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1510 (710v, 800q) - 05/17/2011


shan23

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I started out with my GRE prep almost 6 months before the exam. I know what I got isn't something one should target for (there are people here who've got 1600 after all !!), but still, I believe anyone can get what I got, provided one has enough time/perseverance in their hands...

 

Let me give my background a bit - I've been educated in English medium schools all throughout, which had inculcated a real passion for books. I used to read voraciously, but I never really paid attention to increasing my vocabulary, preferring to guess or understand words from their contexts rather than looking them up. The first time I picked up Barron's, I was amazed to see the actual meanings of some of the words I thought I knew !!

 

I therefore decided to brush up my basics a bit first - started reading Norman Lewis' Word Power. I read it from cover to cover including all exercises, tests and revisions, in little less than a month - not a very good pace admittedly, but I didn't want to rush over stuff once again, coupled with the fact I didn't get more than a hour per day on weekdays (I'm currently working in a reputed MNC, where I have quite a bit of responsibility to handle). NL really, really opened my eyes, by showing the "bridges" between various familiar words - I couldn't recommend it more (even if you never plan to write GRE, do go through it if you at all care about English as a language).

 

Next, I thought I did something clever by enrolling for a widely advertised "test prep course" (details of my experience about it can be found here). I'm skipping that part here, as I don't recommend it. I started going through Barron's Wordlists, though not in the "traditional" way (flash cards and other stuff). Each morning, I used to pick a wordlist, read all the words in it, marking the difficult ones and writing them down separately (without their meanings) - and at night, I used to look at that sheet, and fill up the meanings as I recalled them. This was really helpful in assimilating the entire wordlist - proceeding at this rate, I finished the entire Barron's list in about 2 months. After which, it was simply revising the wordlists again from 1-50 - at first pass, 2 WL/day, then 5 Wl/day...till 2 days before GRE, when I was going through 25 WL/ day !!

 

All this while, I didn't neglect my quants...contrary to what many people claim, it is NOT a walk in the park if you are aiming for 800. One has to be really careful to avoid the "obvious" answers (IMHO, the real talent in the test makers is evident in the way they come up with wrong answers that are oh-so-close to the correct one !!). I went through Peterson's GRE Math Bible - its simply awesome, and if you were even a moderate in math at High School, you'd find it really helpful !! I took a month to go through this book (the last month before GRE), and the "Medium" and "Hard" problems were the ones most useful...

 

I also practised AWA from a book title "Answers to the Real Essay Questions" by M.Stewart - its a great book, not for the essays and arguments (pls, pls, do NOT try to mug the essays, its an exercise in futility !!), but for the valuable tips and advise in attempting the questions. Especially the "analyze an argument" section - trust me, once you've gone through the tips in the book, and looked at 5-10 sample answers to actual arguments, there's nothing left for GRE to test you about in that section !! The "Issue-perspective" section is a lot subjective thing though - I've always enjoyed writing essays, so I didn't practice more than 2-3 essays before the exam. If you feel you are weak in this area, practise more and then compare your attempt with the one in the book, to learn how to enhance your answer.

 

In the final week before the exam, I did nothing but

 

  • Revise WL from my notebook
  • Practice Big Book Verbals (towards the end, I consistently got all the RC's right, scoring on an avg 36/38 questions)
  • Take online CATS.

 

About the CATs I've used, let me list them in descending order of their accuracy and usefulness:

 

  1. PowerPrep - no question about it, its the real deal. Scores :-
    • 1460 (700V, 760Q) - a month before GRE
    • 1520 (720V, 800Q) - a day before GRE

 

[*]Princeton Online CAT - you get a free online test once you register on their website, and 4 more if you buy their book. I didn't even look at the book, only took the CATS.

  • Got an avg of ~740 in verbal and 800 in quants in the 4 tests, again pretty close to what I got

 

[*]Barron's. I'm rating it third because it doesn't give an actual score, and I guess thats because its not a CAT per-se, but the level of questions were really challenging here, without being unreasonably long. If you get all questions correct here, you are looking at a potential score of 1600 IMHO !!

[*]Kaplan - pretty good test questions, but again, no comprehensive scores at the end like Barrons. Questions are easy though, but good to keep yourself sharp !!

Oh...and I forgot one of the best resources I got for FREE !! For those of who are working (like me), you can use those 5-10 minutes of breaks in office to sharpen your vocabulary like I did, using Number2.com :: Free Online Test Prep !! Its amazing for a free website - the level of words gradually increases as your vocabulary builds up (towards the end, I got 200/200 right in the Vocab Builder section there, all words being level 5 difficulty - whereas I started with about 90% accuracy in level 3 words 6 months back !!). For more bang/buck, ask a friend (or simply use a second email id) to register as a "tutor" for yourself - that account would get weekly "summaries" of your progress, including the time spent, words attempted, difficulty of words, accuracy, average standing w.r.t the rest of the community etc, which would really help focus your efforts !!

 

Thats about it for now - I think I've mentioned everything here. Let me know if you have any queries, and I'll be more than happy to answer them !!

