DrFaustus666

I am chiming in only because (1) I also will take the GRE in 3 weeks; (2) I also received a 690 on Quant last time; and (3) I also want to boost my score up to 750+. I have no idea if my approach will work better or not. But a friend told me that the most important thing (after concentrating very carefully to be sure you get the first 6 or 7 questions right!) is to look for some "back door" into the problem. A good deal of investigation on my part has shown that the GRE math problems at least (as exemplified on Powerprep and on ETS's ancient guide to the GRE) DO often have some sort of shortcut --- a relationship between two or more of the numbers; or a geometric fact that's not obvious but operative in the problem at hand; etc. ---- and if you (we, all test takers) can find that quantitative back door, we have a much better chance of getting the right answer. On the other hand, sometimes it's easier to just brute-force the problem. Lots and lots and lots of practice makes me feel a bit more confident in my ability to discern when a back door is discoverable and when to simply do the math. Now, whether that confidence will persist into the test-pressure situation is another story completely. So, I don't know if that's any help or not ... but good luck, to both of us John

First, you're right that the antonym and especially the analogy questions require precise interpretations, which in turn require a large vocabulary ... and not just first meanings. The most difficult analogy and antonym questions rely on your knowing second or even third meanings of a word (usually a more common word with a recondite additional meaning). Second, the only way to improve from 540 to 650 (or hopefully, better) is to learn all that esoteric vocabulary. Barron's book has the best vocabulary list I know of. It has over 3600 words, including about 400 "high frequency" words. You should know all 400 high-frequency words cold. Period. Every single one of them. Period. And you should learn as many of the remaining 3600 as you can. With a full study load that will indeed be difficult. Make flash cards (better to make them yourself than to buy pre-printed cards by the way!). Try to learn 10 or 12 new words every single day. USE the new words you learn! In your papers, in your conversation, in your emails to friends, anytime you have a chance. Third, read all the high-brow books and magazines you can find, as well as the op-ed section of the New York Times if you have access to it; or The Economist; or old issues of The New Republic (hardline right-wing, but its editor, the late William F. Buckley, had the most astounding vocabulary of anybody I've ever heard talk). Good luck, John (took GRE twice, scored 800V/670Q the first time and 740V/690Q the second time ... and am desparately trying to get my Quant up into the mid 700s)

I have to take exception with both of your opinions. It's a fact,a Q=690 score will not be taken seriously by probably any PhD CS program. The verbal score and AW scores could be better, but are not horrendous. And most important, the OP has time to review and study and bring his/her score up. OP: for PhD in CS, the minimum respectable Quantitative score is about 780, 800 preferred. OP: you can supplement your relatively poor undergraduate grades with work experience, by superlative performance in your M.S. program, especially including research (preferably lots of it) and preferably publications, and by making contacts and thus securing top-notch letters of recommendation. OP: Your situation is tough, but not hopeless. And, you may have to wait a couple of years (so as to do all that great research I'm talking about) before applying for a PhD CS program. Good luck, John

In fact, the only answers that it is POSSIBLE to leave blank are the last answers. You must answer each question before you can go on to the next, AND, once you've "confirmed" an answer, you cannot go back. Furthermore, the ETS website says there is a "heavy penalty" for leaving the last x question(s) blank. So, what Strangefox says is absolutely true -- and if you find yourself with 2 minutes remaining on the test and five questions, just guess on the last five. Far better to get all of the last five wrong than to leave them blank. I've experimented with Powerprep and proved this convincingly (to myself at any rate ).

Not only is it OK to use this year's score next year, it might even be preferable. Here's why: As you may know, beginning in August 2011 the GRE's format and even its scoring scale will change radically. I can imagine that those committees that DO put some considerable weight on the GRE score will not be precisely sure how to interpret the new scores. ETS will of course maintain the new and old scores are 100% comparable and will provide cross-referencing data etc. But! The content of the new test will be radically different: no analogies or antonyms on the verbal portion, fewer geometry questions and presumably more statistics and probability questions on the quantitative portion.

Good luck. As a benchmark ... undergraduate first and second year foreign language classes pace learning at about 60 to 75 new words per week ..., i.e., 10 new words per day. I believe that is about the maximum most people can learn without overload, unless they're in a full-immersion program. So, you should have just enough time to learn all those high frequency words by the end of September, I would think.

