http://www.urch.com/forums en Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:18:43 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.urch.com/forums/tm_images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.urch.com/forums http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/129058-1540-750q-790v-6-aw-question-concerning-score-reports.html Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:36:36 GMT Sorry, accidentally double posted...need to figure out how to delete Sorry, accidentally double posted...need to figure out how to delete ]]> Just Finished My GRE luciddreams http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/129058-1540-750q-790v-6-aw-question-concerning-score-reports.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/129046-1540-750q-790v-6-aw-question-concerning-score-reports.html Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:24:20 GMT Hi, I have a question concerning the official GRE score reports. I've actually been registered for three GRE's. There was a family emergency before my first exam which distracted me leading me to cancel my first score. The second time I was sick with strep on the day of the exam so I just didn't show up and the third was the Nov 2nd GRE which is the one in which I received the above score.

Anyway, I actually ran into this forum online while trying to find out whether or not schools are notified about cancellations and missed exams in the official score report. The ETS website explicitly says that schools do not receive the actual canceled score, but there is no mention of whether or not the fact that the score was canceled in the first place shows up and I am a little paranoid about how admissions would react to such information...

Since I'm popping by out of nowhere to pick your brains about score reports, I'll try to give back a little by rambling about my actual exam.

With regards to studying materials, I had a couple of old gre books (Barron's and Princeton review) from a friend who took the test a year before me and Kaplan's vocab in a box. There is actually a lot of overlap between the shorter vocabulary lists. If you have the time, I suggest trying to cram Barron's 1500 word list over a long period of time rather than bothering with the shorter lists. I actually didn't study very much for verbal portion of the exam, but was probably saved by reading a lot over the years. I know I knew all the words from the Kaplan vocab box, but never got around to the Barron's.

Only three or four of the words from the box actually showed up as answer choices during the exam...Oddly enough, many more appeared in the actual passages and within the non-blank portions of the sentence completions. My approach to the verbal is to get through the early questions as fast as I can. I can usually answer the antonyms, analogies, and sentence completions very quickly. During these questions, I usually do not even read through all the answer choices when there is no need to do so. The idea is to save enough time to read the passages multiple times and to use process of elimination on all the later verbal questions. Most of the incorrect answers in the reading comprehension questions blatantly contradict some aspect portion of the passage so it's helpful to have some extra time on these. I also find process of elimination useful for the rest of the question types toward the end of the exam. With the analogies, for example, words with imprecise relationships, i.e. two contradictory relationships can be established between the pair of words, can be eliminated from consideration. Among the antonyms, there are occasionally words for which I cannot conceptualize an opposite meaning so those choices can also be eliminated. Oh and the reading comprehension questions were a nightmare. I had multiple 'he said, she said' passages where two authors with unfamiliar names would each discuss why the other author was wrong about some point about some other group of individuals who they were discussing (ancient greek writers of epic poems in my exam). I had to read the passage multiple times just to keep track of which ideas belonged to which author. For example, author 1 would say that author 2 mistakenly believes that X. And then the question would ask how author 1 would react o some statement about a subject related to X. Like I said, the more time you save up earlier on the better.

For the quantitative, I just finished the Barron's math section from start to finish and wrote down the formulas and geometry rules that I had forgotten since high school and memorized those. The GRE seems to be really fond of asking geometry questions that require for a shape to be rotated or where a figure's area can only be figured out by drawing a simple shape around the figure (such as a square), and subtracting the areas of the shapes between the figure and the square or rectangle around them. It's helpful to do a decent amount of math problems to get used to the basic structure of some of the trickier problem on the GRE's. Another interesting tidbit I learned from one of the books was that standard deviation tends not to show up unless you are scoring over a 700. So if you see a question concerning standard deviations, you're in the gold.

I actually read something really interesting about the analytical writing section. A book I skimmed over mentioned that the single feature of essays that correlates most highly with high scores in the analytical writing section is essay length so I suggest writing a lot..it seemed to work out for me. It should be noted that this is just a correlation, but writers who tend to be concise should keep this in mind. Other than that, I did not really bother actually studying for analytical writing because academic writing comes fairly naturally to me.

