GRE prep COURSE

[RaymondDale]

Hi, is there some consensus as to the best GRE prep COURSE available? Especially for verbal.

Please don't answer by saying it's not worth it to take a course, etc.

Perhaps I should put it a different way, For those of you who (1) scored VERY high on the verbal or know someone who did, and (2) took a live prep course (or know someone who did) -- what course was it?

Thank you, and best of luck this year on your apps.<br clear="all">

[DrFaustus666]

Hi, is there some consensus as to the best GRE prep COURSE available? Especially for verbal.

Please don't answer by saying it's not worth it to take a course, etc.

Perhaps I should put it a different way, For those of you who (1) scored VERY high on the verbal or know someone who did, and (2) took a live prep course (or know someone who did) -- what course was it?

Thank you, and best of luck this year on your apps.<br clear="all">

I can't say which course is best, as I've never taken one. But I've bought every book on the subject of GRE (my own weakness is math).

In my opinion, Barron's book is the best of the bunch for verbal. Its vocabulary section is huge and well annotated. By the way, I've taken the GRE three times in the last five years, and scored above 700-Verbal twice out of the three times.

[Branwen daughter of Llyr]

I can't recommend any courses, but I raised my verbal score (of paramount importance for an English PhD app) from 600 to 720 with the following:

Cracking the GRE 2010 edition - Princeton review. Familiarizes you with the test quite well.

Barron's 800 Essential GRE words - very very very good. a lot of vocab and root exercises.

Kaplan's Advanced Verbal GRE - Also very very good. An additional list of words + lots of very hard exercises. I actually started acing analogies after using this one.

Vocaboly - very nice piece of software for improving vocabulary. Includes multiple choice tests, study cards, memory games, and has a LOT of vocab you'll very likely encounter on the test.

Reading The Economist and Scientific American articles, dictionary at hand for those words I wasn't sure about.

I crammed vocab for about 3 hours a day, for 4 weeks, with an extra push the last weekend before the exam.

Good luck!!

[DrFaustus666]

I can't recommend any courses, but I raised my verbal score (of paramount importance for an English PhD app) from 600 to 720 with the following:

Cracking the GRE 2010 edition - Princeton review. Familiarizes you with the test quite well.

Barron's 800 Essential GRE words - very very very good. a lot of vocab and root exercises.

Kaplan's Advanced Verbal GRE - Also very very good. An additional list of words + lots of very hard exercises. I actually started acing analogies after using this one.

Vocaboly - very nice piece of software for improving vocabulary. Includes multiple choice tests, study cards, memory games, and has a LOT of vocab you'll very likely encounter on the test.

Reading The Economist and Scientific American articles, dictionary at hand for those words I wasn't sure about.

I crammed vocab for about 3 hours a day, for 4 weeks, with an extra push the last weekend before the exam.

Good luck!!

OMIGOD I forgot the most important thing, which Branwen mentions: read, read, read, read, read, and then read some more. Carry a notebook of newly discovered words with you whereever you go. No matter what your politics are, look up the old articles (editorials, mainly) by William F. Buckley (a rabid conservative) --- you can hate his ideas/politics, just as I do ---- but his vocabulary is phenomenal.

[Branwen daughter of Llyr]

OMIGOD I forgot the most important thing, which Branwen mentions: read, read, read, read, read, and then read some more. Carry a notebook of newly discovered words with you whereever you go. No matter what your politics are, look up the old articles (editorials, mainly) by William F. Buckley (a rabid conservative) --- you can hate his ideas/politics, just as I do ---- but his vocabulary is phenomenal.

I'm sure that it also helped that I was reading (for pleasure) The Medieval World by Friedrich Heer. LOTS of big words that ETS loves. After that, I moved on to Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (many big words, and Pulitzer prize winner). I can't emphasize how important the reading part is when studying vocab.

Yes.

I'm a certified nerd.

*sigh*

[killerbees]

My own experience:

I scored in the 99th percentile for the verbal section of the GRE. To prepare for the GRE, I took a live Kaplan course. I think we met two nights a week for a couple of hours. I was pleasantly surprised by my score. I think I got a 630 or something on the practice test I took the first night of class. My actual verbal score when I took the GRE was one hundred points higher. My strategy was not all that complicated: I did the homework and showed up for all the classes. I sat down with the flashcards and went through them, one by one, making two piles, words I knew and words I didn't know. I didn't worry about the words I knew. For the words I didn't know, I wrote out the definitions and then wrote sentences using those words. I enjoy writing creatively, and I made this process highly enjoyable and entertaining by writing bizarre and often perverse sentences.

During the class, you also learn a lot of tips for dealing with words you don't know on test day, and tips for dealing with the reading comprehension sections. That was where I had most of my trouble. If reading and writing etc. aren't your strong suits, it may not be possible to really improve those skills in time for the test. What you can do, however, is improve your ability to take the test. Strategy is important. (It saved my a$$ on the math section.) That, coupled with any kind of improvement in your verbal skills, should really help.

As others have already noted, read. Read good books by good authors, and keep a notebook handy for jotting down words you don't know so that you can look them up later.