Discussing Improvements (Or lack of)

[jc14]

Hey guys,


I know I'm starting a thread that's been discussed before - and believe me I've read through most of them.

I'm currently studying for the GRE's - it's been about a month. I've been scoring around the 165+ range for the quantitative sections without studying - but verbal is killing me - and quite frankly, I'm getting pretty discouraged. 

Most the threads I've read have been up and down. Some people see improvements, some don't. My verbal score will range from around 150-158  - but usually right around 150. (My goal is to break 160 in verbal and score over 165 in Q). I've been memorizing a lot of vocab words from Magoosh/Manhattan - I've memorized around 500 in the past month. But it just seems pointless - so many vocab words out there - and even some of the words I know well, there's like a 9th definition that they ask you about (I know I'm exaggerating, but for those who have taken the test, you know what I mean). 

I'm basically ranting and looking for some encouragement. If  you didn't improve from studying - why not? Do you think the GRE (especially verbal) is just a tough test to study for due to the myriad of words that they use? Or you didn't study hard enough? And if you did improve - what exactly was it? Did the memorizing vocab words really help?

Also, I haven't taken an official GRE yet - this is all from the Magoosh program, which I do recommend in that it is thorough and helpful . 



Let me know what you guys think - if you feel my pain, feel free to vent. If you have words of wisdom - I'm all ears. 

[imnotbatman]

Hey! I took the GRE last year and I took it twice. I also used Magoosh and supplemented it with Manhattan prep and Kaplan practice tests. 

 

I've always been a 'math' person, but on both tests, I actually did much better on my verbal sections (156q 163v and 166q 167v). I improved during my second GRE exam which I took 2 months after. Between the first exam and second exam, I didn't do much to try to improve my verbal scores- I worked mostly on improving my quantitative section. I quite enjoy the magoosh verbal quizzes, and I did questions whenever I had time- in between commercial breaks, on the bus etc. Any words I didn't know, I wrote on flash cards.

 

One thing I would suggest is to try to NOT memorize more than what you are capable per day. For myself, I can memorize only 10-15 new words per day and I will always go over all the previous words I learned first before attempting to memorize more. Going into the GRE, I learned ~800 new words. I also read more than usual - especially the economist and the new yorker. Again, any word I did not know, I wrote down and looked it up. Using mnemonics also helped!

 

Have you used manhattan practice exams? I think using other practice tests also helped since different companies have different styles of test writing. I'm not sure if it was the Manhattan practice exams or Magoosh, but I think they also have a 'test breakdown' portion where they tell you which part you are most capable in and where you need a little more work. Do you know which part you struggle more in? For me, I usually did well in the sentence completion but RC was my weak point. This was surprising to me as I actually enjoy that section. If you are like me and RC is the issue, then the memorization of vocab may not mean as much. 

 

Also, don't forget to work on the essay section! I left that until 3 days before the exam and since its the first part of your exam, doing well (or not) can really affect your confidence!

 

Good luck!!!

[DeepSaklani]

Hi, from what I see you are scoring quite well in your quantitative sections and majorly your weak area have been the Verbal section. Actually you are not doing that bad also in your Verbal section. However, you are looking for an improvement and want to take your score to 160+. You can surely follow certain tips which will help you improve which are as follows:

 

1. Understand how vocabulary works in context. You should look up for example sentence online.

2. Use lists of prefixes, roots, suffixes, common mistakes, similar words, etc. 

3. Read articles which are scholarly, dense, and challenging. And remember whenever you encounter words you don’t know, look those words up and try to get a better sense of how they function in context. 

 

Apart from this, their is an alternate way of improving vocabulary through flashcard. Some of the GRE providers are providing vocab flash card on Mobile App. The best part is you can memorize vocab using flashcard on the go. We also offer similar app - Gradestack GRE app which has over 3500+ Vocab flash card, 2000+ test questions with detailed solution. You can try using our app and see if you are able to improve your vocab score. All the best!!!

[Persis]

Hey guys,

I know I'm starting a thread that's been discussed before - and believe me I've read through most of them.

I'm currently studying for the GRE's - it's been about a month. I've been scoring around the 165+ range for the quantitative sections without studying - but verbal is killing me - and quite frankly, I'm getting pretty discouraged. 

Most the threads I've read have been up and down. Some people see improvements, some don't. My verbal score will range from around 150-158  - but usually right around 150. (My goal is to break 160 in verbal and score over 165 in Q). I've been memorizing a lot of vocab words from Magoosh/Manhattan - I've memorized around 500 in the past month. But it just seems pointless - so many vocab words out there - and even some of the words I know well, there's like a 9th definition that they ask you about (I know I'm exaggerating, but for those who have taken the test, you know what I mean). 

