1440 (V650; Q790) Done!

[antonbarua]

Hi guys,

I feel so relieved after taking the GRE. I won't(I guess) have to face another ETS exam in my life again. Although I took it on Nov 02,2009, I believe it's never too late to write a debrief. Here's a quick debrief+prep info:

AWA:

Issue task: I didn't like my write-up myself so can't say. As it was the first part of the exam, was kinda nervous and the topic itself was a little "philosophical". So I just focused on writing an essay that was relevant to the topic. Although 45 mins is a long time, it seemed to fly by very quickly.

Argument task: Very easy one. Easy fallacies and assumptions. Guess I got them all. Though intro and conclusion could be better. Again...it was as if "time" was Michael Schumacher driving in a straight at top speed.

Prep:

I hadn't prepared for the AWA that much. Just started with it 2-3 days before my test. Got the hang of argument task by examining ETS's samples, and went through some tips from NOVA and ARCO. I think ARCO was better, because NOVA seemed to focus on writing LENGTHY essays. For the issue task, I found many topics too much esoteric for my test, so I went through about 40-50 of them in a pdf containing 120 or so essays(GRE Model Essays), just to get a hint.

Break:

10 minute break came. I took it but didn't leave the desk.

Verbal:

So the dreaded verbal section came! As many of the people here mentioned, i was mentally prepared for a quant. But no, it was the verbal.

The first few questions were analogies/antonyms. I didn't recieve a word out of Barron's, not even hard words. But the questions and their answer choices were difficult. So I had to carefully examine the answers and eliminate as much as necessary. Had to take guesses though. The SC's were of moderate difficulty. Recieved 1st reading comprehension on Q11. Was a short one but the questions were difficult. 2nd reading comprehension on Q17. This was a long one(80 lines+4 questions). But I read it carefully and answered the questions with less difficulty than the 1st one.3rd reading comprehension immediately followed(Q21)...had to read it quickly as clock was ticking..(about 7 mins left for reading comprehension+8 questions).Again, focused on it and the questions seemed easy. In the last 5 mins, I had to answer 6...but about 4 of them were antonyms and 1 SC+1 Analogy. So I finished the section with 3 minutes to spare. Was kinda worried as the last questions were so easy, I thought I had screwed up somewhere in the beginning.

Prep:

Vocabulary:

I am a non-native speaker(Bangladeshi) so this was my top priority at first.

1.Princeton Review Word Smart I & II.(Thought I wouldn't be able to finish Barron's so went with it first).
2.Barron's Word List.(Still had to read about 2000).
3.New words from Big Book.

Overall material:

1.Big Book (Greatest verbal prep,without doubt)
2.19 Real GRE(Tougher than BB,didn't do all the reading comprehension's though)
3.Barron's verbal section.
4.Went through NOVA's reading comprehension but i don't think it did me any good.

Suggestions:

To get a feeling of the test, you must solve BB, and analyze your answers. I found that I got about 6/7 SC's right, about 7/9 Analogies, about 9/11 reading comprehension, and about 9/11 antonyms per section. On average I would get about 33/38 right. (29 min,36 max). Even after doing Barron's, it still had some new words. Antonyms and analogies become easier after reading the words, but reading comprehension's seemed tough to me. The best thing is, at the end of each test, the book gives you an indication about the relevant difficulty of the questions by pointing out the percentile of people who correctly answered the question. Another important thing is to take the tests under timed condition. I found out that these tests best represent the verbal section.

Quants:

After verbal, quants came. I was way too cautious at the beginning and that was the cause of me not getting an 800. On the 5th question, I lost about 5 mins. Still, I think I managed to get about 16-17 right in a row. The questions were not at all difficult, it's just that I couldn't manage my time well. So, in the end, I had to make some guesses...I think I took about 2-3 blind guesses and lost my 10 points there. Otherwise I can't see why someone would score 790 on such an easy question.

Prep:

1.NOVA (Way too much exercises, few of them have real value)
2.Barron's (Great exercises, better than NOVA)
3.Some tutorials on probability,counting,normal distribution
4.Testmagic
5.Dr. r**u

Suggestions:

I guess I took up math way too late. So, from the beginning, do a lil math, preferably from Barron's, and follow testmagic!

Softwares:

1.Kaplan (took 2 of them 610,790),(620,790),math was too easy)
2.800Score(math only, too many word problems)
3.Powerprep((690,780):1 week before exam ,(600,760):3 days before exam )

So that's about it. I started preparing for GRE after I took the TOEFL on Aug 2. The words were most challenging part of my prep, as I had to go over about 4000+ words in 1.5 months. Had to study day and night...then in the last month, did BB and other tests.

I found out testmagic when I was preparing for TOEFL and found it to be extremely helpful. Again, for the GRE, I relied heavily on the tips and suggestions in this forum...and after seeing such great scores (Goldlust, Geekgirl, M10themist to name a few), I knew that getting 1400+ wasn't an impossibility. Thank you guys for your wonderful support. Wish all the best
to the people who will take the GRE in the coming days.

PS:PLEASE EVALUATE MY PROFILE IN COMPUTER SCIENCE ADMISSIONS(I'm not allowed to post a link):
MS in Computer Science : Admission in Canada Fall 2010
antonbarua

[fly4rahul]

well Bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yay!!!!11 score well done
actually my gre is n 17th nov but till now i've solved 22 bb tests with almost getting 25-26 right most often.
and yesterday gave power prep 1 where gt 650 verbal but some how i think i can do more after review may be bb or pp.

[vasoolraja]

Congratualtions - awesome score!!! Thank you so much for the nice debrief.