GRE Pointers - I scored 338

[thedreamykind]

I gave my GRE on August 20, 2013 and managed to score pretty well (168Q, 170V, 5.0 AWA). I don't remember too much now, but I wrote an email to a friend detailing my experience and giving some preparation tips. I thought I'd post it here as it may help other people. Here goes.

(I mostly talk about verbal, because maths is pretty manageable for most people)

 

So, words. I'll briefly walk you through the experience I had.

I went to The Princeton Review  for classes. The classes were somewhat useful (not too much), but I don't think I scored more than ~162 in English on any of their tests (I took 3 or 4). While I wasn't dedicating proper time to preparation, I expected to get better over time. 

 

I took a week off from work, before my exam, to prepare. Given the limited time I had, I didn't really do huge word lists. Based on the research I did, I tried to focus on the official ETS prep material. The first PowerPrep test I gave, I scored 165 - this was a huge confidence boost. The difference between the real questions and the ones asked by Princeton, Manhattan etc became apparent - ETS focuses a lot more on complex passages which take time to grasp, but not so much on difficult and obscure words. I spent time analyzing my test and learning the words they used that I didn't know. I did this for all their tests (2 in the official guide, 2 on PowerPrep) and also the practice question sets they had. This really helped, and my performance was more or less consistent on all their tests. 

 

Based on the amount of time you have, I would say don't necessarily go for the longer word lists. And the words you do learn, try to learn them "in context" - how they're used in sentences. For me, words are very difficult to remember with just their meanings, but much simpler if I associate them with an idea or a memorable sentence.

An example (I don't remember where I picked this up) - Ostentatious is a "flashy word for flashy" .

 

I don't know if you've come across the Magoosh blog - but they have some very good articles and reviews of prep materials. 

Here are some resources you may find useful -
A high frequency word list I studied - link

Magoosh's vocabulary PDF, quite useful - link

Magoosh's advice on word lists, quite useful - link

One month study schedule - link - you can browse through this and come up with your own strategy. I used their one week guide and customized it to my needs.

 

Some general advice -
Read the official guide, it's more useful than you might think. After all, it's from the people who make the test. For essays, you don't need anything other than reading their guidelines, scoring guide (they clearly tell you what they expect), and the sample essays they've given. For maths, you don't need anything other than browsing through the "math review" chapters they have, they cover everything they ask.

 

I would also say this - try to time yourself and do sets of questions rather than spending time randomly practicing. You'll get a much better idea of your strengths and weaknesses.

And verbal - spend time practicing a lot of RCs, and try to get used to complex/confusing passages. I could barely get through my verbal sections in time.

 

Feel free to ask me any questions, I'll reply if possible.

 

Good luck! 

[Saman]

 

I gave my GRE on August 20, 2013 and managed to score pretty well (168Q, 170V, 5.0 AWA). I don't remember too much now, but I wrote an email to a friend detailing my experience and giving some preparation tips. I thought I'd post it here as it may help other people. Here goes.

(I mostly talk about verbal, because maths is pretty manageable for most people)

 

So, words. I'll briefly walk you through the experience I had.

I went to The Princeton Review  for classes. The classes were somewhat useful (not too much), but I don't think I scored more than ~162 in English on any of their tests (I took 3 or 4). While I wasn't dedicating proper time to preparation, I expected to get better over time. 

 

I took a week off from work, before my exam, to prepare. Given the limited time I had, I didn't really do huge word lists. Based on the research I did, I tried to focus on the official ETS prep material. The first PowerPrep test I gave, I scored 165 - this was a huge confidence boost. The difference between the real questions and the ones asked by Princeton, Manhattan etc became apparent - ETS focuses a lot more on complex passages which take time to grasp, but not so much on difficult and obscure words. I spent time analyzing my test and learning the words they used that I didn't know. I did this for all their tests (2 in the official guide, 2 on PowerPrep) and also the practice question sets they had. This really helped, and my performance was more or less consistent on all their tests. 

 

Based on the amount of time you have, I would say don't necessarily go for the longer word lists. And the words you do learn, try to learn them "in context" - how they're used in sentences. For me, words are very difficult to remember with just their meanings, but much simpler if I associate them with an idea or a memorable sentence.

