zombiezparadize

ultimatevocabulary.com has 5 podcasts but not applications available for free.

@Luma: Yes, I am almost ready with my first draft of the SOP which I will soon send out for reviews. Thanks! @nimz: M.Math in U of Waterloo, (School of Computer Science) is my top choice. I have a decent scaled GPA (3.65) and will have about 3 yrs of work ex roughly in the area I want to do my Masters in (Network and Distributed Systems and my work ex is in Telcom), at the time of applying. But admission to Waterloo's program is very competitive and I am a little skeptical. I will try my best. Thanks a lot!

Before talking about the GRE, I will mention a little bit of the background. I finished my Engineering in 2006 and joined W****. Ever since, I got in, I wanted to get out and pursue my Masters and I have been thinking about taking the GRE for the last 3 years. I was too late for 2006 in making my decisions. I registered for the GRE in 2007 and at about the same time, I was given the opportunity to go to Israel on a work trip. I chose to go and cancelled my GRE. Then came 2008 and I had again registered to take the GRE in August and again I was given another opportunity to go to Canada for six months on a work trip. I chose to go again. The stay there and visit to universities and a first hand experience of the University culture motivated me to take the GRE as soon as I could. I returned in the end of February and registered for the GRE in March. When I did a few practice tests on Kaplan's online GRE courses (which I had access to, as my girlfriend used to be a faculty at Kaplan) I noticed that I was doing reasonably well with the Quant section and was messing up the verbal section. After going through some forums including this one I realized that Kaplan's material was not good enough and noted that Powerprep was the best indicator of what the GRE is all about. Well, information from the horse's mouth is always the best. I did a few practice exercises on Powerprep and identified a few weak areas. A long time ago, I had been introduced to the free practice tests on number2.com but I found them not as engaging as Powerprep, this time around. And with the amount of time I was able to put in, considering that I spend about 10 hrs a day in the office, the impossibility of mugging up words from Barron's was definitely a no-brainer. So I concentrated on the most frequent GRE words that I noted in taking tests on Kaplan and Powerprep. I have a had a decent hold over my vocabulary over the years but vocab is a weapon that needs constant sharpening. I also tried out this website called myGRETutor and found it pretty good. It has one free test and 10 sample questions from each topic under the two sections. I, however, bought the five tests for a meagre sum and took 4 of them before the GRE. I used to score between 580-610 in verbal and 760-800 in quant on the tests on this website. I also took two powerprep tests, one half heartedly where I was almost asleep and scored a 1250 and was totally stirred up and then I took the second test more attentively and scored 1350 the second time. (V-610, Q-740). On the day of the exam, I was confident about my Quant section and wanted to get at least over 760 if not a perfect score. The lack of practice killed me. After finishing the AWA section in which I thought I did farely well, (I have a background in writing - as a free lance reporter for a national daily when I was in college)I was faced with the Quant section when I was expecting the Verbal section. The questions initially were farely easy (comparisons of fractions, stuff like that) and as I ensured I was getting them right, I lost track of the time. The questions started getting lengthier, if not trickier. I always despised the tedious Data Interpretation questions. And they indeed were despicable! I somehow managed to hold my fort through and then the questions began to get a little tough. I got a question that required you to find the range of a function f(x) based on a graph that was plotted. I took some time to solve this one but I was able to do it correctly. In this way, I totally messed up the time and I was left with 5 questions in the last 1 minute. I should probably not have guessed to keep the score where it was but I was tempted and tried to make some educated gueses quickly. After finishing the section, I was devastated and thought, all my plans were ruined. I will have to take GRE again. NO! I was in panic mode into the second question on the quant section when it suddenly occured to me that I don't want to mess this section up as well. The quant questions (antonyms, analogies) were all that I had either seen in the frequently appearing GRE words' lists in Kaplan/Barron's or had faced them in the questions on Powerprep or mygretutor.com. I dreaded the RCs and I faced three of them. the first was 50 lines, the second was 110 lines and the third was 25 lines. And again I was running short of time. I had six minutes left when I finished answering the RC questions which were number 22. I was praying to not get any more RCs and there were none! I was able to respond to 29 questions and ran out of time before guessing the last one. With the amount of practice I had put in (about an hour and a half a day for one month), I didn't expect too much better. I did expect to do better in the quant section but for the verbal section I know I needed another month's practice to deserve a score over 700. And I don't think I have the patience to do that if not mandatorily required. (eventhough I got a good long lecture about how important it was for me to condition my body to take the test. Oh yes, that is a good advice. I'd recommend, if possible, try to take the test at the same time of the day when you're going to take the final GRE and practice, practice and practice!) I am applying to universities in Canada for a Masters in Comp Sc and I don't very well know the kind of score I'd require. If this is not enough then :idea:. Overall GRE score - Math - 770, Verbal - 610. AWA - Results awaited.