One last piece of advice on actual scores...Do not cancel scores unless you are fairly sure you did badly. On my exam, I did not recognize a good half of the words on the last three or four verbal questions. In fact, I was surprised to learn that some of the words were in the English language. To make matters worse, my last question involved a word that I easily recognized. I freaked out thinking that I must have missed the previous questions. Moral of the story is that you're better off not trying to guess how hard a given question is supposed to be. I was similarly convinced that I may have botched the math. I made a stupid mistake in one of the early questions (I think I gave a dollar value for one widget instead of 7) and I did not even have time to guess on the last three questions in the math section. I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw my score.

Good luck everyone,
A. ]]> Just Finished My GRE luciddreams http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/129046-1540-750q-790v-6-aw-question-concerning-score-reports.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/129011-need-advice-all-those-who-just-finished-gre.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:31:11 GMT Hi all.

This is crisis management initiative. I have taken a date for GRE in mid december, which gives me a month to suit up. I went through Test Magic's threads, they were very helpful indeed. I plan to refer BB, Powerprep and Kaplan's resources, starting with the high frequency words, and giving practice tests simultaneously, gradually going deeper into 'vocab building'.

It'd be much help if recent test takers could share their experience about the actual test. How dependable are these books and practice tests? Are they enough? There would for sure be words not found in any of the books. Just to be better prepared mentally, approx. how many unseen, unheard words can someone expect, judging from the pool of guide books and practice tests. Too many? A few? Unpredictable? Can there be a full proof plan? I know I do not have any other alternative, but a prepared mind would do better. :D

I heard guys are getting average scores this season. May be new words have found favour with ETS. ]]> Just Finished My GRE vs.harsh http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/129011-need-advice-all-those-who-just-finished-gre.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128980-what-title.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:23:42 GMT While applying..

What does the "title" column refer to..

dOES IT MEAN MR OR MRS OR Dr.
OR DOES IT MEAN THEIR DESIGNATION LIKE HEAD,PROFESSOR ETC ]]> Just Finished My GRE THYAG http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128980-what-title.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128968-1300-university.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:57:59 GMT Hi!
My friend's just written her GRE and the score's about 1300. She's in her final year civil engineering course.
Which universities/institutes in the US can she apply for? What branches of MS would suit her? She has an eye on transportation engineering but we'd like to know what other options are available. Do help. :) ]]> Just Finished My GRE Swee http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128968-1300-university.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128961-1350-760-q-590-v.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:12:31 GMT Phew!! After all the hard works, its over today. I am not good at writing but as I got so much from this forum, I feel like, I should share some of my experiences. I want to thanks all the members in testmagic to share lot of valuable information especially Goldust. When I started my preparation,... Phew!! After all the hard works, its over today. I am not good at writing but as I got so much from this forum, I feel like, I should share some of my experiences. I want to thanks all the members in testmagic to share lot of valuable information especially Goldust.

When I started my preparation, I tried to follow all the techniques that Goldust suggested but unfortunately, I couldn't able to finished everything as he suggested by limited preparation time. My preparation only covers Barron's word lists and few big book antonyms, sentences completions from Dr. raju's website and the testmagic forums questions. My verbal background was horrible before I started my preparation that's why I never tried a full length verbal test before real GRE. Although, I had completed lots of Quantitative full length test from Barron's, Powerprep, kaplan, priceton. Most of the times I got 800 in quantitative, but in real GRE as everybody share the same thing that questions are really time consuming and sometimes very difficult, I have missed 40 points.

Quantitative:
1. Barron's(very good techniques)
2. Nova(good for lot of practice but not too many real challenging problems are there, but if you can manage Nova's Math Bible that will give you a good permutation and combination sections.)
3. Test magic forum(sometimes the problems are really very good for practice.)
4. Dr. Raju's forum(though I didn't find any single question repeated today.)

