1470 GRE - (710 Verbal; 760 Quant.) - 3 1/2 weeks of studying

[donewithGRE]

Just took the GRE and am elated to have a 1470GRE w/ 710 in Verbal and 760 in Quantitative! Will update with essay scores once received!

 

I've had a lot of obligations so I didn't have much time between the end of my junior year semester and the beginning of an archaeological dig in Africa to study for this test. My goal was at least a 700 in both sections, and I exceeded it. To anyone interested, here's how I studied and how my test went. My background is as follows: I am a Biology and Anthropology Major, and in terms of math background, I've had 2 semesters of calc and 1 semester of biostatistics, all of which I barely remember. I'm a native English (and Spanish) Speaker, and I definitely don't read as much as I'd like to but I do have to read a lot of long academic stuff for my studies. I have a 3.9GPA at a top 50 research university. Not a top tier school, but still respectable.

 

I started off studying with Kaplan's "GRE Exam 500 Words in a Box" flash cards. I excluded all the words I already knew (being careful if there was a secondary meaning) and then studied the rest at a pace of about 70 cards a day for 5 days, reviewing the previous cards so that I didn't forget any. At about the same time I read and did many exercises as I could for math in Kaplan's GRE 2011 book. After I got through all 500 words, I started reviewing for the verbal section, which felt a bit pointless. The main thing I learned was how to spot tricks and how to form strong bridges between analogies.

 

I thoroughly read the entire preparation sections of Kaplan's book and also did the same with the Princeton Review GRE book. I additionally memorized all of the words in the "Hit Parade" of the Princeton Review Book and many of the words in Kaplan's book although it was annoying to have to look up the definitions since Kaplan doesn't provide any.

 

After I got through just about everything useful in these two books (honestly a lot of it is crappy or too basic) I decided to buy the GRE preparation book which contains a lot of old tests created by ETS. This provided a lot of good practice, but I was getting near perfect scores on all the quantitative and it was too easy. In order to maintain the curve from the good old days, when these tests are from, ETS has made GRE questions a lot harder.

 

I also went through all the Verbal practice questions from the old tests and wrote down any words I didn't know. There weren't many at this point -- mainly just secondary meanings which were sometimes very tricky.

 

I downloaded the powerprep software and took 1 practice test. Never got around to the 2nd practice test, because I had a headache the day I wanted to take it. On the first practice test, which I didn't take all at once, I got a 700Quant, and a 670 Verbal. Honestly I was very flustered when I took these and tired out from studying.

 

The day before the practice test, I didn't let myself look at a single thing related to the GRE. I just relaxed as much as possible. I got enough sleep (careful not to get too much, because when I do I am groggy, for me about 9 hours was good). I'm not religious but I had a lot of people praying for me to do well, and I brought a good luck charm with me in my pocket (which they made me leave behind in a locker).

 

When I went to take the test, they were very martinetish about the rules and wouldn't let people take off their sweaters or stuff like that in the test room. I did my best to not let this shake me. For the first essay I found a prompt that was very easy to respond to; on the other hand the 2nd essay prompt was very dumbed-down and I found it difficult to write an eloquent response to it, but in the end I think my work was still 5 or 6 quality in terms of score. I sped through both essay sections, even leaving time to read over each essay about 3 times. I used the extra 5 minutes on my last essay to spill into my 10 minute break and took a nice 15 minute break to use the bathroom and stretch.

 

Next was quantitative section. I found these questions to be somewhat challenging, but I know that my main problem with quant was running out of time. I picked my battles, but I spent extra care on the first 10 problems. I kept an eye out for tricks and had to make probably 4 guesses because i just got flustered and wasted a lot of time. If you know how to identify tricks and eliminate options, it will help your score immensily. I ended up speeding through this section and having like 7 minutes left between this and the next section. I took about a 3 minute break and proceeded.

 

Verbal section I found pretty easy. I knew every word I saw except for on two questions, but I still could guess correctly on one of those because I eliminated every other option knowing every other word. Most worlds were from the Kaplan 500 cards but a couple were not in Kaplan that I found in Princeton Review or from scouring the practice tests. The reading comprehension was very difficult, I thought, which was surprising since before I had no problem doing it. On my practice test, I finished verbal with 12 minutes left over; this time, I had only about 2 minutes left over. I took the full 2 minute break and prayed for no additional sections. Lucky me! The only additional section was an identified analytical writing section which I could do for some chance to win 200 dollars. I quit the section, although I must admit I thought about writing as many obscene words into the processor as possible as my little way of venting frustration at ETS for creating such a desultory exam. I let my better judgement work its way though and just left, without submitting anything for the analytical writing section.

