Goldust

Congrats SHREKAPS! At least you managed to slay the monster of Quants. I agree with Luma that you don't really need to reappear for the GRE, and also that the TOEFL score cannot offset your GRE Verbal score. However, if you get a good AWA score, it can compensate for a low Verbal score to some extent.

Well, thanks for the uplifting comments. You are right that practice, practice, practice is the key to success. As for your specific queries... 1. I remember answering such a query earlier. I know it's pretty hard trying to solve 38 Verbal questions in 30 minutes. You must remember though that the number of questions per RC in BB is higher than that on the GRE. This means that (theoretically) you should be able to answer a few questions quicker. I think that if you are able to answer 30/38 questions in 30 minutes, you should be fine. If you can do a bit more, even better, because you will have at least 1 more RC on the real thing. As for getting questions wrong, since you don't have a specific weak area, the only way you can improve is to figure out what errors you are making and learn from them. See if you can find out the reasoning for the correct answer and where you went wrong. Oh, and one last thing, taking the tests on paper makes some people go faster and some slower. So, if you feel you are getting distracted by other questions on the paper or something, then you just might be working at the right speed for the CBT. 2. A good stopwatch. :D . But seriously, good Quants CBTs are difficult to come by. You can try the 800score.com sample tests, but I found the Quants to be too difficult in there. You can also work through Nova and the ETS Math Review. I don't recommend the Nova CD, but you could always solve the tests on paper with the aforementioned good stopwatch. :) 3. I was always an above-average essay writer. The only hitch was that I hadn't written a proper essay in nearly 5 years before the GRE. So, I think I practised around 13 topics from the GRE pool. The good thing was that I was able to judge how well I had written during practice. Too bad this ability deserted me during the actual thing, and I was left worrying for nearly a month waiting to find out my AWA score. You might want to go through Nova for some decent essay-writing tips. Other than that, it's your ability and practice that will help you. So, that's that. Anyone else is welcome to share their tips too.

Depends on your background. If you are really good at mathematics, go with Big Book to polish your Verbal skills. If you feel that you need to practise Quants and Verbal, go for Barron's. If you are really good at Verbal, go for Nova.

Sure. 20,000 = 5*4000 = 5*5*800 = 5*5*5*160 = 5*5*5*5*32 = 5^4*2^5 Now, 5^2 i.e. 5^4*5^2 i.e. 5^6 Therefore, k = 6.

Nah, don't bother buying the tests from 800score. They are not worth it. If you just go through the free sample tests, it should be good enough. It is a good thing that you know where you are messing up in Quants. You just need to figure out why it is happening. Do you tend to spend too much time at the beginning of the section? Are there certain types of questions that take an inordinate amount of time to solve? If you know why you are unable to manage time, you can take steps to remedy the problem. As a rough guide, spend 18 minutes for the first 10 questions, 15 for the next 10 and 12 for the last 8. Of course, this model works only if all the questions are of equal difficulty. As this is not the case in the GRE, you will need to spend more time in some questions and less in some. Over the next few days, try and tailor your time-management strategy to your problem-solving abilities. Good luck!

No idea about McGraw-Hill. Princeton is a bit below average. Kaplan and PP are pretty good. You might want to try Barron's or Nova, but both of them contain questions from the books.

If you are referring to the GRE Bible (Gre Bible - Pellucid Learning Systems.Download Free Gre Study KIts Practice tests, Vocabulary, Essays Download, Free Gre Material, Vocabulary Word lists) that I used, then it is totally not worth your money. The questions are just too confusing. A lot of the graphs are flawed and the verbal section contains some absurd answers too. 800score is much better than this. You might want to practice with GRE Nova if you have the time.

On your application package, usually your full name (with surname underlined) ,date of birth and program applied to are sufficient. If the college uses an external service like applyyourself or Embark for application procedures, then you do not need to include your application number. If the college has its own internal application system, then you can include the application number.

Some colleges offer to mail the I20 by a courier service like DHL, FedEx or UPS. They will usually ask you for your credit card number and charge you for it. Contact the college for the exact procedure.

Yes, you have to know the schools you want to apply to. Once you see your scores after completing the test, you can select up to 4 schools to send your scores to - the cost of which is included in your test fee. If you don't want to send your scores now, that's fine. You can choose not to send your scores to any school. What I suggest however is that you first see your scores, and then send your scores to four schools you might want to apply to. If you apply to these schools later, well and good. If you don't, nothing has been lost.

Sure, you can use any of the letters that you have from a year ago. However, I do think that it would be better if you could get one LOR from someone who has worked with you in the past year. Say, if you are working right now, try getting a letter from your employer.

Well, thanks for the compliments. You are doing a great job too on these forums. We really need more members like you. As for your query, I always read the whole passage at my normal reading speed. Not too slow, trying to memorize every little detail, nor too fast so that I don't know where the details are. I read in a way so that when I finished, I knew what was discussed in each paragraph, including what details each passage covered. So, when a question asked me for something specific, I knew immediately where to look. So, I guess that I read fast enough to know the general idea of the passage as well as to know where to look for specific details. Sometimes, I did encounter the sort of sentences you mention. In those cases, I just slowed down and re-read the sentence. Usually, I understood it on the second read. If I did not, I would move on and try to guess its meaning from the sentences in context. I was hardly ever short for time with this sort of strategy.

Here's the picture for those who cannot access it. http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/4001/46819877.png

Please go through the forums before posting queries. There are excellent how-to's in the main GRE forum. Your prep material seems fine. Be sure to include the Powerprep software in your prep. It is up to you to put in some serious effort and use the material to get the score you want. Asking for links to copyrighted material on these forums is an infringement of the forum rules.

If you are getting 740 on just Kaplan, you are in OK shape. I always found Kaplan to be a bit tough. However, I think that you are worrying too much. Sure, you might get parabolas and percentiles on the actual GRE, but for the most part the syllabus will be from what is contained in the prep books you have mentioned. And of course, it's possible to get 800Q even after messing up five questions. It happened to geek_goddess (a member on these forums) about a year ago. You can look up parabolas and distributions in any high-school level math textbook if you want to feel comfortable with the topics. You might also want to go through the ETS Math Review which is included with PP. Good luck!