Just finished: V:650 Q:740 - 1390- My experience

[klb0992]

Glad it's over but it would of been nice to get 10 more points to break the 1400 barrier.

I spent about 4 months of studying total with 2 months of intense studying. I have been out of school for 2 years so I felt like I needed the extra time to get back in the habit of learning.

AWA- both topics were fairly easy to navigate. I'm not a strong writer or speller so I purchased the ETS's ScoreItNow and I got a 4.5 on my practice. The feedback was helpful and I think worth the $13. We'll see when I get my results.

Verbal
I was lucky that my boyfriend already had a stack of about 700 GRE word note cards from 2 years ago when he took it. Definitely do the Barron's 500 I saw many words from this list. The first question and antonym I didn't know at all but I used the POE guessing methods. Nothing will shake a test taker like not knowing the first word on the screen! I always struggled with the RCs I had 3 passages- 1 pretty simple 2 more dense and complex. I'm pretty sure those were my downfall on the verbal the only thing you can do on those is Practice!

Quants
A wide array of concepts were tested. The math was easy it was just a matter of figuring out what they are asking for. 2 questions I found myself spending too much time trying to answer so I had to make a quick guess. I was hoping there would be more geometry because that was my forte, but no such luck. If you know everything on the Barrons you should be fine.

My biggest enemy in the whole ordeal was my nerves. I'm not usually a calm person but this really exacerbated the problem. Once things got rolling the nerves subsided but when I was stuck on Quants or taking too long in reading comprehension they came back. My advice if you are stuck and nervous- take a deep breath, make a logical guess and move on.

Phew now it's on to the next fun part- applications!

[vasoolraja]

Originally Posted by klb0992

Glad it's over but it would of been nice to get 10 more points to break the 1400 barrier.

I spent about 4 months of studying total with 2 months of intense studying. I have been out of school for 2 years so I felt like I needed the extra time to get back in the habit of learning.

AWA- both topics were fairly easy to navigate. I'm not a strong writer or speller so I purchased the ETS's ScoreItNow and I got a 4.5 on my practice. The feedback was helpful and I think worth the $13. We'll see when I get my results.

Verbal
I was lucky that my boyfriend already had a stack of about 700 GRE word note cards from 2 years ago when he took it. Definitely do the Barron's 500 I saw many words from this list. The first question and antonym I didn't know at all but I used the POE guessing methods. Nothing will shake a test taker like not knowing the first word on the screen! I always struggled with the RCs I had 3 passages- 1 pretty simple 2 more dense and complex. I'm pretty sure those were my downfall on the verbal the only thing you can do on those is Practice!

Quants
A wide array of concepts were tested. The math was easy it was just a matter of figuring out what they are asking for. 2 questions I found myself spending too much time trying to answer so I had to make a quick guess. I was hoping there would be more geometry because that was my forte, but no such luck. If you know everything on the Barrons you should be fine.

My biggest enemy in the whole ordeal was my nerves. I'm not usually a calm person but this really exacerbated the problem. Once things got rolling the nerves subsided but when I was stuck on Quants or taking too long in reading comprehension they came back. My advice if you are stuck and nervous- take a deep breath, make a logical guess and move on.

Phew now it's on to the next fun part- applications!

klb0992: Congratulations!

[extrovert]

Heyyy thats a fair advice.....i was very nervous at my first GRE attempt which was the main reason for my poor performance.In the mock tests i took before my GRE i really got above 500 in verbal part and above 700 in quant.As i was a bit tense i could n't concentrate well on reading comprehension's and i went on answering the questions by mere guessing which did not help me at all.i ended up with 380 in verbal and 740 in quant.
Hope that TAKING DEEP BREATH helps me stay poised in my next attempt on nov 27.....
Any advice to rule out time management problem??????I ve a great trouble dealing with this problem.I was not able to complete quant on time and i almost missed on answering the last question.Is there any negative marks for unanswered questions?