1600 Gre - Q:800, V:800

[peterv]

Manassi, please beware though that the exact changes are by no means finalized yet and are only "being investigated" for the moment.

"The GRE Program is investigating changes to the verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and analytical writing measures in order to increase the validity of the test, enhance security measures, provide faculty with better information on applicants' performance, and make better use of advances in technology and psychometric design."

"As the direction of the potential changes becomes clearer, information on the GRE Web site will be updated."

[adonis]

all the best for a 6 too.

Cheers
adonis

[ritusinha]

Great Score. Congratulations.
How did you manage 800 in verbal. That's great.
All the best for your AWA score.

[peterv]

Thx adoni and ritusinha too! Yes, 800 in Verbal is great . Seems like only 0.1-0.2% of examinees get this score. Things I think have helped me (in no particular order):

* The New Oxford American Dictionary. Great resource. You definitely need to have a good dictionary around. If you want to skimp on the $40 you can find American Heritage (bartleby.com/61) and Merriam-Webster (m-w.com) available online (for free!).

* Roget's Thesaurus (the red and black one edited by Kipfer(?) - I forget the publisher

* Fowler's English Usage (all-time classic)

* Powerprep Practice Questions and CAT. (Repetition makes perfect...)

* Kaplan's CD has some fun games and exercises helping on vocab. Kaplan's specialized GRE Verbal Workbook is also very good.

* "Words" book on Erin's list. Amazing!

* Barron's list. (The full 2,500 or whatever thing is overkill though. And Barron's math didn't excite me either)

* "The New Yorker" and "Scientific American". I'd been reading the WSJ and the Economist too.

* English is a strange language, in that its academic/scientific vocabulary comes from other languages! I would say that knowledge of French, Latin (or a close substitute, like Italian) and Greek (in that order) is immensely helpful. It happens that I had to take French in high school (easily my all-time LEAST favorite subject), am dabbling with Portuguese (work-related reasons), and know Greek (both classic and modern). So, I can do reasoning such as: "maladroit? Sure this is French: mal + droit : mal = bad, droit = right -> but adexios (a-dexios = not-right) means clumsy in Greek, so maladroit must mean clumsy). Also, I am familiar with words like ascetic, bucolic, laconic, anomalous, asymptotic, cacophonous, euphoria, etc. (they're Greek to me! ). Most difficult I have found Latin-based words (the most prevalent group!). You know what I mean: tumultuous, turpitude, pulchtritude, obstreperous, and the like... I also speak intermediate German, which may help with a handful of words directly (gestalt, weltanschaung, ersatz, kitsch, wanderlust) and in a deep Germanic level indirectly: for instance, even though I may not know the word ken, I know that kennen means to 'know somebody, be acquainted' in German so it would have sth to do with knowledge in English too.

* I read a lot. And various subjects too: Mathematics, Computer Science / Software Engineering -> what I do for a living, Philosophy (e.g. Nietsche, Marx, Aristotle, Darwin, Russell), Business, Economics, lots of stuff. But quality is better than quantity. I would highly recommend reading some good philosophy (of whatever your liking or even better eclectic). If you read the "Interpret GRE Scores" or whatever-it-is-named bulletin from ETS (I just read it an hour ago) you'll see that the 800 Verbal is attained by 0.0-0.5% of examinees in all disciplines but Philosophy, 1.4% of whose intended grad majors score an 800 Verbal. Analogously, Mathematicians, Physisists, Astronomers, Computer Scientists, and some Engineers, have very high 800 Quant percentiles (27% for Math majors!). No wonder that Philosophy and Mathematics are considered to be the "queens" of sciences, and PhD stands for Doctor of Philosophy...

[manasi4gre]

peterv,your post on verbal is really helpful.

[electroprakash]

Hi Peter,
You are the inspiration for all of us on the forum. Peter you mentioned in of your posts that there are 10 CAT in Powerprep, but the one I have has only two. Can you tell me how can I get the other. The fact is I have already give GRE once, due to lack of preperation i got Q770 and V340. I am targetting not less than Q800 and V550. I am planning for Spring 2006, so I have very less time for preperation. Currently I am doing Barrons test, Kaplan CD (in which there are 6V and 6Q and 3CAT) and other 20 CAT from BigBook (which are old ones), and for verbal practice i am using Guru's GRE wordlist 2.1b.
Peter help , whether I am going in right direction or not? I have already given the Powerprep test twice.. one I got Q770, V400... and other I got Q780 and V570. Please tell me can I register for the test for targetted score or should I prepare more?

For verbal i am practicing about 15 words per day.. is that sufficinet or I should increase the pace? Most of the times I get analogies wrong.. I am good at sentence completion and RC.

Please help me...
my email ID is electroprakash@yahoo.co.in

Regards,
Prakash

[reactor]

CONGRATULATIONS !!!

What are your plans now?

