How to score high on GRE Verbal score- tips for the verbal phobic GRE aspirants!

[anupk]

I have been getting a lot of PMs since I posted my GRE debrief(scored a 334 overall V-165,Q-169). I'm sorry that i can't respond to each of them because it is too time consuming. However, since most of the queries are centered around how to score high on GRE Verbal, I thought that I would give a few tips here on how to score well on GRE Verbal.

Before I start, let me tell you that it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to improve "drastically" within 2 months. Improving from a low score to a very high score within 2-3 months is difficult if not impossible.. It requires much more time ,energy and dedication.

Here are some reasonable targets

On diagnostic What you can expect on actual GRE

145 155

150 160

155 165

 

You should start by forming a strategy for yourself and taking a pledge that you will do everything possible to achiever your target score on verbal and also take a pledge that you will try your best to not stop following the schedule for yourself,something that we often end up doing.ADMIN EDIT: PLEASE UPLOAD YOUR IMAGE USING THE UPLOADER

Number of days to dedicate on verbal per week to ace the GRE-5 days

Number of hours per day - 3 hours on the weekdays and 5 hours on the weekends. These hours include reading newspaper articles etc. Basically everything that you will be doing to score well on verbal

Here's

1. Start reading the editor's page in the newspaper: Reading long articles from a variety of topics is really helpful on the GRE. It helps build your vocab and improves your mental stamina to read long RC passages​

 

2.Personal pocket dictionary- Often it happens that we come across a word somewhere-newspaper, magazine etc-and we check its meaning but we forget the word itself very quickly. Maintaining a personal dictionary really helps or if you have a smartphone, type down the new words in a file and keep adding the words there

​3. Books

a)GRE Verbal Grail- The best book for GRE verbal

How to use the book ?

a)Before practicing questions, make sure that you go through the strategies in the book. For RC, there's quite a bit of theory and lot of strategies and you might feel like skipping it but trust me it will help you a lot. Do go through the theory before you practice.

b) When you practice questions, do not go for an overkill and do many questions at a time. Try doing only 15-20 questions at a go and do a rigorous analysis of the questions. Basically from each question you should learn something new- why you got an answer right, why you got an answer wrong.

c) Develop a thought process. Your focus should not be on doing a lot of practice questions in verbal. Your focus should be on developing a thought process. For example, after doing 10 passages from the book, I would ask myself, what is the common thing i have observed in the wrong answers in primary purpose type of questions.. Doing this will really help you.

b) Word Power Made Easy – Great book to learn vocabulary

How to use the book ?

a)Target spending 30 minutes per day doing vocabulary from this book.

b)Make sure that you revise the words that you have done; otherwise you will end up forgetting a lot of them.

 

4. Form a GRE study group: ​Last but not the least,form a study group to discuss new words. Remember the more you pronounce words, the more likely you will remember their meaning. To be honest, you will hardly use the GRE vocab in your daily life, so forming a study group with others will give an impetus to your prep and keep you on the track

 

I know doing all this looks hard, but then it's the people who do all this, go the extra mile, who get those high scores. Hope the plan was helpful.

P.S.- Please do not PM me with your individual queries. If you have any queries, please post on this thread only so that others can help you as well.

 

[destinationMIT]

Thank you for the great tips. Really helpful