Hi ! I've been a student of the GRE for some time now, and your question piqued my interest. I went to Powerprep and took Test 1, verbal section only, twice. First time through: Sentence Completion: 6 questions Reading Comprehension: 8 questions Analogies: 8 questions Antonyms: 8 questions Second time through: Sentence Completeion: 7 questions Analogies: 8 questions Antonyms: 8 questions Reading Comprehension: 7 questions I also conducted an experiment to try to determine the weight of the questions. As both administrations of the test had more Analogies and Antonyms than Sentence Completion and Reading Comprehension, it's not surprising that the Analogies and Antonyms were weighted more heavily. On my first taking of the test, I deliberately answered all analogy and antonym questions incorrectly, and all others correctly (to the best of my ability). My result was a score of 330. On the second taking, I did the opposite. I answered the Analogies and Antonyms correctly, while incorrectly answering all sentence completion and reading comprehension questions. My result was 420. So .... if Powerprep is any measure of the real GRE's Verbal section, it behooves everyone to study the vocabulary as intensely as possible, just as all the books and test guides say. Good luck, John

I can relate the experience of a friend who is a Ph.D. student in Classics at a medium-sized and medium-ranked private university. This university is top-ranked only in a couple of extremely narrow specialties, related directly to the highly parochial interests of the university's sponsors. My friend scored 800 Verbal and "very low" quantitative, so she told me. She was admitted with open arms, but was denied funding. This particular---non-top-ranked---university uses combined V+Q GRE scores as part of their mechanism to determine who receives the precious one or two funded fellowships in each humanities department. If the top-ranked universities use similar methods, then you should expect to be admitted, but not funded, unless you can raise your math score considerably. The good news is you have a year to do it. Good luck, John

Thanks to all for your replies ... my identifiable weakness, so it seems----besides the fact that the last time I took a math course was 1970-1971 and it was "Math for Education Majors in Non-Math and Non-Science fields" ..., i.e., considerably easier than my H.S. math (grad June 1970), where I had made it to calc----my major weakness seems to be simple carelessness, like getting 8x7=56 and 9x6=54 confused---that considered, it's astonishing I scored as HIGHLY as I did in Quant. But I'm still shooting for 750 or above. And as to my field being way difficult but utterly fascinating, yes that's how I see it too ... VALIDATING the computer program would be by far the most difficult thing ... and I'm imagining myself defending the dissertation when one of the committee members has secretly run my program and it told him Beethoven stunk and Salieri (or Ditter von Dittersdorf) wrote better music. Again, cheers, and thanks! John

I hope to pursue music theory combined with / assisted by computer technology ... but it's a couple of years away at least, as I first have to pay for my childrens' undergraduate educations Am an ex-performer: MM U-Maryland 1979, free-lance trombonist; and was always interested in theory, and became a decent arranger/orchestrator too. But I'm not creative enough to compose, and not library-oriented enough to become a musicologist . Also, I've started, but may not finish, an MA in German language & lit in the meantime. But my real hope-dream is to use my 25+ years of computer programming and still passionate love of music to write in-depth Schenkerian-analytical software, hopefully funded by some insanely progressive institution of higher learning ... it's probably just a total pipedream ... but, to answer your question, yes, there is a nascent would-be theorist out here anyway

Well I honestly don't know what to think. I took the test in 2005 with absolutely no preparation whatsovever: scored 1470 (800-V 670-Q), I took it again last Feb, (hoping to return to grad study)--after studying about 6 months on math, and my Feb scores were 740-V and 690-Q ... Note after 6 months' math study I only went up 20 points and my Verbal actually came down 60 points! I want a 1570 just like you Balderdash ... ... so I've been feverishly studying math in every free moment since February, and will take the fricking test again on Sept 17. There's nothing in the math that I don't KNOW ... It seems to be just a matter of integrating that knowledge under time and test pressure. Anyway ... from my own experience, a short or even medium length of study is NOT sufficient. It may be that I just don't have any math talent beyond the high-average range, and I should just accept the 690 (63rd percentile). But I think I need stellar scores on BOTH because my hoped-for interdiscipinary field (writing computer models of classical music) would require a very high skill level in both. We'll see. Anyway, good luck to all of you! John

Balderdash, a 1570 is a splendid, superlative score! No more than maybe 500 people out of the 450,000+ GRE test takers each year score 1570 or above. Congratulations, but I believe your results are NOT typical. Cheers, and good luck in whatever you do.