Verbal:
1. Barron's word list(its a must!!!! one should memorize all the worlds not only literary but also figuratively because in real GRE the questions are not always ask for literal meaning.)
2. Dr. Raju's question bank, they have accumulated all the questions for antonyms, sentence completion, analogies.
3. I just omitted reading comprehension practice as I was not confident that will help me except very solid background or huge preparation time frame.
4. Goggle for " GRE krupa rapidshare files", those are free mp3 and really helpful as he explains all the Barron's world with examples, synonyms, antonyms. Listen at least more than one time to get equipped with all the words. There is no best preparation other than cracking the word first.

I have completed my master's in mechanical engineering here in USA and expecting to get a admission in a decent school for phd. ]]> Just Finished My GRE kibria47 http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128961-1350-760-q-590-v.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128880-didnt-finish-quantitative-sec-time-common.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:58:00 GMT Hi All,

It seemed to me I got thrown a lot of rather difficult problems early in the Math Section. I tried to solve them all but spent too much time on at least two or three of them and didn't finish the last four to five problems. Don't know how I let that happen, but it seems like it just kind of crept up on me. My mentality was always "spend a little extra time on this problem and get it right ... and then make up for lost time on the next problem." So that is the main reason I came up with.

So of course that means my score in Quantitative was underwhelming: 640. I wonder if this is a problem several of you guys have faced or if it is unique to me? I have a disability so sometimes its hard to know when I screw up if its mostly something unique to me, or something that could happen to any number of people.

Thanks, I appreciate your comments and experiences and also, of course, advise.


TK and GL,


john ]]> Just Finished My GRE sunnyslumber http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128880-didnt-finish-quantitative-sec-time-common.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128847-1510-790-v-720-q.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:19:26 GMT I took the test last week, still haven't got my AW score yet, I don't really have a feel for that part of the test, so just crossing my fingers and hope I did well. I am pretty happy with my verbal score and a little disappointed with my quant score. I was aiming for at least a 750 Q, but overall it seems like my scores are within range of my practice exams.

I self-studied and basically used older Kaplan material (2004-06) for studying just because that's the books my friend had from when he took the Kaplan course. I supplemented with a few ETS tests and some random tests from online. I think Kaplan is pretty good and similar to what I faced on the actual exam. They cover all the basic concepts and put in a few advanced problems too. It might have to do with the age of my books but I don't feel they really covered statistics like std deviation enough. I took the PowerPrep Tests and the 2006 Kaplan Cat tests for practice.

Kaplan Cat1 (4 weeks before exam): 790 Q, 650 V
Kaplan Cat2 (3 weeks before): 690 Q, 590 V
PowerPrep 1 (2 wks) 730 Q, 730 V
Kaplan Cat3 (1 wk) 700 Q, 670 V
PowerPrep 2 (2 days) 790 Q, 790 V

My feeling is that the PowerPrep test seems to be easier than the actual test (I think others on this forum have said the same thing) especially for the Quant section. It seems like I was thrown much harder questions during the real exam. For the Quant section, I don't think I managed my time well. I got stuck on a few very hard problems (for me at least) that I spent way too much time on, like 5 minutes, that I just wound up guessing on anyways. This really screwed me up in the end because I wound up guessing on the last 7 or 8 questions. I think the lesson is that you should definitely try to get all the first 10-15 questions correct, but after that if you encounter a really difficult question that is going to eat up a lot of time, it might be better just to guess to give yourself time to answer the answerable problems. I feel I could have done a lot better if I hadn't been stubborn (or prideful) and just given up on a few questions.

I guess I should debrief more on the verbal because I seemed to do pretty well there. Studying word lists might be more concise if you have limited time, but it really helps to know what the words mean in context based on actual readings. I read a lot in general, but since I knew I was going to take the GRE a year ago I started getting really assiduous in looking up every single word I didn't recognize or just felt wasn't that familiar in my readings. (Slate.com, WSJ, Economist, are good publications that use a varied vocabulary) I created my own personal word list to study based on that and then cross-referenced with word lists from Barrons and Kaplan. A good utility for creating your own flashcards is easydefine.com . Additionally, I played freerice.com at least weekly if not daily. (freerice.com is an online game that donates rice through the UN World Food Program based on how many correct answers you get to their quizzes) Basically, nothing beats just having a really strong vocabulary for this section.

