Thanks geek_goddess and Oldman for your invaluable responses!
I have been reading the New York Times, Scientific American and The Nation whenever I get a chance. I just picked up a book that e.kitten suggested about rapid reading yesterday and I've already started to improve my reading. Maybe its effect will be limited seeing my limited time but i would really suggest it to anyone who's up for improving their reading (whether it's for GRE, grad school, or for kicks) It's called "Break-Through Rapid Reading" by Peter Kump.
haha, geek_goddess you are right! I have been checking TM every day. all the updates goes to my mailbox, i can't help it.
Alright, here's a breakdown of my mistakes in Verbal:
SC - i stumble on the ones that are long and complicated (lots of twists in reasoning) and hard to simplify.
ANALOGY - words/ not strong enough bridges
AT - sometimes hard words or just careless
RC - a variety, but i'll just practice more i suppose. there are times when i can get good results..so i'll just have to find the trick.
As for my vocab, i've got the highest frequency words down cold. It's usually the very rare ones that trip me up. So i'm going through Baron's vocab to make up for that. We'll see how well that pans out.
So you think I should have one template down cold that works for me and use it on every essay? I never thought about it that way. So far i've just written whichever structure seemed to suite my points the best. That's a good suggestion though, it'll definitely cut down my work by half.
The essay has been a roller coaster ride for me. And i really reached the nadir yesterday when i tried the issue essay sample provided in ETS' 10th ed. Beacuse I'm not used to analyzing issues thoroughly, it takes much longer for me to organize my thoughts and put them down on paper. Sometimes, it just ends up being a jumble of ideas without a clear line of reasoning or a very weak one. Now i just feel almost at a loss of what to do. It seems to me that the Issue essay and Argument essay are in essence both testing how well you analyze and how persuasive and cogent you are in your arguments. Theonly difference being that you can take any position for the issue essay and an aggressive (to the point of attacking their weaknesses) for the argument essay. Another difference being that issue essay you should be more positive for your view and the argument essay more derogatory and critical of the promp's reasoning. Other than these two major differences, it really is testing the same thing isn't it?
Thanks guys for responding. I really do appreciate all your help!