An example (I don't remember where I picked this up) - Ostentatious is a "flashy word for flashy" .

 

I don't know if you've come across the Magoosh blog - but they have some very good articles and reviews of prep materials. 

Here are some resources you may find useful -

A high frequency word list I studied - link

Magoosh's vocabulary PDF, quite useful - link

Magoosh's advice on word lists, quite useful - link

One month study schedule - link - you can browse through this and come up with your own strategy. I used their one week guide and customized it to my needs.

 

Some general advice -

Read the official guide, it's more useful than you might think. After all, it's from the people who make the test. For essays, you don't need anything other than reading their guidelines, scoring guide (they clearly tell you what they expect), and the sample essays they've given. For maths, you don't need anything other than browsing through the "math review" chapters they have, they cover everything they ask.

 

I would also say this - try to time yourself and do sets of questions rather than spending time randomly practicing. You'll get a much better idea of your strengths and weaknesses.

And verbal - spend time practicing a lot of RCs, and try to get used to complex/confusing passages. I could barely get through my verbal sections in time.

 

Feel free to ask me any questions, I'll reply if possible.

 

Good luck! 

 

 

Hi theDreamykind,

 

Your suggestions along with Magoosh prep are so helpful and enlightening. I will be appearing for GRE in June most probably and considering many resources for preperation. I'm afraid of verbal part which I think now I can overcome the barrier by working on your suggestion and using the Magoosh prep.

 

Thanks again for sharing the material with us.

[dbp_patel1994]

 

I gave my GRE on August 20, 2013 and managed to score pretty well (168Q, 170V, 5.0 AWA). I don't remember too much now, but I wrote an email to a friend detailing my experience and giving some preparation tips. I thought I'd post it here as it may help other people. Here goes.

(I mostly talk about verbal, because maths is pretty manageable for most people)

 

So, words. I'll briefly walk you through the experience I had.

I went to The Princeton Review  for classes. The classes were somewhat useful (not too much), but I don't think I scored more than ~162 in English on any of their tests (I took 3 or 4). While I wasn't dedicating proper time to preparation, I expected to get better over time. 

 

I took a week off from work, before my exam, to prepare. Given the limited time I had, I didn't really do huge word lists. Based on the research I did, I tried to focus on the official ETS prep material. The first PowerPrep test I gave, I scored 165 - this was a huge confidence boost. The difference between the real questions and the ones asked by Princeton, Manhattan etc became apparent - ETS focuses a lot more on complex passages which take time to grasp, but not so much on difficult and obscure words. I spent time analyzing my test and learning the words they used that I didn't know. I did this for all their tests (2 in the official guide, 2 on PowerPrep) and also the practice question sets they had. This really helped, and my performance was more or less consistent on all their tests. 

 

Based on the amount of time you have, I would say don't necessarily go for the longer word lists. And the words you do learn, try to learn them "in context" - how they're used in sentences. For me, words are very difficult to remember with just their meanings, but much simpler if I associate them with an idea or a memorable sentence.

An example (I don't remember where I picked this up) - Ostentatious is a "flashy word for flashy" .

 

I don't know if you've come across the Magoosh blog - but they have some very good articles and reviews of prep materials. 

Here are some resources you may find useful -

A high frequency word list I studied - link

Magoosh's vocabulary PDF, quite useful - link

Magoosh's advice on word lists, quite useful - link

One month study schedule - link - you can browse through this and come up with your own strategy. I used their one week guide and customized it to my needs.

 

Some general advice -

Read the official guide, it's more useful than you might think. After all, it's from the people who make the test. For essays, you don't need anything other than reading their guidelines, scoring guide (they clearly tell you what they expect), and the sample essays they've given. For maths, you don't need anything other than browsing through the "math review" chapters they have, they cover everything they ask.

 

I would also say this - try to time yourself and do sets of questions rather than spending time randomly practicing. You'll get a much better idea of your strengths and weaknesses.

And verbal - spend time practicing a lot of RCs, and try to get used to complex/confusing passages. I could barely get through my verbal sections in time.

 

Feel free to ask me any questions, I'll reply if possible.

 

Good luck! 

 

Thank you very much.