Overall, I think I should be pretty happy with my score. Still kind of disappointed with my Q score because I was hoping to apply to some top Economics programs but I don't think my quant score is high enough for any of the top 10 schools. I'm sort of playing with the idea of taking the test again, but then I don't want to risk my verbal score. Dilemma!

It is possible I might change my focus. Maybe apply to International/Public Affairs programs like SIPA, or KSG at Harvard. Does anyone have any idea about what type of scores are needed to get into one of the good International/Public Affair programs? I really prefer not taking the GRE again.

Good luck to those of you yet to take the GRE! Hope this helps! ]]> Just Finished My GRE w84rav http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128847-1510-790-v-720-q.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128846-1300-650-650-considering-retake-humanities-phd.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:38:30 GMT I am attempting to get into either Notre Dame's Theology Department or Princeton/Yale's Religion Department to pursue a PhD in Patristic History/Theology.

I felt good after taking my last PowerPrep test two days before the GRE (1470: 670 V, 800 Q), thinking that my verbal would still come up a bit since I was easily hitting 700s in all of my Big Book practice tests.

I was a bit disappointed when I finished the test to find out that I had only scored a 1300 (650, 650, 5.0), and that I had amazingly scored a 650 on both sections.

A few factors were working against me: first, I live 2.5 hours from the test site and had to leave home at 5 am to get there...even with 8 hours of sleep I was fading and lacking focus during the last two sections of the test. Second, I have only been back in the academic environment full-time for three months after a 10-year hiatus. Third, frankly, for the first time in my life, I experienced anxiety during a test.

I am considering taking the test again in early December, finding a place to stay over the night before so that I won't have to wake up so early in the morning. However, as a father of three with 5 Master's level classes ending in the next three weeks, I'm not sure that I will have the time to study enough to improve my scores. Any input from those who have retaken would sure be welcome.

Thanks to everyone for all of the advice that you have posted here. May your tests go well! ]]> Just Finished My GRE maximus1212 http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128846-1300-650-650-considering-retake-humanities-phd.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128840-what-do.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:22:06 GMT So I just finished the GRE today and didn't preform up to par. In the practice exams I had taken, I was getting anywhere from 1200-1350 and I felt that was decent. I ended up with 550 for Q and 450 for V. I do, however, feel very confident about my AW. I was hoping this test would help supplement my mediocre GPA (3.2) when applying for graduate school. Not all the programs require GRE scores. Would anyone actually send these scores in? I feel like it merely confirms my lackluster GPA.

In addition, I did list one school that doesn't need the GRE scores after completing the test. Should I rescind this score? Is it possible to rescind scores?

Thanks in advance. ]]> Just Finished My GRE Timshel http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128840-what-do.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128784-1250-660-v-590-q.html Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:51:26 GMT Yesterday, I took the GRE even though I have a pretty bad case of the flu. In fact, I had almost gone to the ER the night before. I didn't come down with the flu until a couple days beforehand when it was too late to cancel, and I figured I might as well take the actual exam just to see what it was like. Also, I was hoping to make early deadlines for some programs I was applying to.

When I walked through the door and answered a question the proctors/attendants immediately asked if I was sick, giving me looks of pity. I was so grateful for being able to bring in two sheets of their kleenex at a time. And I was relieved that they had ear plugs as well as earphones to block out sound since I have very sensitive hearing and startle easily. The only time I heard anyone especially was when someone was seated behind me in the middle of the exam and was furiously typing (an essay, it sounded like) but I could mostly cope with that. The 10 minute break was enough time to run to the restroom and return, for fear I'd use too much time. I should have eaten the protein bar during that time, I realized afterward when I felt hungry, but it was so awkward being nervous and sick and bothering the attendants over every little thing. The test lasted about 3 hours for me since I quickly clicked through or dismissed all the other stuff like the instructions.

