New to GRE, Any suggestions?

[cool_coder]

Hello all,

I am a Final Year Engineering student & will be taking the GRE exam in the 1st week of May.

In our city we have an academy which provides all the necessary reading material, which I have bought already. However I have'nt joined any class as I think it will be a waste of time. I think by practising more I can score ~325 which I think is sufficient for getting admission to reputed Universities. Is my approach correct? Do you people have any suggestion for me?

 

Secondly I am having trouble in starting my preparation. I have no idea how to start studying & what to study first. Also I have no idea about the formalities (paper work, etc) to be done for taking the GRE. Can anybody guide me as i have no clue as to this exam & the required preparations except for the study material that I have.

 

Lastly I would like to know of some more forums for GRE, where I can get some guidance?

Useful links to blogs, articles, websites, etc will be very very helpful!

 

PS: I need a basic Introduction to this exam.

Please HELP...

[languages-etc]

There have been many posts related to the GRE in this section, so you should just read through those for suggestions and tips. 

 

For a first step: Buy a GRE practice book/CD (such as Barrons) or download the free materials from the ETS. Take a practice GRE test, using the time limits as the actual test. Then score yourself, and you'll have a better idea of which kinds of questions you answered incorrectly, and need to study more. 

[33andathirdRPM]

Since you're coming from a quantitative background...

 

Don't overthink the math on the quantitative portions of the exam, but at the same time don't minimize it. Refamiliarize yourself with basic probability and statistics. (For some reason I had a high number of questions from that category.) Check your answers. You should have more than enough time to comfortably go back through all of your answers. Many of the answers are deceptively simple. If you're moving at a good pace, you might even be able to consider all possible responses for an exercise with the leftover section time if you're not confident in a response.

 

It's (arguably) easier to study up to improve your Analytical Writing essays than it is to improve a Verbal score. If you're not familiar with the five-paragraph essay, start working now. It's not hard, and I didn't practice or study for my GRE and still managed a (non-humanities) respectable 4.5AW score. I was familiar with the structure of the essays though. Even though people aren't supposed to report what their essay topics were, a google search will reveal many of the most common ones. If nothing else, give yourself an opportunity to write up essays from some topics available in the test prep materials or online. A good way to practice would be to open a text editor, turn off spell check, set a thirty minute timer, then write it in that thirty minutes. It seems like a lot of time, but you need to be able to read the topic and hit the ground running if you want an opportunity to edit your sample.

[midnight]

IMO the best (and cheapest) books for GRE review, overview, and practice are The Princeton Review's Cracking the GRE, Barron's Six Practice Tests, and the ETS GRE book.

 

Go to the ETS GRE website and click around. It describes the test well and pretty much tells you everything you need to know.

 

Also I agree that probability and stats appear quite a lot in the quant section. I remember at least five such questions when I took the GRE, which I appreciated since they're more straightforward than some of the other quant material.

 

Everyone has given good advice here, and you have plenty of time plus some to prepare yourself for the test.

[uromastyx]

turn back. turn back now.