[Dingus]

Originally Posted by peterv

* English is a strange language, in that its academic/scientific vocabulary comes from other languages! I would say that knowledge of French, Latin (or a close substitute, like Italian) and Greek (in that order) is immensely helpful. It happens that I had to take French in high school (easily my all-time LEAST favorite subject), am dabbling with Portuguese (work-related reasons), and know Greek (both classic and modern). So, I can do reasoning such as: "maladroit? Sure this is French: mal + droit : mal = bad, droit = right -> but adexios (a-dexios = not-right) means clumsy in Greek, so maladroit must mean clumsy). Also, I am familiar with words like ascetic, bucolic, laconic, anomalous, asymptotic, cacophonous, euphoria, etc. (they're Greek to me! ). Most difficult I have found Latin-based words (the most prevalent group!). You know what I mean: tumultuous, turpitude, pulchtritude, obstreperous, and the like... I also speak intermediate German, which may help with a handful of words directly (gestalt, weltanschaung, ersatz, kitsch, wanderlust) and in a deep Germanic level indirectly: for instance, even though I may not know the word ken, I know that kennen means to 'know somebody, be acquainted' in German so it would have sth to do with knowledge in English too.

* I read a lot. And various subjects too: Mathematics, Computer Science / Software Engineering -> what I do for a living, Philosophy (e.g. Nietsche, Marx, Aristotle, Darwin, Russell), Business, Economics, lots of stuff. But quality is better than quantity. I would highly recommend reading some good philosophy (of whatever your liking or even better eclectic)..

Peter,
I am in awe! WOW. You are a language genius. You are extremely well-read. You are deeply analytical. You are very well honed in Mathematics.

People like you - aren't they exempt from GRE and other puny exams of similar sort? I am sure there is a hidden ETS clause which says so. I am afraid you may have wasted your time on this exam rather needlessly.

I wonder what it might be like to meet you in real life. It must be one heck of an experience, I am sure.

WOW.

I just want to be the first one on this planet to congratulate you on your Harvard, MIT and Stanford admits next year. I am not sure I may be around at that time and I certainly don't want to be missing out on congratulating you and wishing you an awesome graduate career. I am so extraordinarily sure you will hold a shining bright candle for the others to find their way.

So, Congratulations!
Dingus

PS: Do you, by any chance, dabble in music - vocal or instrumental?

[Econ]

Originally Posted by peterv

Thx adoni and ritusinha too! Yes, 800 in Verbal is great . Seems like only 0.1-0.2% of examinees get this score. Things I think have helped me (in no particular order):

* The New Oxford American Dictionary. Great resource. You definitely need to have a good dictionary around. If you want to skimp on the $40 you can find American Heritage (bartleby.com/61) and Merriam-Webster (m-w.com) available online (for free!).

* Roget's Thesaurus (the red and black one edited by Kipfer(?) - I forget the publisher

* Fowler's English Usage (all-time classic)

* Powerprep Practice Questions and CAT. (Repetition makes perfect...)

* Kaplan's CD has some fun games and exercises helping on vocab. Kaplan's specialized GRE Verbal Workbook is also very good.

* "Words" book on Erin's list. Amazing!

* Barron's list. (The full 2,500 or whatever thing is overkill though. And Barron's math didn't excite me either)

* "The New Yorker" and "Scientific American". I'd been reading the WSJ and the Economist too.

* English is a strange language, in that its academic/scientific vocabulary comes from other languages! I would say that knowledge of French, Latin (or a close substitute, like Italian) and Greek (in that order) is immensely helpful. It happens that I had to take French in high school (easily my all-time LEAST favorite subject), am dabbling with Portuguese (work-related reasons), and know Greek (both classic and modern). So, I can do reasoning such as: "maladroit? Sure this is French: mal + droit : mal = bad, droit = right -> but adexios (a-dexios = not-right) means clumsy in Greek, so maladroit must mean clumsy). Also, I am familiar with words like ascetic, bucolic, laconic, anomalous, asymptotic, cacophonous, euphoria, etc. (they're Greek to me! ). Most difficult I have found Latin-based words (the most prevalent group!). You know what I mean: tumultuous, turpitude, pulchtritude, obstreperous, and the like... I also speak intermediate German, which may help with a handful of words directly (gestalt, weltanschaung, ersatz, kitsch, wanderlust) and in a deep Germanic level indirectly: for instance, even though I may not know the word ken, I know that kennen means to 'know somebody, be acquainted' in German so it would have sth to do with knowledge in English too.

* I read a lot. And various subjects too: Mathematics, Computer Science / Software Engineering -> what I do for a living, Philosophy (e.g. Nietsche, Marx, Aristotle, Darwin, Russell), Business, Economics, lots of stuff. But quality is better than quantity. I would highly recommend reading some good philosophy (of whatever your liking or even better eclectic). If you read the "Interpret GRE Scores" or whatever-it-is-named bulletin from ETS (I just read it an hour ago) you'll see that the 800 Verbal is attained by 0.0-0.5% of examinees in all disciplines but Philosophy, 1.4% of whose intended grad majors score an 800 Verbal. Analogously, Mathematicians, Physisists, Astronomers, Computer Scientists, and some Engineers, have very high 800 Quant percentiles (27% for Math majors!). No wonder that Philosophy and Mathematics are considered to be the "queens" of sciences, and PhD stands for Doctor of Philosophy...

!!!

[Dingus]

Originally Posted by Econ

!!!

My impression exactly. I can't help it. I am reading the entire thread over the fourth time now.

*absolutely dazed*