ardi Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I've been lurking around this forum for a while now. I benefited a lot from the content of this forum and I feel it's time to give back my share. I took my GRE on Jan 8th. The result, 1520, 720 Verbal and 800 Math. I hope I don't sound too conceited but I was aiming for a higher Verbal score, but I am pretty content with the result. Let me tell you about my background. I have a BS in Computer Science and an MS in Mathematics. I took the GRE General Test to apply to the MS in Computer Science at UNC-Chapel Hill, GATech, or UT-Austin. I'd like to study Computer Graphics. I had four weeks to study for my exam. I pretty much studied 8 to 10 hours every day for four weeks. Because of my Math background I only needed to study for the verbal section. Here are the materials I used in my studies: BigBook By far the best book to practice for Verbal. Kaplan I bought the book for its CD. 4 quants and 4 verbals and 3 full exams. Barron's Just used the word list in it. Sungwoo's excellent wordlist Follow the link Word lists for Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Verbal Vocabulary ETS CD Two sample tests I am a Mac user and They come with a built-in "Reference Library" which includes a dictionary, thesaurus, and a wikipedia. This tool came very handy in my wordlist studies. One word of advice is not to use any dictionary or thesaurus you find of the shelf. Make sure it has comprehensive definition of the words you are looking for. For example take the word "betray." I used to think betray has only one meaning and it means to "be disloyal to." But another important meaning of "to betray" is "to reveal." I realized this after doing the first exam in BB. Even though there are too many words to memorize make sure you do a good job in memorizing them. MAKE SURE TO READ ALL THE MEANINGS OF A WORD. So here is how I divided my time between all the stuff I mentioned. My weekest point was my vocabulary. I was determined to memorize all the 5800 or so words that Mr. Sungwoo has posted on his website (5100 eliminating duplicates). So I downloaded his Barron's word list - scrambled (4,842 words) and Big Book word list (876 words). There are 86 sections in the Barron's and 16 sections in BigBook. I did 5 sections of Barron's and 1 section of BigBook everyday. I also did 2 exams of BigBook everyday. So after 16 days, I was able to finish all the exams in the BigBook and memorize, at least that's what I thought so, all the words in Barron's and BigBook. Now 12 days left. The next 8 days, I went back to my word lists and this time I did 10 sections of Barron's and 2 sections of BB, highlighting all the words I couldn't remember. 4 days left. Went through my wordlist and studied all the words I had highlighted. I was able to do 40 sections in a day. I started doing the practice quants and verbals in the companion Kaplan CD. One of each a day. By the end of the forth day, I was confident about remembering all the words in BB and Barron's wordlist and finished all the 4 verbal and quant exams in Kaplan. 2 days left. Now it was time to do the ETS exams which I had received on a CD from ETS. I did both of them in one day. 1st one: 740 verbal 800 Math 2nd one: 760 verbal 800 Math last day I spent this last day going over my wordlist, all 5700 of them words. The day of the exam I arrived 45 minutes early. I sat at my workstation and started the exam. As you can see from my writing, AWA was a disaster. I'd be happy of I get a 4 in this section. Quant was a breeze. Nothing out of ordinary in this section. I felt very good about the verbal too. I got two long RC's and one medium RC. I didn't encounter any words out of Barron's list. At the end of Verbal, I was only hesitant about two of my answers. When I got the result, I was taken back by 720. I was expecting higher. Anyway, I am glad it's over. Austin refused my application because their deadline was Jan 2nd. I am not sure what my chances are in getting accepted to UNC or GAtech. I'm kind of sad that I didn't spend enough time on getting ready for AWA. Suffering from ADHD and Dyslexia, I'm not sure if it would have helped much anyway. I had to work full-time and study full-time during my undergraduate studies and the best I could do was a 3.1 GPA. During my graduate studies, however, I studied full-time and got a 3.9 GPA. My references are pretty solid. Anyway, I am going on a vacation for a week. If there are any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them after I come back. Thanks too all the people behind urch and all the people who contribute to urch by posting valuable information and good luck to you all. Best, Ardi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogface99 Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 Thanks Ardi. This is very helpful. I take the exam Feb 3rd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shwetarulzz Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 :tup::tup: awesome score congrats...n all the best for ur applications !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gre_Ivan Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 good job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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