Starting preparation for the GRE !!!!

[Atkum]

So, I registered today for the GRE. Im taking it in mid-July. How should I go about preparing for it? I have a strong math background, but my verbal needs some work. What do you guys think, would be a best approach for me? (Example: How do you combine preparing for vocab. with everything else?) I'm just trying to get opinions.

[edgirl]

In the revised version, which I took recently, the verbal sections definitely emphasize vocabulary in context rather than rote memorization of definitions. I would recommend starting with the ETS official GRE prep book (and ETS' PowerPrep software) to get a sense of how the verbal questions work and where your score really might be at the moment -- both to give you a baseline and a sense of the specific kinds of questions that are challenging for you. I'm not sure about other worthwhile prep materials, as I focused more of my time on math prep, but perhaps other GradCafers can offer some suggestions.

Beyond prep books, you could also be reading complicated and sophisticated materials -- nonfiction books, New Yorker and Atlantic articles, etc. -- to keep your brain stretching and familiar with the various ways in which English sentences can create meaning. Good luck!

[constantSun]

I like your idea of finding challenging reading materials. We certainly need to spend time in the non-fiction section of the library. But does anyone know of any great books (including fiction) that make you wish you had a dictionary next to you when you are reading them?

I love Jane Austen but I don't see her helping me to ace the GRE.

PS

Decaf, your cat is cute!

[constantSun]

LOL I just realised that your name is edgirl and NOT decaf! Sorry! I feel so dumb.

[edgirl]

LOL I just realised that your name is edgirl and NOT decaf! Sorry! I feel so dumb.

Ha, no worries! The important thing was that you recognized my cat's cuteness.

As far as particular reading materials go ... I think the most important thing is that the text be, essentially, complicated. Austen's actually a good example of an author who writes long and winding sentences that require you to think your way through them to get the meaning (if only because her comma usage is quite different from what our English teachers probably drilled into us!). I'm the kind of nerd who reads all the time, so I don't know what makes me want to run to the dictionary, but one thing I've started doing in the past couple years is reading a decent amount of literature within my field. I also read a lot of science/medical history. Glancing at my shelf, here are some suggestions (not in any order):

• A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
  
• Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
  
• What is the What, Dave Eggers
  
• The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
  
• Possession, AS Byatt
  
• Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
  
• The Echo Maker, Richard Powers
  
• The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster
  
• Disgrace and Waiting for the Barbarians, JM Coetzee
  
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon
  
• White Noise, Don DeLillo
  
• Liar's Poker, Michael Lewis
  
• The Orchid Thief, Susan Orlean
  
• The Honor Code, Kwame Anthony Appiah
  
• Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich
  
• The Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant (trans. Paul Guyer)w3xz
  
• How to Be Alone, Jonathan Franzen
  
• Napoleon's Buttons, Penny Le Couteur & Jay Burreson
  
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
  
• The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer
  
• Gideon's Trumpet, Anthony Lewis
  
• In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
  
• Zero, Charles Seife
  
• Complications, Atul Gawande
  
• The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins
  
• Collapse, Jared Diamond
  
• The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
  
• The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
  
• The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson
  

That is, of course, a totally nonrandom sample! Just some books I love and that are thoughtful in different ways. Would love to see suggestions from others to add to my own reading list!

[TheFez]

So - I think like most goals, specificity helps. What are you aiming for? Perfect scores? 90th percentile? In both Quant and Verbal?

You might be guided by the programs you are applying to and trying to score higher than the average admit so you are sure to "make the cut".

I agree an important first step is to take one PowerPrep II test under timed conditions, just as you would in real life. See where you do well and where you need some work and concentrate on those areas more than where you do well.

Leave enough time to retake the test and still be early in applying. Even if you are well prepared something could go wrong on test day and you don't want to miss the chance to retake during the 2013 cycle. (And we don't want to hear another person in chat agonizing over bad GRE scores).

Though the verbal section has changed, there is still no substitute for just knowing a lot of vocabulary words cold. I used both flash cards (Barrons and Pearson have sets)or you can get some cheap iPhone apps that are excellent, remember which you got right and wrong etc.

If you need a good math score there is no substitute for doing practice problems under timed conditions (I set a timer for about 10-15 second less than the average time to build speed).

What kind of program are you applying to - Masters? Ph.D? - in what discipline? What kind of schools? How competitive?

[constantSun]

Ha, no worries! The important thing was that you recognized my cat's cuteness.

