06-10-2005, 05:51 PM
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#1 (permalink) |
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Eager!
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 51
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Q800 V760
And still waiting for my writing score to come in (expecting around a 5.5). I'm glad it's finally over and I got it out of the way. Read on if you want to hear how I prepped for the test.
Date taken June 9th, 2005 9:00 AM appointment The test At first, the guy at the testcenter misread the expiration date on my passport (he read Jun 7 2005 as Jun 7 2005) and informed me that it had recently expired. I hadn't checked the expiration date so I assumed that he was right, and just as I was phoning someone to ask her to get another form of identification, he realized his mistake and everything continued. We have to sign a form pledging not to reveal anything about the actual tests questions to any "person or entity". So the writing section came first, then verbal, then math. The writing went okay, although I just barely finished in the last few seconds before time ran out. Verbal was okay, one of the RC I received was pretty obscure, which is probably where I missed all my points. Math was straightforward, no tricks there. One thing that threw me off was getting two of those data/graphs sets instead of one, since these questions take me a little longer than the others to do. The testroom was very quiet and comfortable and they had earmuffs that block out any noise. Only one other girl was there taking the GRE that day, I think. You're not allowed to take any extraneous items into the testroom, not even pencils, which are provided by them. At the end of the test, I had an experimental verbal section, which they indicate is for researches purposes and your score will not be reported. It 45 minutes with 35 questions, and probably will reflect the form of the new GRE to be effective starting October 2006. Anyway, again I'm glad it's over with and I never have to worry about it again. Although, soon I will GRE Subject tests in math and physics to worry about  . I will be applying to graduate school two years from now in electrical engineering =) But for now, no more GRE! Best of luck to anyone who takes the test in the future!Preparation Overall, to prepare for the exam, I did about 3 full weeks of intense (about 10 hours each day) studying up until my exam on June 9th. Also, last summer I had done some preparation, but it mostly light studying that involved just doing some practice tests if I had free time, and learning some new vocab. The total studying from last summer probably only amounts to one full week of intense studying. Books/Resources -PowerPrep (verbal lessons and practice tests) -Other Real tests (about 50 total. e.g., practicing to take the GRE. by real tests, I just meant real practice tests with questions that appeared on actual GREs administered by ETS as opposed to imitations made by a prep company or something) -Non-official materials: Kaplan (2 books, one for CAT GRE, one containing one practice test), Barrons, Princeton Review (WordSmart, Cracking the GRE), Arco (one on CAT GRE, one on MAT, although the second wasn't very helpful), some others as well -Other resources: Forums, such as TM, vocabulary lists online Math I didn't do any preparation for the math part contentwise, but I did do all all the practice tests (I believe there were 4 of them) in the Kaplan book, and the day before I took the GRE, I did one of the math tests on the PowerPrep 3.0 (I saved one of the PowerPrep tests for the day before the exam). Verbal For the verbal part, I mostly focused on improving my reading comprehension skills, since that was my major weakness, and memorizing some more words (although the vocabulary wasn't a big problem for me). I did about 10 LSAT practice tests (the RC part only), in addition to all the verbal questions in my practice books. Also I reviewed all the old vocabulary that I knew, and learned a lot of new words. To improve my vocabulary, I kept a vocabulary notebook and wrote down all the words I didn't know in every practice test I did or came across otherwise. I typed up a lot of vocabulary lists, ranging from 30-200 words, and memorized them in one sitting. I did this a little less than ten times, picking up about 500-1000 new words in these few weeks, my vocabulary was already relatively strong from before. I did a bunch of practice tests, verbal parts only. Probably over 60 in all, although I didn't do any of the reading sections from most of the older tests and some of the other tests I never got around to. Writing I spent about two or three full days preparing for the writing part. The only commercial resources I used was the Arco book and a Kaplan book on AWA essays for the GRE and GMAT. I also looked online on forums (including this one) to see some examples of essays that other people had written to get an idea of what to write about. Also, last summer I did read through some sample essays, and got a general idea of the argument section. I even worked through a bunch of analytical/logical reasoning from the old format problems to improve my argument skills. So anyway, during the three days I spent prepping for the writing part, for the first day or two, I focused on the argument part, and wrote about 5-10 practice essays. I tried reading through every argument and jotting down notes for each one but just didn't have time, since I was doing this with less than 3 days left until the exam. Then I spent a few hours reading through the issues (read over about 90% of them), wrote down some ideas for the topics I might have trouble with, and wrote one practice essay. Preparation tips For the verbal part, to improve RC and vocabulary, the best long-term strategy is, of course, to read. I would recommend New York Times (even the online version at nytimes.com. this can provide some ideas for the issue essay on the AWA and keep you an informed citizen as well), and I hear the New Yorker is also good and representative of the types of passages the GRE draws its questions from. However, if you're really tight on time, like I was, memorizing word lists is not a bad idea. Keep a vocabulary notebook, and write down all the words you don't know that you come across. To really make memorizing words worthwhile, it really helps to go back to words you came across earlier, otherwise you will end up forgetting the words you learned in a few days. You can also write the original context you found them in; for instance, I wrote the analogy or the antonym the word originally appeared in. Some people like to write the sentence they originally appeared in but that takes too long so I didn't do that. Start your preparation early, and be sure to occassionally review previous words. For the writing part, I would suggest becoming familiar with the topics and writing a few practice essays. Read through several of the sample essays in the Arco book - the author is a fantastic writer. Although knowledge beyond that of a normal person is not assumed for the writing part, it doesn't hurt to pick up some ideas for the issues from newspapers or the radio. Good luck!! Last edited by orangesun : 06-10-2005 at 08:10 PM. |
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06-10-2005, 06:08 PM
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#2 (permalink) |
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TestMagic Guru
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: INDIA
Posts: 1,810
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Re: Q800 V760
CONGRATS! That is a brilliant show...
can you tell us more about the pattern and difficulty of questions in the verb. and quant. sections? Secondly, did you encounter any unknown(difficult) words in the verbal section? Did u get any words from Barron's list?
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"Fear less,hope more; whine less,breathe more; Talk less,work more; hate less,love more; Then all the good things are yours ." ---Proverb--- |
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06-10-2005, 07:18 PM
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#4 (permalink) |
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Eager!
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 51
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Re: Q800 V760
On the verbal section, the pattern is very much like the PowerPrep in terms of difficulty and format. At least on my test, the quantitative section was the same too, although I have heard that for some people the actual GRE quantitative questions are more difficult.
I don't recall what is actually in Barron's list, but I'm sure there were a lot of words from there. No obscure words though. |
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06-10-2005, 07:39 PM
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#6 (permalink) | |
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Eager!
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 51
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Re: Q800 V760
Quote:
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06-11-2005, 06:30 AM
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#9 (permalink) |
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Dumbledore's Army
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 2,334
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Re: Q800 V760
Thats a great score. CONGRATS
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If you can't change your mind, are you sure you have one? Be weird whenever you have the chance Don't lurk! Please participate OF COURSE I DON'T LOOK BUSY...I DID IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. |
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