I had got a few mails from people asking how I had prepared for GRE.This forum has been a phenomenal help to me and I hope some of the following points can help people in their preparation
1) Verbal
a) Wordlists : I believe this is the most crucial part of your verbal preparation .You will have to find a way to memorize all the words and ensure it sticks in your head.What I did was to go through all the word lists and mark the words I didn't know .Then I took 5 word lists at a time and typed out the words which I had marked along with their definitions and any secondary definitions.When I was finally done I had 10 pages named liked this wordlist1-5.txt,wordlist6-10.txt and so on.I took a printout of those pages and when ever I had free time I spent some time studying them.Please note you will have to find the method which suits you best.
b) Analogies and Sentence completion - The GRE big book containing 27 real question papers can be your best friend for this .Also do a Google search for GRE verbal questions.You will be able to find a lot a practice material
c) RC's - I think the big book is the best source for RC's and you can always get material from other GRE study books.The GRE throws rather abstract subjects at you so try to widen your range of interests by taking an active interest in science,art and literature.The New York times is a very good site to frequent and so is the editorial page of the Hindu (One of the major newspapers in India)
d) Antonym's - It basically depends on your vocabulary,so work on covering the word lists well and improving your vocabulary.
2) Quant - I really cant give much advice on this since I struggled badly with it in the exam but please note it has become harder than what the test papers and the powerprep softwares suggest.However
a) Be clear with your concepts and definitions ,if you don't know what a prime number is or that 1 is not a prime number then you are asking for trouble
b) Ensure you know your formulas well
c) Practice as much as possible
One of my friends had posted a very good suggestion regarding how to prepare for Quant,I would like to repost it again " For those that are yet to take the GRE, here's a little tip from me: for the quant, try ALSO to practice from books that train you for the CAT (the Common Aptitude Test, entrance exam for IIMs and many other B-schools). These books typically have a lot more than necessary for the GRE. So, practice only relevant sections. The problems in these books are rather hard and the GRE these days requires one to have this kind of muscle"
3) Essay writing : The best thing to do is to Practice and do try to do the essay under timed conditions so that you get accustomed to it.Also check out the sample essays in powerprep to see what standard they anticipate
Books used by me :
1) GRE Barrons 17th edition
2) Barrons essential words for the GRE by Philip Geer
3) Norman Lewis - Word power made easy
4) Time (CAT) material for permutations and combinations and probability- This is the study material given a coaching institute here in India which trains students for the CAT test used to as a entrance for the major Business schools in India
5) Quantitative aptitude by RK Aggarwal - Used this mainly as a formula reference
6) Some GMAT study material I found on the net for mathematics
Softwares
1) GRE bible -For verbal practise
2) Powerprep
3) Kaplan GRE 2005 CD
4) Vocaboly
Suggested websites :
1)
Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online
2)
The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia
3) The test magic forums
Hope this is of some help
Mervin