Some tips for the verbal GRE

[Boryana]

Hello, Mervin. My way to handle the RCS's was to imagine I was not on an exam, but instead I was reading an interesting article in a newspaper or something. In this way, first I forgot my anxiety, second, became instantly interested in what I was reading, which increased the speed of my reading as well as the amount of information I memorized. I hope you are an avid reader in general because this can turn out to be crucial. Good luck with your preparation.

All best,
Boryana

[Mervin2008]

Thanks,I do love to read ,however the RC's are extremely vague ,how do you try to sustain your interest in the subjects which seem rather ambiguous or uninteresting to you ?

Another question ? While going for sentence completion's did you go by your gut instinct or elimination?

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply

Hope your application processes are going well

Thanks
Mervin

[Nerdy]

Thanks for the tips! I'm hoping that these study strategies will come in handy when I get deeper into my study.

[Mervin2008]

Thanks for the help Boryana ,I did pretty well in my verbal and I am really happy.Your tips played a major role in it

[klce]

great in getting 790 verbal

[Boryana]

Mervin, congratulations for your good grade and I am very happy to have been able to help. Peace and love.

[mewidyu]

tjats gr8 yu got 790 in verbal....

[ironeye]

Hi Boryana,
Really GREAT scores!! Congrats and hope ur studies in the Czech are goin as well as ur score!! ... i wz wondering if u can provide some help on a number of points plz: how long did your whole process of preperation for the GRE take?? and how long did it take you to memorise the Barone's 3500 list?? how did u organise ur time? did u do a lot of other intesive verbal practice as well, or was it just the Barone's list?
Thanx...

[Boryana]

Hello, Ironeyes

Thank you for your kind words. To answer your questions, the time I dedicated to preparing the verbal part was around 3 weeks, but I studied every day without exception. To relax, I was switching to math exercises since math engages a completely different part of your brain. What I was doing with the words is to pick the ones I already know and just write them down quickly with a brief definition. The more problematic words I combined in synonym and antonym groups, which helped immensely and if you ask me this is how words on the GRE list should be organized, not alphabetically. With these words you need a little bit more than a brief definition but instead pick their major meaning, example, "cancel" and then work out what are the tiny differences in nuance between all words that mean "to cancel". I know it sounds like a lot of work, but believe me, you will never go back and look at those words again, they just stick. In the process of grouping you are actually practicing and studying the words at the same time. While making your lists, just highlight the words you think you will find troublesome to memorize and sometimes when you want to relax a bit, go over them repeatedly. Otherwise the only verbal exercises I did were the sample tests and that was more than enough. It is quite impossible to memorize every word, but if you can even make the slightest association between two words, that can help tremendously in almost every question. I was using the Webster Collegiate Dictionary for the synonyms and antonyms but I might also suggest the Mac dictionary which is simply wonderful. Good luck and if you have other questions, dont hesitate to let me know.

All best,
B

[ironeye]

Dear Boryana,
Thank you soo much for your response... will try to utilise ur tips as much as possible...
All the best for now
Regards,
Ironeye