I've been following various people's posts about the GRE for 10 months now. Some people don't study at all for the GRE, some study for a weekend, the average is about 2 to 3 months, and some study for a year or more. As you've just graduated a couple of months ago -- and assuming you studied hard and did well (3.5+ GPA) in a well-rounded curriculum, meaning both reading-writing-heavy and math-medium-to-heavy ... then a month or two of study is probably more than enough for you. If your background is weak in either reading-writing or math, or both, then you should study longer than that. The thing I can't figure out for myself is, "Why can't I improve my math score significantly?" ... I've bought every book there is, taken umpteen practice tests and worked about 1500 to 2000 math problems in the past year, and my math score went up only from 670 to 690 ... while my verbal actually went down. I'm scheduled to take it ONE MORE TIME in September, to try to get into the mid- to upper 700s in math, while not falling too far in Verbal, I hope So .... it's a crapshoot, as it seems. Sorry for the babbly maudlin ruminations. Good luck! John

I doubt seriously that the 3.0 AW will cost you much, if anything, if your GPA is decent (3.3) to excellent (3.6 or above) and your writing samples and statements of purpose are well polished and to-the-point. An 800V is not 99th percentile by the way, it's 99.75th percentile, i.e., 1 out of about 400 GRE takers score 800 in verbal. So, I say, not to worry. Write a terrific statement of purpose and the rest of your application will show that the 3.0 is an aberration. Good luck, John

Again, your points are well taken. Good luck to you! John

I agree but I think it actually begins even earlier than that, like, uh, high school: For example, I remember learning the word "sycophant" (together with its synonyms and near-synonyms "lackey," "yes-man," "toady," "minion" etc.), which is on every GRE word list, in high school, 10th grade English to be exact. We had a teacher who really emphasized vocabulary. I hated every minute of it, but as it turns out, it wasn't a waste of time after all.

Just for grins I tried Powerprep today and got "quotidian" on the 2nd word .... And guess what, though I knew its first meaning "daily" ... I didn't know its second meaning, "humdrum, mundane, routine" ... and got the antonym wrong. It happens guys. It stinks, but it happens. John

Hi Strangefox, In a word: YES. Several of the GRE books have examples from actual GRE question, in which the boook points out the unnecessary information. The reason for placing unnecessary information is to confuse you, pure and simple. And it goes further than that. Sometimes, one of the WRONG answers might turn out to be a multiple of an extra piece of data and one of the necessary pieces of data. Regards, John

ETS is notoriously slow, up to six weeks before they send out scores. So, that would require you to take the GRE somewhere around Oct 20, I would say.

These are the tests I was referring to in my post above. There are about 6 or 7 different tests. I've taken two of them and passed one. The DaF (Deutsch als Fremdsprache, German as a Foreign Lanugage) is probably the easiest, though it's none too easy; many German universities accept it as proof that you know German well enough to attend university classes in any subject you're otherwise qualified to take, alongside native Germans, where the entire class is taught in German. It costs $200. The GSD (Grosse Sprachdiplom) costs $400, is VERY long and difficult, and those who pass it speak read write and understand German at a very advanced level, indeed, better than some adult native speakers, at least as far as vocabulary is concerned.

I don't know about French, but in German there are several internationally accepted examinations you can take (for a hefty fee of course). The easiest is the DaF (Germany's equivalent of the TOEFL), and the most difficult is the Grosse Sprachdiplom, the passing of which I'd put on a par with earning maybe a 550 to 600 on the GRE Verbal in English.

Unfortunately, life circumstances have caught up with me, and I'll need to wait until Fall 2011 at the earliest. I am divorced, my ex-wife's income is low, and so I must continue working full time to pay off my children's undergraduate college tuition for at least another year. This issue has dogged me since 2005 (when I began the as-yet uncompleted M.A. number 2) .... my PhD dream may fall by the wayside ... I HOPE NOT, but it's well possible. The bright side is I'll be able to continue working on Quantitative, and maybe bring that score into the mid-700s: where I've been told it needs to be for my ultimate research ambitions to seem plausible. Thanks for asking, scyrus.

I like your ideas, both about eradicating poverty and about lifelong learning. But unless you're going after a fellowship in English at one of the Ivies, low 700s or higher in Verbal will get you in just about anywhere, if postings on this site, as well as info from top universities' own websites, are accurate. Also, scores can vary. I took the GRE twice, got an 800-V (99.8th percentile) the first time and a 760-V (99.1st percentile) the second time. (I was, and still am, desparately trying to break the 700-barrier in Quant, which is SAID to be a much easier thing to do---well folks, for me it ain't.) Anyway, a friend who's a PhD in stats assured me that from a statistical perspective, and in all likelihood, from the vast majority of admission committees' perspective, there's utterly no difference between my two verbal scores. This long-winded post is meant to say: you're doing fine -- again, unless you're trying for a top fellowship and intend to become Poet Laureate after graduation.