I'm basically ranting and looking for some encouragement. If  you didn't improve from studying - why not? Do you think the GRE (especially verbal) is just a tough test to study for due to the myriad of words that they use? Or you didn't study hard enough? And if you did improve - what exactly was it? Did the memorizing vocab words really help?

Also, I haven't taken an official GRE yet - this is all from the Magoosh program, which I do recommend in that it is thorough and helpful . 

Let me know what you guys think - if you feel my pain, feel free to vent. If you have words of wisdom - I'm all ears. 

I am in the same situation.  I have been studying for one month now and i have only been studying vocab and trying out some questions, but i feel inundated.  I have no idea what to do.  This GRE thing is not easy to deal with.  I even feel scared to go write it as i feel like my score will be abysmal.

[jc14]

Hey guys - thanks for the responses - I really appreciate them.

Definitely agree imnotbatman - I try to review all the words I've learned on a regular basis to make sure I'm retaining them to a certain degree. I'm trying to get in the habit of reading those articles as well, so since it seemed to help you. I'll try to be more diligent in that. (Congrats on a great score btw)

And thanks for the advice DeepSaklani!

Anyone else care to chime in?

[bsharpe269]

I think you are trying to do WAY too much too fast. When do you apply for grad school? I am the same as you, math, science person who has been in the 160s (usually high 160s) on the math without studying. Verbal is not my strong point though.

 

In january, I was scoring around where you are for verbal... my 1st ETS was 154 and my first magoosh was 153. My goal was to get the score up to 160. In the past month I have taken 2 practice tests since I will be taking the GRE soon. On the 2nd ETS test i scored 162 and on magoosh I scored 164!

 

As someone who has seen drastic improvement, here is my advice:

 

Slow down! I am only learning the "common words" on the magoosh app. There are 300 and I have learned around 225 so far. From just learning these 225 words, I rarely see words on the test that I dont know now. I went from just about every word being a mystery to pretty much knowing them all.... there really areant that many words that show up on the test. Do you really feel like youreally know those 500 words well? I feel like it would be impossible to memorize that many words well in a month. I have been memorizing around 50 a month + revieiwing old ones.

 

My study habits have included about 3, 30 min study sessions of vocab a week. I never make time for it... I pull out my phone and go through the app when I am waiting for an appt or stuck is traffic or something. I read the example sentance for every word and make sure I understand how the word is used. If I am unclear on how to use the word then I google it and read more example sentances. Many of the common words are synonyms, consider these while studying since they tend to show up in the questions that ask you to choose the two words that mean the same thing. When I come accross a defintion that I have seen earlier, I link the words in my mind. The 225 words that I know, I know very well. I dont have to sit there and try to recall the definitions, I just know them. I have also spent around 1 afternoon a week doing the practice questions on magoosh.

 

I dont think that the verbal studying can be crammed. I think that it is more about getting a feeling for how the words would be used and just getting used to do the GRE types of questions. I think that you should give yourself a few months of study without testing yourself... anyway if you keep doing all of the practice tests this early then how will you measure improvement later? Good luck!

[jc14]

Thanks for the reply bsharpe269.

I definitely agree.. The only reason I'm kind of rushing is that I'm trying to finish my GRE by the end of June to focus on work/school. But I do realize, realistically, it'll take more time. The verbal section especially seems to require a gradual growth in vocab/reading comprehension skills. Thanks for the advice, and congrats on improving your scores!

[astroyogi]

Something that I think is important to remember is that not all people learn a language in the same way -- like previous posters have mentioned, some keys besides memorizing vocab words are to understand roots and prefixes/suffixes and generally just read challenging English texts. For me, getting into the zone of reading difficult English passages "turns on" the desired areas of my brain way more than just memorizing vocab does, since it inspires more connections for me than just thinking about specific words out of context, which I found helpful in taking the GRE.

[maelia8]

Just out of curiosity (I've already been accepted to grad school and should hopefully never have to take the GRE again), did anybody have luck in dealing with the opposite situation? I'm a humanities person who scored extremely high on verbal without study but barely middling on quant, although I focussed all of my energies on studying for the quant section for months. I felt that I understood the material on the math sections, but was unable to get to a point where i was able to apply all of the necessary tricks and shortcuts to answer the questions correctly in the required time frame. I got flustered from running out of time and I'm sure it affected my score, as I'm usually the slow and steady math test taker who often has to do problems over several times but generally gets the answer right in the end. This style is not well-suited to the GRE, and I never found any books that taught you how to do math problems more quickly and use shortcuts when you're the kind of person for whom skipping steps is incredibly confusing.