As far as particular reading materials go ... I think the most important thing is that the text be, essentially, complicated. Austen's actually a good example of an author who writes long and winding sentences that require you to think your way through them to get the meaning (if only because her comma usage is quite different from what our English teachers probably drilled into us!). I'm the kind of nerd who reads all the time, so I don't know what makes me want to run to the dictionary, but one thing I've started doing in the past couple years is reading a decent amount of literature within my field. I also read a lot of science/medical history. Glancing at my shelf, here are some suggestions (not in any order):

• A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
  
• Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
  
• What is the What, Dave Eggers
  
• The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
  
• Possession, AS Byatt
  
• Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
  
• The Echo Maker, Richard Powers
  
• The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster
  
• Disgrace and Waiting for the Barbarians, JM Coetzee
  
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon
  
• White Noise, Don DeLillo
  
• Liar's Poker, Michael Lewis
  
• The Orchid Thief, Susan Orlean
  
• The Honor Code, Kwame Anthony Appiah
  
• Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich
  
• The Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant (trans. Paul Guyer)w3xz
  
• How to Be Alone, Jonathan Franzen
  
• Napoleon's Buttons, Penny Le Couteur & Jay Burreson
  
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
  
• The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer
  
• Gideon's Trumpet, Anthony Lewis
  
• In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
  
• Zero, Charles Seife
  
• Complications, Atul Gawande
  
• The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins
  
• Collapse, Jared Diamond
  
• The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
  
• The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
  
• The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson
  

That is, of course, a totally nonrandom sample! Just some books I love and that are thoughtful in different ways. Would love to see suggestions from others to add to my own reading list!

Oh, my, that is a great list! I don't think I have read any of them though. Are any of them fun reads? Page-turners? Can you pick the best one for me to read?

I'll try to send a list your way of my fav books, but I just moved and they are in boxes right now!

[Tdearr]

That's a great list. I have a few additions as well.

I read the Song of Ice and Fire series (Game of Thrones, etc.) last year and was surprised how many words in those book were straight out of the GRE word list we use here at Manhattan Prep. Those books are certainly page turners (the first three are better than the 4th and 5th in my opinion). I also recommend David Foster Wallace (The Girl With Curious Hair [fiction], and Consider the Lobster [non-fiction]); he certainly doesn't shy away from big words although I woudln't say his works are as GRE applicable as Game of Thrones.

I hope that helps!

Best,

Taylor

[constantSun]

I never would have thought that Game of Thrones would be good for the gre. go figure!

[chrismagoosh]

Ha! This is quite a fun conversation on reading-in-context sources. I think the key is looking for convoluted, dense sentences in which you have to struggle at the end to discern the overall meaning (with, of course, a slew of GRE-level vocab thrown in for good measure). Surprisingly, you don't have to (though you surely could) content yourself with only the classics. As one reader pointed out Game of Thrones abound in GRE-words (the involved syntax perhaps not so much).

The important thing is finding something that holds your interest. And there is such a large swathe of reading that encompasses the criteria above (I esp. like edgirl's list, of which I've read an eerie amount of. In fact, I got Liar's Poker in my backpack right now!).

Of course New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, etc. are great sources. Here is a little blog post I wrote excerpting choice articles (meaning those bloated with GRE words):

http://magoosh.com/gre/2011/vocabulary-in-context-the-new-york-times-the-economist-the-atlantic-monthly-and-the-new-yorker/

[edgirl]

(I esp. like edgirl's list, of which I've read an eerie amount of. In fact, I got Liar's Poker in my backpack right now!).

There is a saying about great minds ...

[srdasgup]

Hi Edgirl,

 

Can you please mention what you used for your math GRE prep?

 

Thanks!

SDG

[edgirl]

Mostly Kaplan and Princeton Review (books, not courses), with some Barron's thrown in -- but Barron's, for me at least, was more useful for getting lots of practice on particular topics than it was for practicing for the test. For test-like questions, I used Kaplan and PR, and then did the ETS practice tests a week or so before my actual exam.

[wsc215]

I would just to practice exams. I don't think any gimmick works, sure it's learnable, but it's contrived to make it as difficult as possible to learn.

 

I really don't see how The Poisonwood Bible would help at all, except to relax. For me at least, doing practice exams helped more than anything else by far.

[edgirl]

I would just to practice exams. I don't think any gimmick works, sure it's learnable, but it's contrived to make it as difficult as possible to learn.

 

I really don't see how The Poisonwood Bible would help at all, except to relax. For me at least, doing practice exams helped more than anything else by far.

 

I think you missed my point, which was that reading complex tests is actually the best preparation there is. (It's also super random that you picked that one book out of the list to slam.) That doesn't imply that in the short term test prep isn't useful; obviously if you've got two months or whatever, you might as well just cram. But for people planning ahead, or, like the OP, hitting a test-prep wall, there's no substitute for actually immersing yourself in good reading. I particularly stand by this given the emphasis on passage understanding rather than standalone vocab (as on the old test, with analogies).

 

But, to each his own, and best of luck to everyone finding his/her own ideal study system.