Need more Practice Questions

[valkener]

Hey All,

 

So I just got done with all of Manhatten's Books (7 Book Series). What I have in mind now for the next 2 months prior to taking the GRE's is doing Practice Questions non-stop. What's a good place (online or book) that has tons of questions for me to practice with, as close to the real deal as possible. (No Magoosh or Manhatten, they are by far harder).

 

In a way I want to "simplify" my approaches a bit because Manhatten is very advanced and many GRE questions need less metholodology and more quick, simple thinking and solving.

 

I just completed Practice Test 1 (https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/disabilities/practice_test_1) from GRE and it seemed rediculously easy? I got 14/15 right, on average.

 

Last, I need to brush up on my vocab now and I find it stupid to just memmorize 5000 words. Any reasonable approaches?

 

Thanks!!

[iowaguy]

I have studied vocab for the SAT and twice now for the GRE (tests 10 years apart).  Flash cards are my favorite method, I reviewed nearly 5,000 words for my last GRE test and increased my verbal score by 10 percentage points over my last GRE test (from 88th percentile to 98th).

 

If you really want to learn vocab Manhattan has 1,000 flash cards that I recommend you learn pat (500 Essential + 500 Advanced). I also did the 500 Kaplan GRE (most were also on the Manhattan but didn't hurt to see them again & in a different context), the GradFlash computer flashcard program (1,305 words), and the GRE Vocabulary Builder Flashcard Book (900 words). Again, some of these words overlapped with other flashcards, but that only helped to reinforce my learning. For "fun" I did the Vocabulary Synapse computer CD which quizzes your knowledge of 1,000 vocabulary words in context (more like you would actually see the word on the GRE).

With all the flashcards the most time-consuming part is the initial pass-through. I went through each flashcard to see if I knew the word really well, without flipping it over (i.e. just looking at the word without any context). The actual GRE is going to also give you some contextual clues, so if you know the word down pat you won't have any trouble with it in its GRE context.

Anyway, if I knew the word (after checking its use on the reverse side) then I put it aside never to be seen again. All the words I didn't know pat I put into a review pile. Then EVERY NIGHT right before I went to bed (that's my personal best time for retention of new knowledge) I would review a chunk of the words I didn't know. Once I knew the word pat, I removed it from the review list. This was very intimidating at first when staring at a huge pile of flashcards that I didn't know. Eventually, after 4 months of doing this, I knew every single word from all of those flash card lists. I was also reading the Economist & NY Times online to practice seeing some of these new words in context.

The cool thing about learning new vocab is that (most of it) sticks with you after the test. Best of luck!
 

[PeakPerformance]

Hi,

Unfortunately, there is no quick and easy way to improve your vocabulary for the test other than by making flash cards and memorizing thousands of words. That's what I did when I took the GRE and I was able to raise my score more than 100 points and end up in the 99th percentile on the Verbal section (which is pretty amazing for me, as I was never a good tester and am too embarrassed to reveal to anyone what I got on my SATs:). Be sure that your flash cards include the parts of speech and that you you are including the various shades of meaning for a term (connotative and denotative), as many questions require you to demonstrate a more nuanced understanding and choose the definition that best fits the specific context.

Other than cramming with flash cards, I found it extremely important to take timed practice tests as often as I could to work on my pacing and concentration skills.I don't just mean practice tests of one or two sections; I mean full tests! As far as finding good practice tests and questions, I would consider looking at past official GMAT tests for the Verbal section: official tests are the best study tool and real GMATs are more reliable than many companies' practice GREs.

Good luck,

[PeakPerformance]

Valkener,

 

If you go to gmatclub.com/forum/download.php and do a search using the filter for Reading Comprehension, there's some attachments you can download that have hundreds of reading comprehension passages from the GMAT, GRE & LSAT. If you do a similar search for Sentence Correction, you'll find several compilations of practice questions. There's numerous strategy guides for both types of questions on the site.

 

Hope this helps!

[valkener]

Thanks for the link! Any other way of getting full-length practice tests? I'm willing to buy them. I'd love to buy, let's say 10 full-length tests.

[PeakPerformance]

Sorry -- official GREs are the hardest test to get your hands on. Many torrent sites have plenty of Kaplan & Princeton Review practice tests to download, but you need to be careful about viruses.