 

So happy I'm done!!

 

If anyone wants any advice or help, don't hesitate to message me. Sorry for any typos or solecisms (GRE word!) in my post; I am too elated to be grammatically correct after being so restrained for nearly 4 hours today.

[NDure]

Congratulations mate on the awesome scores! I was wondering if you can give me your 2 cents on verbal part cause I'm a non-native. Which books do you recommend? Also for the math part, what's your strategy?

 

Thanks ahead!

[donewithGRE]

Congratulations mate on the awesome scores! I was wondering if you can give me your 2 cents on verbal part cause I'm a non-native. Which books do you recommend? Also for the math part, what's your strategy?

 

Thanks ahead!

 

Being non-native won't put you at too much of a disadvantage for most of the Verbal section. Honestly, the thing that helped me most was "Kaplan's GRE Exam Vocabulary in a Box." These are flash cards which you can buy for around $12. Nearly every single word I encountered on my test was on these cards. It really is a matter of memorization. I also downloaded a virtual flash card program onto my computer (iFlash for Mac) and I put in any words I encountered but didn't know what they meant into it and periodically testing myself.

 

Princeton Review's GRE preparation book is very useful for its "Hit Parade" and "Beyond the Hit Parade" lists of vocab words; if the word appeared on the GRE and wasn't from Kaplan's Vocabulary in a Box, it was from these lists.

 

If you don't have any of those available, this list (The Free & Smart Way to Learn SAT Test Vocabulary Words » Barron & Kaplan GRE Words) seems to have a lot of those same words. If you search hard, you can find Barron's lists online but some of them are thousands of words long, which may or may not be feasible for you to do depending on time constraints among other things.

 

A word of advice, when you are looking up words, try to rely more on the synonyms than the definition; I prefer thesaurus entries to dictionary entries. Learning the synonyms can multiply the value of each word and teach you new words relatively effortlessly. 99% of the time the GRE tests on vague meanings rather than subtleties.

 

As for reading comprehension, that's what really stumped me. I did perfectly on reading comp in powerprep when I took it, so I slacked off in practicing. The questions they ask you don't cater to out-of-the-box thinking, so you just really have to get used to the type of questions asked. Whenever you read a paragraph, or even a long sentence, from a reading comp passage, try to summarize to yourself what is being said. Try to get used to the types of questions asked. The literature they select from is purposely dull or boring, so it may be a good idea to read short passages from scholarly journals in fields you find especially trite just to get a feel for what you'll be doing.

 

 

The Quant section wasn't a big concern for me. I just wanted above 700. I'm applying to Bio programs, so I don't need a ridiculously high quant; I just need to show that I'm competent with numbers. The key is learning to pick your fights and guess aggressively. Focus on those first 10-15 questions and try to answer them as accurately as possible. If you see a question, especially after the first 10, that you know you will struggle with or that will take you a long time, it may be a better idea to eliminate the obvious choices and guess. Those two minutes saved by a guess can be invaluable in answering other questions. I heard the Barron's book is good for math practice, but I can't say for sure. Kaplan has a nice review of all the math concepts in the back of their book, but I found that both Kaplan and Princeton Review failed to provide enough practice problems, especially of those questions that would be asked to someone who's scoring in the 700s+.

 

The most important aspect of doing well on this test is keeping a clear head. That can be the difference between a 400 and a 800. Remember, if the questions are flustering you, it's probably because they are difficult and you are doing very well to be receiving them.

[donewithGRE]

Forgot to mention that I also found it very useful to take breaks. Hours sometimes, or days. I found if I studied for more than 3 days in a row for 8 hours each day I'd start to have difficulty processing. When this happened, I'd take a day off, and the next day, I'd feel refreshed. I've also been taking part in martial arts training which helps to get out the pent out steam from all this studying.

