Q169 , V160 taken yesterday

[pch]

Hi guys,

 

I took the GRE yesterday and got a decent (preliminary) result - 169 in Q and 160 in V. I feel like the AW part will also be good but not excellent. I was kind of hoping for 170 in quantitative as I felt like I knew answers to all the questions, but I must have made some stupid mistake and I can't figure out where. Anyway, I guess I can't complain. I am very surprised with my verbal score as i expected more of a 154-158 score. I'm not a native speaker and actually i spent much less time studying for the verbal part as I didn't feel it is as important for my application. It could be that adrenaline helped me stay more focused and not fall asleep while reading texts, which was often the case when I was doing practice tests ;) How did I study? I got the Kaplan book, went through it and did all the prep questions, also PowerPrep and whatever I could get my hands on that was free on the web. I spaced my studying over a 2 months period. It wasn't very intensive but I did try to spend at least a little bit of time studying everyday. I found doing practice tests and then evaluating my answers the most helpful thing. So if you have the chance, get access to as many prep tests as possible, they're very helpful even if not exactly the same as the actual test. I found the actual GRE math questions to be a bit different than I expected and got a little scared at first as I was taking a much longer time than I should with some of the first questions but then I pulled myself together and speeded up, having 5 -10 minutes left to go over all my answers again.

I feel like the more you will study, the better score you can get. I think if I spent more time on it I could get an even better score. So my advice - don;t leave preparation for the very last moment; start early!

 

All the best for your GRE test!