GRE Preparation

[Happydays2]

Did anyone here study for the GRE? I'm looking into studying for it (I'm applying 2014-2015). Anyone recommend any particularly helpful book/online prep? I'm stronger in the Math section then Verbal section , any verbal recommendations? Also did any of you follow any particular schedule (e.g. 1hr a day Mon-Fri). Any and all advice is much appreciated!

Edited December 2, 2013 by Happydays2

[MattDest]

I studied a bit, but I wish I would have studied more. I used Magoosh (it's online with video tutorials and tons of practice questions), which I found to be really helpful and my results from the several practice tests I took were pretty accurate to my official scores. 

[bar_scene_gambler]

I studied a bit, but I wish I would have studied more.

Same. Better scores might have helped my application some, but it's a bit late now. At any rate, I used Princeton Review's GRE Prep Book. It was pretty good, and the Verbal prep was really well done. It also had various studying strategies and such to help you get the most out of the book.

[wandajune]

The Official ETS book and Kaplan are both good. The online portion of Kaplan has a lot of practice tests. Take as many practice tests as you can and memorize vocab. Really focus on vocab. Don't slack on the analytic writing section, practice that and have someone give you feedback on your practice essays.

 

I studied for 3 months over the summer for 1-2 hours a day doing all of the above and got a score in the 99th percentile for Verbal. I also kept a stack of vocab flash cards (also by Kaplan) with me most of the time and flipped through them when I had nothing else to do.

[bar_scene_gambler]

I would definitely do the Kaplan for the math. I bought both the Princeton Review book and the Kaplan math book, and the Kaplan math prep is better by far.

[Happydays2]

Thank you everyone for the relpies/suggestions  

 

 I used Princeton Review's GRE Prep Book. It was pretty good, and the Verbal prep was really well done.

 

Is there a specific verion you used? Was it this one:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Practice-Edition-Graduate-Preparation/dp/0307945634

[Happydays2]

The Official ETS book and Kaplan are both good. The online portion of Kaplan has a lot of practice tests. Take as many practice tests as you can and memorize vocab. Really focus on vocab. Don't slack on the analytic writing section, practice that and have someone give you feedback on your practice essays.

 

I studied for 3 months over the summer for 1-2 hours a day doing all of the above and got a score in the 99th percentile for Verbal. I also kept a stack of vocab flash cards (also by Kaplan) with me most of the time and flipped through them when I had nothing else to do.

 

Congrats on the 99th percentile! I'd be happy if I could score at least 90th percentile

If it is not too much trouble, may I ask how you studied verbal? Was verbal your main focus? (it is mine) Did you basically read various passages and answer questions for 1-2hrs (aside from flash cards)?

[Happydays2]

I used Magoosh (it's online with video tutorials and tons of practice questions), which I found to be really helpful and my results from the several practice tests I took were pretty accurate to my official scores. 

 

I used Magoosh over the summer and it really helped my Math score, but my verbal remained the same :/. In any case, I too found Magoosh to be very helpful (at least for the Math section for me).

[MattDest]

I used Magoosh over the summer and it really helped my Math score, but my verbal remained the same :/. In any case, I too found Magoosh to be very helpful (at least for the Math section for me).

 

Yeah, I didn't really study for verbal or AW and my scores were pretty top-notch in that area. But I am exceptionally horrible at math, and I thought the tutorials were incredibly helpful. Despite that help, I still managed to do rather meh on the math section. 

[bar_scene_gambler]

Thank you everyone for the relpies/suggestions

 

 

Is there a specific verion you used? Was it this one:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Practice-Edition-Graduate-Preparation/dp/0307945634

Yeah, it was that one, but the 2013 version. It's a pretty good price and the practice tests and study advice is worth it. 

[wandajune]

Congrats on the 99th percentile! I'd be happy if I could score at least 90th percentile

If it is not too much trouble, may I ask how you studied verbal? Was verbal your main focus? (it is mine) Did you basically read various passages and answer questions for 1-2hrs (aside from flash cards)?

 

I tried to focus on all sections, and alternated between studying verbal and quantitative each day. Though I think I ended up spending more time on verbal just because I don't care for math that much. Flash cards were big because it was something I could do while I was at work (customer service desk job), so realistically I would do that for more than an hour a day. Other than that I just did as many practice questions/passages as I could. The important thing is understanding the kinds of questions asked, and the kinds of answers the GRE wants. I really focused on understanding the practice questions I got wrong and wouldn't move on until I felt like I fully understood why the correct answer was correct.

[Table]

I studied a fair amount, especially on the math—it's been 5 years since I've taken a math class, so studying there really helped. ("fair amount"= probably 4 hrs a week for 2.5 months)
My studying was structured around a Kaplan class I took, which I would really strongly recommend against. It's very expensive, and I found it frustrating to not be able to move at my own pace. Most of all, though, I think Kaplan's materials are quite bad, especially their verbal. Their more difficult text completion questions are just hard in a different way than ETS's: Kaplan makes text completion hard by using pretty obscure words. I didn't encounter any words I felt like I had never seen before on the GRE or in ETS's official practice tests. Instead, they make text completion hard via convoluted sentence structures and sometimes making it impossible to predict the correct answer for any of the blanks without looking at some of the answer choices, and seeing which together would make the sentence make sense. 
 

Magoosh has GRE book reviews.

[MattDest]

That "fair amount" of studying sounds like a *ton* of studying to me. Would you mind sharing your scores Table? 

[Table]

170V/170Q. I should have noted, though, that in 4 hrs a week x 2.5 months I'm including the class I took, which was 2.5 hrs/week for 8 weeks. So, on average, 1.5 hrs of studying time per week outside of my class. Like I said, I don't think the class was a great use of my time. I probably could have covered the same amount of material, without the hand holding, in about an hour on my own.
So to cover the same material without the class, I would have studied for about 2.5 hrs/week for 2 months. In the weeks before and after my class I took a practice test. 

I don't really think it was is an enormous amount of studying. I really needed to review and practice the math especially. ex. before I started studying, I was not 100% sure about how to find the circumference of a circle, had no idea what negative exponents did, etc. 

[MattDest]

You scored perfect on both the V/Q? Wow, that is absolutely phenomenal. Congratulations! Is the rest of your application as spectacular?! (Sorry if you don't feel like sharing, you absolutely don't have to. I'm just very curious.) 

[Table]

Thanks! The rest of my application is (I think and hope) fairly solid, though very far from perfect. I'll send you a message with more details... totally fine with sharing, but a little wary of it being public.