 

I would like to know that if my CGPA is 8-8.5 then approx. what will be the GPA when converted for the US Universities application. I wish to apply for M.S. in Physics or an integrated PhD. programme if available. 

 

[thedreamykind]

Hi theDreamykind,

 

Your suggestions along with Magoosh prep are so helpful and enlightening. I will be appearing for GRE in June most probably and considering many resources for preperation. I'm afraid of verbal part which I think now I can overcome the barrier by working on your suggestion and using the Magoosh prep.

 

Thanks again for sharing the material with us.

 

Glad you found it useful, good luck for your test!

[thedreamykind]

Thank you very much.

 

 

I would like to know that if my CGPA is 8-8.5 then approx. what will be the GPA when converted for the US Universities application. I wish to apply for M.S. in Physics or an integrated PhD. programme if available.

 

 

 

Hi. Most universities don't require you to convert your CGPA to the 4-point scale - they let you fill out your original GPA and ask for the maximum.

If it is mandatory, you can consider WES grade conversion (google it). Or just scale it to 4.0 and send your transcripts, that's what I did for one of my applications (Columbia, I think).

[MegaMind06]

 

I gave my GRE on August 20, 2013 and managed to score pretty well (168Q, 170V, 5.0 AWA). I don't remember too much now, but I wrote an email to a friend detailing my experience and giving some preparation tips. I thought I'd post it here as it may help other people. Here goes.

(I mostly talk about verbal, because maths is pretty manageable for most people)

 

So, words. I'll briefly walk you through the experience I had.

I went to The Princeton Review  for classes. The classes were somewhat useful (not too much), but I don't think I scored more than ~162 in English on any of their tests (I took 3 or 4). While I wasn't dedicating proper time to preparation, I expected to get better over time. 

 

I took a week off from work, before my exam, to prepare. Given the limited time I had, I didn't really do huge word lists. Based on the research I did, I tried to focus on the official ETS prep material. The first PowerPrep test I gave, I scored 165 - this was a huge confidence boost. The difference between the real questions and the ones asked by Princeton, Manhattan etc became apparent - ETS focuses a lot more on complex passages which take time to grasp, but not so much on difficult and obscure words. I spent time analyzing my test and learning the words they used that I didn't know. I did this for all their tests (2 in the official guide, 2 on PowerPrep) and also the practice question sets they had. This really helped, and my performance was more or less consistent on all their tests. 

 

Based on the amount of time you have, I would say don't necessarily go for the longer word lists. And the words you do learn, try to learn them "in context" - how they're used in sentences. For me, words are very difficult to remember with just their meanings, but much simpler if I associate them with an idea or a memorable sentence.

An example (I don't remember where I picked this up) - Ostentatious is a "flashy word for flashy" .

 

I don't know if you've come across the Magoosh blog - but they have some very good articles and reviews of prep materials. 

Here are some resources you may find useful -

A high frequency word list I studied - link

Magoosh's vocabulary PDF, quite useful - link

Magoosh's advice on word lists, quite useful - link

One month study schedule - link - you can browse through this and come up with your own strategy. I used their one week guide and customized it to my needs.

 

Some general advice -

Read the official guide, it's more useful than you might think. After all, it's from the people who make the test. For essays, you don't need anything other than reading their guidelines, scoring guide (they clearly tell you what they expect), and the sample essays they've given. For maths, you don't need anything other than browsing through the "math review" chapters they have, they cover everything they ask.

 

I would also say this - try to time yourself and do sets of questions rather than spending time randomly practicing. You'll get a much better idea of your strengths and weaknesses.

And verbal - spend time practicing a lot of RCs, and try to get used to complex/confusing passages. I could barely get through my verbal sections in time.

 

Feel free to ask me any questions, I'll reply if possible.

 

Good luck! 

 

Thank you very much for your useful information. 

I am so worried about my verbal preparation. On the powerprep 1 soft, I scored 146, My exam just after 2 weeks. In the sentence completion and sentence equivalence questions, I sometimes come up with one wrong answer and 1 or 2 right answers. The reading comprehensions are too hard to understand and honestly I don't even know what my shortcomings are in case of reading comprehension questions .  Any particular suggestion how to do well ?

[vicky25]

Hi thedreamykind I had given GRE in 2012 it seems the format has changed since then has the scoring also changed can you guide me.