 

PS: One test tip - you can legitimately guess questions randomly at the very end of the test !! At the end of quants, I had 2 mins to solve 2 questions. The first one involved computations which would have eaten up my time, so I blindly guessed it and moved on to the last question, which I then solved correctly. I still got 800, so no reason anyone else can't do the same !!

 

PPS: Just got my AWA scores - I was expecting a 5.5, but had to settle for 5. Well, I guess I should have written my essay a bit more coherently, as I'm sure my argument rated a 6 :)

Edited by shan23
AWA score added
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First off, fantastic score. Congratulations!

 

Barron's. I'm rating it third because it doesn't give an actual score, and I guess thats because its not a CAT per-se, but the level of questions were really challenging here, without being unreasonably long. If you get all questions correct here, you are looking at a potential score of 1600 IMHO !!
I'm wondering if you can expand on this point a bit more. How did the difficulty of the quantitative section on the actual test compare to the difficulty of the quantitative section on the Barron's model tests?
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Hey,

 

Congrats!! Awesome score.

 

Need some advice. i have my gre on July13th. I have Read the WPME completely not cover to cover but the etymology part.

 

I have been reading Barrons for the past three months and i am not able to complete it. Right now i am in Wl 45. hope fully i will be able to complete by June 6th. On week days i have around 3 to 4 hours and on weekends around 10 hrs. Apart from Barron's i haven't touched anything. I am starting to feel the heat. But, i am able to recapture most of the words.

 

I am confident about the Quant part and i dont dream of getting 800. 750+ would be ok for me. I am not bothered about it. My worry is the verbal part and AWA.

 

can you suggest me an ideal Plan for last one month. Right now i am not able to decide anything.

 

Waiting for your reply

 

Thanks,

Rajesh

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I'm wondering if you can expand on this point a bit more. How did the difficulty of the quantitative section on the actual test compare to the difficulty of the quantitative section on the Barron's model tests?

 

I'd say the Barron's CAT (the one on the CD - there are 2, but I had time to give only one) is pretty much >= the actual GRE content. If you get all correct on Barron's, you should get a perfect score on the actual GRE. But it would have been helpful if they (Barron's) at least converted the raw score into the final format, like Princeton, which would have made me rate it higher .

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Hey,

 

Congrats!! Awesome score.

 

Need some advice. i have my gre on July13th. I have Read the WPME completely not cover to cover but the etymology part.

 

I have been reading Barrons for the past three months and i am not able to complete it. Right now i am in Wl 45. hope fully i will be able to complete by June 6th. On week days i have around 3 to 4 hours and on weekends around 10 hrs. Apart from Barron's i haven't touched anything. I am starting to feel the heat. But, i am able to recapture most of the words.

 

I am confident about the Quant part and i dont dream of getting 800. 750+ would be ok for me. I am not bothered about it. My worry is the verbal part and AWA.

 

can you suggest me an ideal Plan for last one month. Right now i am not able to decide anything.

 

Waiting for your reply

 

Thanks,

Rajesh

 

I'm not an expert in formulating "crash courses" :), but nevertheless, I'd try to help you. It seems you have a fair bit of time on your hand, way more than I had. You should aim at getting 800 in quants, you know - otherwise, due to the adaptive nature of the test, you might wind up getting 700 only !! The only way to prevent that is go for the kill - a straight 800.

 

As for AWA, how confident are you about your writing skills ? If not very confident, pls find and go through the book I mentioned for AWA (its available on the net) - solve at least 2 random issues/arguments per week to build up your confidence, and ask someone (a friend etc) to rate it based on the GRE scoring guide. That would help you understand where you are at the moment.

 

For verbals, since you have time, use number2.com extensively to build up your vocabulary. Start solving Big Book exams - first solve it without timing yourself (aiming to get the RC's correct), and then when your accuracy increase, time yourself. If you can get as many correct as I did or nearby, you should be good to get a 700+ V score.

 

Hope this helps !!

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I'm not an expert in formulating "crash courses" :), but nevertheless, I'd try to help you. It seems you have a fair bit of time on your hand, way more than I had. You should aim at getting 800 in quants, you know - otherwise, due to the adaptive nature of the test, you might wind up getting 700 only !! The only way to prevent that is go for the kill - a straight 800.

 

As for AWA, how confident are you about your writing skills ? If not very confident, pls find and go through the book I mentioned for AWA (its available on the net) - solve at least 2 random issues/arguments per week to build up your confidence, and ask someone (a friend etc) to rate it based on the GRE scoring guide. That would help you understand where you are at the moment.

 

For verbals, since you have time, use number2.com extensively to build up your vocabulary. Start solving Big Book exams - first solve it without timing yourself (aiming to get the RC's correct), and then when your accuracy increase, time yourself. If you can get as many correct as I did or nearby, you should be good to get a 700+ V score.

 

Hope this helps !!

 

hey thanks for the suggestion.

 

sure will do that.

 

Regards,

Rajesh

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