For the first essay I had good energy. After that I felt control slipping, even though I had built up stamina by doing a few practice tests a day at the end. I'm hoping for a 4 on the essays despite the illness because I have a lot of experience with writing and my energy hadn't run out yet when doing those. Once on the verbal section I really started feeling the weakness and tiredness from the illness, and couldn't think about complex problems without my brain completely shutting off. A lot of the problem is that I have so much chest congestion that I can barely breathe so the oxygen supply to my brain isn't optimal at the moment. I was so discombobulated during the exam that I couldn't print legibly at all. Even with terrible nerves my normal self has the presence of mind to write legibly when needed. Nothing on the test surprised me except that one of the windows for a reading comprehension passage was so narrow that it was very awkward trying to read it. Each line in that narrow window was about four words long. But, most of the test was easier than in the practice tests, which makes sense because I was under-performing. Another thing--I did way better at the second verbal section which turned out to be the experimental section as I learned when the very last question turned out to be one of the fill-in-the-blanks not yet counted toward scores. For some reason my energy revived somewhat during this section. On the first verbal section I lost a lot of time very quickly.

My powerprep verbal scores when averaged, were in the 750-800 range and quantitative in the 640-690 range. I don't have as strong of a math background.

So, I rescheduled the test for three weeks from now. I'm hoping I can score at least 1400 the next time around. As soon as I'm feeling better I'm going to try to cram for math using the GRE Bible because I've heard that's the best prep for the section. Any verbal I miss on practice test are very subtle (usually a couple tricky analogies and reading comprehension questions) so I don't know how much control I have over that anyway.

However irrational it is, I feel rotten right now, like those 2 months of studying for 3 hours a day were all a waste. Since I'd been away from school for a long time I had to do a review of all the math I've ever learned beyond the utmost basic. I was almost entirely ready for verbal before I even began studying but I learned a few thousand words in hopes of a perfect verbal score. Usually, I fly through the verbal section and have a few minutes to spare at the end. That's another thing: my memory was impaired. Usually, I can recall the words I've learned recently. There were quite a few I knew I should have remembered but couldn't.

I'm so afraid I'll catch another illness or that something else will go wrong when I retake. I do think there are people who could score better than I did while that ill, particularly if they had worked on building up stamina over a long amount of time (probably years) so that it was the most natural thing for their mind to do regardless of variable factors. For instance, I could type very well but I've practically lived online for years so that ability has been hyper-strengthened for me. ]]> Just Finished My GRE myriad_mirrors http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128784-1250-660-v-590-q.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128734-gre-score-640-650-670-a.html Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:02:37 GMT hey ppl...i would like to know that when i report scores of all my 3 attempts, does the univ use the latest attempt or best of the three? hey Earthlings...i would like to know that when i report scores of all my 3 attempts, does the univ use the latest attempt or best of the three? ]]> Just Finished My GRE THYAG http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128734-gre-score-640-650-670-a.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128733-applying-info.html Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:59:40 GMT hey ppl... when i apply, all i need to do is go online and fill app form is it?what abt the hard copies?? So do i pay them when i apply online? hey Earthlings...

when i apply, all i need to do is go online and fill app form is it?what abt the hard copies??

So do i pay them when i apply online? ]]> Just Finished My GRE THYAG http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128733-applying-info.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128732-help-regarding-score-reporting.html Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:58:30 GMT hey ppl.. do i need to simply request in ets.org to send additional score reports to univ i wish to apply??or is the procedure connected to the univ i am applying that is do i have to give my reg no in the univ wesite for them to request??? hey Earthlings..
do i need to simply request in ets.org to send additional score reports to univ i wish to apply??or is the procedure connected to the univ i am applying that is do i have to give my reg no in the univ wesite for them to request??? ]]> Just Finished My GRE THYAG http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128732-help-regarding-score-reporting.html http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128700-need-help.html Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:50:24 GMT hi guys.....just finished my gre got 1260.....quant 800 n eng 460 n awaiting the essays score....is it enough for good universities or should i take the test again.....please help... hi guys.....just finished my gre got 1260.....quant 800 n eng 460 n awaiting the essays score....is it enough for good universities or should i take the test again.....please help... ]]> Just Finished My GRE tutugogs http://www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-gre/128700-need-help.html