[ranbirkapur]

Congratulations on your fantastic score.! Just have a small doubt regarding the Kaplan 500 flashcards- did you only tried to focus on the 500 given words or the Synonyms as well? I think with synonyms, it should be 1000+ words altogether. I have my exam in July and was thinking of going for the Kaplan words. Also, about the words you mentioned in the Kaplan book which didnt have the definitions, are you referring to the 2500 words at the end of the book? I have the Kaplan Verbal Workbook and it contains words like this, along with 200 HF words. with definitions and synonyms. Thanks in advance. :)

[donewithGRE]

Congratulations on your fantastic score.! Just have a small doubt regarding the Kaplan 500 flashcards- did you only tried to focus on the 500 given words or the Synonyms as well? I think with synonyms, it should be 1000+ words altogether. I have my exam in July and was thinking of going for the Kaplan words. Also, about the words you mentioned in the Kaplan book which didnt have the definitions, are you referring to the 2500 words at the end of the book? I have the Kaplan Verbal Workbook and it contains words like this, along with 200 HF words. with definitions and synonyms. Thanks in advance. :)

 

Not sure if we have the same book. I have Kaplan's "GRE Strategies, Practice, and Review." So in the back of my book there are high frequency words (100+) with definitions, then there are words grouped by their Greek or Latin roots with definitions, and there is also a section with word groups which are lists of words grouped by similar meaning. I found that the "word groups" were pretty much useless in that many times words wouldn't really fit the category they were grouped under, so I'd have to look it up anyway, or the word group was way too general. Like, for example, "quintessence" is under the grouping "copy", which wouldn't help you too much on the GRE.

 

I can't say if studying the Kaplan 500 GRE words in a box is enough. For me, that's where I had seen 95% of unfamiliar words that appeared on my GRE. But maybe I got lucky and had an irregular sample of words by chance. If you want to be extra safe, I'd say go with one of the 2000+ words Barron's lists -- as those seem to be acclaimed by a lot of others who did well and are definitely more comprehensive. The only problem with this is that with some of these very long word lists, too many words are easy, so you really have to go through and eliminate a lot of them. For most of the Kaplan 500 GRE words in a box, they are the hardest questions and ones you are least likely to know. And yes, each card has synonyms, I'd say on average 5 synonyms per word, so, including some synonyms which are double counted, the amount of vocab words with those cards might be more like 1,500. But many of the synonyms are easy. I definitely did see some words from Princeton Review's HIT parade, if you can find that anywhere, but when I think about it, these words may have been synonyms in the Kaplan flash cards.

 

In short, the Kaplan flash cards are a great place to start if you want a verbal score of 700+. But if you really want to cover your bases, I'd use other resources like the Princeton list and Barron's list.

 

I'm not sure if Kaplan goes through and periodically updates their cards based on the most popular words, because I remember when taking powerprep tests/questions, many words that appeared weren't from the Kaplan set. I just know I was surprised to see so many from my actual GRE be from Kaplan compared to with practice tests. Maybe Kaplan does update their cards/word lists, or maybe I just got really lucky.

[ranbirkapur]

Thanks for your detailed advice. I do own the PR book, so will review the Hit Parade. For words, I feel I should do with the Kaplan 500 words only, with synonyms. Yes, there is a lost of 200 HF words in the Kaplan books, in yours and mine. A general grouping list of the words follows that HF list, as you mentioned, but i wont follow that as I too feel the grouping is not precise. I do hope I get words from what I study :) What ETS book you followed ? the big book or the official 10th edition? I have xeroxed the first 10 verbal papers from big book and will practice RC from that. What do u suggest?

[needyourhelp]

People are so smart!!!!

[lindsay]

Congratulations again to you on your fantastic score, and thank you for your detailed account.

I'm afraid I have another question for you. I'm having the most trouble with completing the exam on time, especially the quantitative part. You did recommend that focus should be on the first 10-15 questions but I'm curious as to how much time is too much? I tend to get so stuck on a question and am never able to complete the test. The problem for me is that no practice test emulates the actual computer-based exam, i.e- grades you as you go, getting more or less difficult depending on your progress. That's the part that worries me most- the uncertainty in that because I can't study for it. Roughly how much time do you recommend investing in those first few questions?

Thanks so much in advance,

Lindsay

[Alison Taylor]

Nice job on the GRE! I just finished law school and decided to get a Ph.D in journalism. I was told I have to take the GRE, and am about to go buy some books. Did you take the new version? I wonder if the new test has a similar verbal section. Anyways, your post was very helpful! Thank you! Best of luck with graduate school!