1600- shell-shocked.

[Bayern]

Thanks for such detailed response

[Oldman]

Thanks for the great responses.

For the essays, create a template and stick to it every time. I cleared about 1000 words for each essay in the exam solely due to having a solid template in mind before I took the exam. Volume is one of the biggest components of the essays, so once you get your ideas just start writing. Also, read the paper every day until your exam. Try the New York Times or the Economist. This will help you with RC and thinking of ideas for your essays. Seriously, come up with a template and write it a few times until you have it memorized. Then, it's just a matter of filling in the details. Even if you are tempted, don't deviate from the template. The essay graders are not looking for a sensational news story, just to see if you can write a basic college level essay with good grammar. Also, if you're not 100% sure you know how to spell a word in the essays don't use it. Most academics correlate intelligence with spelling, so if your essay has silly spelling mistakes you risk a lower score.

For the verbal, I agree I created some crazy mnemonics to get those hard words. The thing is, vocab is best built over time. 2 weeks is going to be tough to get a score like geek goddess, but you can memorize the high frequency list in that time.



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[Oink]

whoa !! godlike score !! congos is definitely a gross understatement in this case !

[mystic87]

Thanks geek_goddess and Oldman for your invaluable responses!

I have been reading the New York Times, Scientific American and The Nation whenever I get a chance. I just picked up a book that e.kitten suggested about rapid reading yesterday and I've already started to improve my reading. Maybe its effect will be limited seeing my limited time but i would really suggest it to anyone who's up for improving their reading (whether it's for GRE, grad school, or for kicks) It's called "Break-Through Rapid Reading" by Peter Kump.

haha, geek_goddess you are right! I have been checking TM every day. all the updates goes to my mailbox, i can't help it.

Alright, here's a breakdown of my mistakes in Verbal:
SC - i stumble on the ones that are long and complicated (lots of twists in reasoning) and hard to simplify.
ANALOGY - words/ not strong enough bridges
AT - sometimes hard words or just careless
RC - a variety, but i'll just practice more i suppose. there are times when i can get good results..so i'll just have to find the trick.

As for my vocab, i've got the highest frequency words down cold. It's usually the very rare ones that trip me up. So i'm going through Baron's vocab to make up for that. We'll see how well that pans out.

So you think I should have one template down cold that works for me and use it on every essay? I never thought about it that way. So far i've just written whichever structure seemed to suite my points the best. That's a good suggestion though, it'll definitely cut down my work by half.

The essay has been a roller coaster ride for me. And i really reached the nadir yesterday when i tried the issue essay sample provided in ETS' 10th ed. Beacuse I'm not used to analyzing issues thoroughly, it takes much longer for me to organize my thoughts and put them down on paper. Sometimes, it just ends up being a jumble of ideas without a clear line of reasoning or a very weak one. Now i just feel almost at a loss of what to do. It seems to me that the Issue essay and Argument essay are in essence both testing how well you analyze and how persuasive and cogent you are in your arguments. Theonly difference being that you can take any position for the issue essay and an aggressive (to the point of attacking their weaknesses) for the argument essay. Another difference being that issue essay you should be more positive for your view and the argument essay more derogatory and critical of the promp's reasoning. Other than these two major differences, it really is testing the same thing isn't it?

Thanks guys for responding. I really do appreciate all your help!

[Oldman]

Yes, create a template. Princeton Review has some great tips on this. The template can be easily molded to any issue they give you. The advantage is you already have the structure in place, so all you have to do is fill in with your examples.

For the argument, the template can be even more ridgid as they use the exact same logical fallacies every time. Typically a hasty generalization from the results of a survey or study and a false analogy where they will attempt to imply that what happend to group A correlates to group B. They'll also throw some crazy circular reasoning or argument from silence into the case.

For the issue, you don't have to agree, just be objective. Also, don't disagree or agree based on your feelings, agree or disagree based on which ever side you have more examples for. All you're looking for is a score, so go with whatever side you can think of more examples for. I disagreed for my issue, but I also pointed out that there are valid points on both sides of the issue and brought up a few of the side I disagreed with to show I was being objective.


Geek Goddess:

Did you track your practice test results? I'm curious how your practice exams correlated with your actual score...did you find yourself acing all the practice exams you took after a while? Also, do you feel any of the practice matieral out there provides scores that are useful for predicting one's real GRE score? For example, I tend to do good on Kaplan exams but not on Barrons...did you find yourself acing all the practice exams you tooks or did you do better on some over others?

Thanks again for all your contributions!

[rajas]

congratulations!!!

It is wonderful.Good that u have decided to check ur score.

[econ_phd_2009]

awesome !!! i'm speechless...

congrats !!

[geek_goddess]

Ok, score card came yesterday. Exam was on the 14th of last month. I thought the score card would take longer.
Got 5.5 AW
I looked at the diagnostics. They were *not* pretty.

[Goldust]

1600, and the diagnostics were not pretty? They should be looking like a tulip field in full bloom !!! How many questions did you get wrong?

[fidel1985ad]

u r so much helpful. I have my gre on 8 sept. I am constantly getting 790-800 in various tests (including kaplan CAT-I 420(V)+790(Q)=1210) in quantitative section. You know my problem pls suggest some tricks(not in bad sense) to get atleast 700-750 in verbal section(if it is at all possible for me!!!!). I am not at all very strong in english. pls suggest how much days should I take to complete my rest 16 word lists!!Is twice revision is enough. i can remember 90% of the words after completing each new wordlist without faltering. if possible pls give me a daily routine. i am totally free now for preparing gre. Pls keep in touch GOLDDUST