[astroyogi]

Just out of curiosity (I've already been accepted to grad school and should hopefully never have to take the GRE again), did anybody have luck in dealing with the opposite situation? I'm a humanities person who scored extremely high on verbal without study but barely middling on quant, although I focussed all of my energies on studying for the quant section for months. I felt that I understood the material on the math sections, but was unable to get to a point where i was able to apply all of the necessary tricks and shortcuts to answer the questions correctly in the required time frame. I got flustered from running out of time and I'm sure it affected my score, as I'm usually the slow and steady math test taker who often has to do problems over several times but generally gets the answer right in the end. This style is not well-suited to the GRE, and I never found any books that taught you how to do math problems more quickly and use shortcuts when you're the kind of person for whom skipping steps is incredibly confusing.

 

As a person who is better suited for the humanities but in the sciences (why, I sometimes ask), I found that the verbal section came more easily to me too -- thankfully when I took the exam I had been drenched in math for the past few years so I didn't study too much for any of the sections. If I had gone into a field like yours I might be in the same predicament. First off congrats on getting into amazing programs and not needing to worry about this! I think those "tricks and shortcuts" you mention come over a long period of time (and I mean months or years) of encountering problems asked in a bunch of ways over and over again so you train your brain. If it's tough to nail these down studying independently (which it often is) I would really recommend tutoring -- having been a physics tutor for a little while I realized how important it is to have a human who can explain all the different "sneaky" ways of approaching a problem and adapt to the way your brain works. Books are usually not great in this arena, they have a couple of ways to diversity your "arsenal" but aren't tailored to the way you think. I don't know if it's fair to say tutoring might be more useful for the math section rather than the english sections, but it would be that way for me if I hadn't been in my field getting "tutored" already in my courses every day. 

[maelia8]

As a person who is better suited for the humanities but in the sciences (why, I sometimes ask), I found that the verbal section came more easily to me too -- thankfully when I took the exam I had been drenched in math for the past few years so I didn't study too much for any of the sections. If I had gone into a field like yours I might be in the same predicament. First off congrats on getting into amazing programs and not needing to worry about this! I think those "tricks and shortcuts" you mention come over a long period of time (and I mean months or years) of encountering problems asked in a bunch of ways over and over again so you train your brain. If it's tough to nail these down studying independently (which it often is) I would really recommend tutoring -- having been a physics tutor for a little while I realized how important it is to have a human who can explain all the different "sneaky" ways of approaching a problem and adapt to the way your brain works. Books are usually not great in this arena, they have a couple of ways to diversity your "arsenal" but aren't tailored to the way you think. I don't know if it's fair to say tutoring might be more useful for the math section rather than the english sections, but it would be that way for me if I hadn't been in my field getting "tutored" already in my courses every day. 

 

Yeah, tutoring probably would have helped the most - the books gave me a good idea of what would be on the test, but not how to face it effectively considering my skill set and lack of that sort of long-term brain training that you get automatically when you're in the sciences. When I took the test, I had literally not taken a straight math class in almost six years (my undergrad allowed you to fulfill "quantitative reasoning" requirements through introductory courses in biology, physics, and chemistry), so I was rusty on the material to begin with, and without that kind of drilling, it wasn't possible for me to get the necessary speed/shortcuts up to par working alone to study for the GRE.

[astroyogi]

Yeah, tutoring probably would have helped the most - the books gave me a good idea of what would be on the test, but not how to face it effectively considering my skill set and lack of that sort of long-term brain training that you get automatically when you're in the sciences. When I took the test, I had literally not taken a straight math class in almost six years (my undergrad allowed you to fulfill "quantitative reasoning" requirements through introductory courses in biology, physics, and chemistry), so I was rusty on the material to begin with, and without that kind of drilling, it wasn't possible for me to get the necessary speed/shortcuts up to par working alone to study for the GRE.

 

Yeah, I can totally understand that. It seems a bit unfair -- science people complain about humanities requirements at my school and vice versa, but it seems like (here at least) science people get more writing experience than humanities people get calculation experience

[maelia8]

Yeah, I can totally understand that. It seems a bit unfair -- science people complain about humanities requirements at my school and vice versa, but it seems like (here at least) science people get more writing experience than humanities people get calculation experience

 

Eh, I'm not complaining - my scores didn't stop me from getting into a good program, and I doubt that a mediocre quant score is going to stop anyone with an otherwise stellar resume and stats from getting accepted to a top institution. That being said, it did seem like a waste of time for me to study all of that math again knowing at during my humanities Ph.D. I'll need absolutely nothing that was on the GRE math section except for the analysis of simple graphs.