

Thanks for the reply

 

I have actually started taking the Magoosh prep course. They have pretty good flashcards and I'm liking it a lot.

 

Do you think, for the reading comprehension, I need to practice fast reading? Would that be effective?

[themmases]

I really like Quizlet if you are trying to memorize terms. It's a free site and it's basically internet flashcards, with other apps available for your phone or whatever. You can also use other people's public sets, so there is often no need to type in all your terms yourself. There are several games to play with your terms and a few study modes that will flag things you tend to get wrong, or let you star things yourself, so you can keep reviewing the hard terms while adding new words.

 

An instructor recommended this to me a few years ago for a medical terminology course, where we learned 350 word roots in about 12 classes/weeks.

 

Good luck!