Pujols 05

skawal, your explanation is perfect! I'm so embarrassed I missed that one.

I wasn't able to follow the explanation given for this problem: y^2=x^2-1 and x is not equal to 0 A: y^4 B: x^4+1 Explanation is given that x^4+1>(x^4+1)-2x^2, which is y^4 I don't understand where the -2x^2 term comes from, could somebody please explain? As you can tell I'm not the sharpest tool in the math shed. Thanks!!! Ans is B

This is not a difficult RC, something like this could definitely show up on the GRE. I'm not sure that I agree with you that the GMAT has tougher RCs. The verbal section of the GRE is very demanding.

There is an updated thread on the first page that has a link to this. You have to load it from rapidshare or some site like that. With that being said, I really don't care for 3000RC. For some reason I am very untrusting of the passages and answers; it just doesn't seem like the sort of stuff I've seen on the real exam. I think the questions are way more ambiguous than most anything you will find on the actual GRE. But that's just me, it seems most people on here like it.

I should also mention the Kaplan Verbal Workbook. It is another book you can buy which is pretty good for RCs.

It looks like you already have two pretty good sources for practice on hand. I would also recommend trying your hand at as many questions on this forum as possible, because the tougher questions generally surface here. I have been reading an article a day from the New Yorker for my preparation as well, as this website seems to have material very similar to the types of passages found on the actual GRE. Scientific American is really good too, although I don't know if they have a web version with articles. Good luck. The RC component is, in my opinion, the hardest part of the verbal section.

I took the GRE last January, 2007. Long story short, I plan on taking it again, possibly at the end of March or early April. Is anybody aware if anything significant has happened since then? Is GRE still sending out the same PowerPrep material? In 2006/2007 I was using Barron's mostly, and I'm wondering if this book is still relevant or if I should dish out some money for a new 2008 GRE guide. What do you guys think? I'm posting this in the quantitative section because that's what I'm the most worried about, so if any of you have advice on quantitative guides please let me know. Thanks.

Thanks for your response; it was helpful. I should have thought about this problem a little more deeply before I posted.

I found this problem posted from way back in 2004: A guy throws a pair of dice. If the sum of the numbers on the dice is even, then the person tosses a coin. What is the probability of him getting a head? The answer is given as 1/4th. I understand where this comes from as posted by another user: http://www.www.urch.com/forums/gre-math/12400-probability-problem.html However, I'm still having some trouble. My thinking is, the possible sums of the dice are 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. So, there should be a probability of 6/11 for getting an even sum, in which case (6/11)*(1/2)=3/11 should be the probability of getting a head. My apologies for posting something that has already been covered. Please let me know where my thinking has gone astray. Thanks!

Get the Barron's guide and do the entire thing. That should bump you up to 1000+

That's a high score. I don't understand where the 'infuriated' comes in.

srh1177, That's a good question. I've given it a lot of thought, and I feel a very big reason that I did so poorly is because I didn't manage the time well, spent far too much time on a few early questions, and just generally sucked. My mind definitely wasn't at its sharpest. The night before the exam, I basically didn't sleep even an hour because of test anxiety. I have purchased the Nova GRE guide and plan to review only the math section of this. Haven't started yet, but this will hopefully get me back in shape for the quant when I take again in the next month or so. I'll probably focus a lot more on thinking very, very deeply about concepts this time rather than calculations. When I take the exam again, I'm not going to think nearly as much about strategies during the exam. I feel that overthinking really contributed to my poor performance last time. It's easy to do that if you read a hundred different suggestions on this forum and take them all seriously. Especially the advice about going extra slow during the first 10 or so problems. I did that and I believe I overthought the easy ones far too much. I can tell you when I took the Powerpreps and other exams, I worked at the same speed on all problems and guessed much, much more frequently and scored a crap load higher as a result. I attacked the real GRE quant much differently, and the results were a disaster. Now my confidence is completely blown, and that will be another component to overcome on the next exam. I tell you, I won't study nearly as much next time around as I did before. What I will do, hopefully, is return to the form I was in before taking the exam. Good luck on your next exam. Remember that the GRE is not the end all of an application.

srh1177, That's a good question. I've given it a lot of thought, and I feel a very big reason that I did so poorly is because I didn't manage the time well, spent far too much time on a few early questions, and just generally sucked. My mind definitely wasn't at its sharpest. The night before the exam, I basically didn't sleep even an hour because of test anxiety. I have purchased the Nova GRE guide and plan to review only the math section of this. Haven't started yet, but this will hopefully get me back in shape for the quant when I take again in the next month or so. I'll probably focus a lot more on thinking very, very deeply about concepts this time rather than calculations. When I take the exam again, I'm not going to think nearly as much about strategies during the exam. I feel that overthinking really contributed to my poor performance last time. It's easy to do that if you read a hundred different suggestions on this forum and take them all seriously. Especially the advice about going extra slow during the first 10 or so problems. I did that and I believe I overthought the easy ones far too much. I can tell you when I took the Powerpreps and other exams, I worked at the same speed on all problems and guessed much, much more frequently and scored a crap load higher as a result. I attacked the real GRE quant much differently, and the results were a disaster. Now my confidence is completely blown, and that will be another component to overcome on the next exam. I tell you, I won't study nearly as much next time around as I did before. What I will do, hopefully, is return to the form I was in before taking the exam. Good luck on your next exam. Remember that the GRE is not the end all of an application.

Susan, I share your concerns because I also scored poorly on the GRE (V 630, Q 520 AWA 6.0). My Powerprep scores were quite a bit higher (1300-1400), so anyone can have a bad day on test day. Read my post about my experience, I was completely dejected after the test, but I'm thinking a bit more clearly now and know that I must retake. The thing that sucks the most is knowing that I'll dish out another $130 to ETS (arrgghhh!!!). But, keep your chin up, I'm sure you will improve on your next test day.

I just got my scores back. Reported my scores incorrectly on original post. Verbal 630 (90 percentile), Quant 520 (30 percentile), AWA 6.0 (96 percentile). Alright, that quantitative score is a fluke, I am absolutely convinced. I will retake this exam. Doing poorly on the quant affected me in a very negative way when taking the verbal, so I think that score will improve. Anyone ever heard of someone going from 1150 to 1300? I'll give it a shot!