Study plan using some prep materials

[LadyNole]

Hi all,

 

I am new so HEY! I am posting because I am looking for someone who may have been in my situation. I am studying for about a little over two months for the June, 2013 GRE exam and would like to know what to use to get at least a 300. I am applying to the University of Alabama and I can say that I would need to get higher due to my UG GPA. I am, however, enrolled in a teacher prep program that I am hoping they would use as well. 

 

The prep materials I am buying, already have, or getting from the library:

Barron's New GRE (for the verbal lists)

Kaplan Math Workbook (Have in my books)

An older GRE book (don't know if that helps now)

Nova 4000 (for more words)

CliffsNotes for Standardized Tests (in my books)

 

If there is a book you recommend, let me know as well. Also, study methods did you use to get your score. My stronger point is verbal and anything with English yet am always up to learn new words but Math is not so much. 

 

Hope this makes sense. I am in a rush to go get food and get to the gym. Thanks!

 

Cynthia

[pears]

my quantitative (math) scores were pretty weak at first, but i improved a lot by basically going through kaplan and princeton review books thoroughly: i took notes on each chapter, studied the concepts i only had a fuzzy memory of every day, grappled my way through the hardest practice questions first, did the easy and medium questions second with a timer, and did a timed practice test every 2 weeks or so over the course of 3 months before my test date. i did quite well, but was really pleased with how my math turned out, so i'm guessing the practice helped! the timer is especially useful because it makes you push yourself to a point where you can cruise through the easiest stuff without wasting time by second-guessing yourself and save your time for harder things and quick revisions at the end. 

 

i don't see any problem with using books that are a couple of years old for the content, if you want to study a certain topic in particular, like geometry. better to invest in some 2011-2012 books than a course; there's not much an online or in person course can teach you that being really thorough with the books can't. online courses offer extra practice quizzes and tests, but you can probably find enough online for free that paying a couple hundred extra bucks isn't worth it (speaking from experience).

[gingersnapsback]

Hey! I took the GRE back in September. The book I found to be most helpful was the Princeton Review GRE book. For some reason, I felt like that one was the easiest to get through (I purchased the Princeton Review, Barron's Kaplan's, and GRE for Dummies). The Barron one you mentioned was also extremely helpful. For the Quant section I used the Cliff Notes Math Review; I'm absolutely atrocious at math and ended up doing pretty well on the Quant, so I recommend that one (however, that book is built for people who need a really thorough review, so if you're good at math, that book is going to be pretty useless.) I also really recommend Barron's vocabulary flashcards; I carried some of them with me at all times so when I was waiting in line or on the bus, I could just pull them out and get in a few minutes of practice. 

 

As for my study methods, I started a few months before and spent weekdays doing about an hour of Verbal and two hours of Quant. I did a lot of practice problems, read the chapter, and made sure the next day to review any concepts I had had a problem with the day before. Taking the weekend off was a good idea, I think, because it gave me a break and time to absorb. However, I made the massive mistake of not studying for the AW and my score showed, so make sure to look over what they look for (I thought the Princeton book did a particularly good job of that.)

 

I think older books are great for practice problems, but the information in the front about the actual test might be wrong because they've changed the format of the GRE over the last few years (but you can get that information from the ETS website, so I don't think that's a big problem). 

 

Also, make sure you do practice tests! Getting used to the timer was really hard for me, but after a few practice ones, the timer didn't intimidate me that much anymore. (I started doing practice tests about a month before.)

 

Good luck! 

Edited April 3, 2013 by gingersnapsback