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punstress

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  • My Target Scores
    790V, 790Q 3/26/10

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  1. Funnily enough, I got a job scoring essays for elementary school and they're also on a 1-6 scale. Obviously a different type of test but more applicable than you might think. I have to keep a lot of details confidential, but what I can say is LENGTH is incredibly important. You've got to sufficiently develop your ideas. Stay away from formulaic, predictable responses if you want a high score; you can't get higher than a 4 that way. (Here is my theme, first this, then that, then that, and in conclusion...) It's got to flow like a story, it's got to hold interest. Don't be afraid to use humor, quotes, whatever. Make your essay stand out! The best thing you can probably do is read a lot of professionally written and edited essays. P.S. I only got a 4 on my AWA but that was before I learned to score essays.
  2. Whatever happened with the appeal? It sounds like something really screwed up.
  3. First let me say that I am one of those people who do well on standardized tests. I work fast and maintain superfocus. Some people plod through, trying to be so careful, and I think they get bogged down. I also have a strong background in both math and English, so ... your mileage may vary. Books, I recommend the Kaplan deluxe GRE book with access to their online tests and training. I was able to take a free diagnostic test too through a university. Don't bother paying for a course though. But Kaplan is really the king. I also looked at Crack the GRE but I found their main advice was to plug in the answers in the math section. Kaplan says that, too, but it's NOT enough. You are also scored on speed, so you can't waste too much time. You have to be able to look at the problem, know what's being tested, and the answer will pop out many times. (I did like the strategy to start plugging answers in the middle for certain types of questions; then if the first one doesn't work you can tell whether to try a higher or lower number so you plug in fewer numbers.) Verbally, I have a strong vocabulary already but a lot of words I only know in context. Seeing them alone I don't know the meaning exactly enough to pick an antonym. So I (1) printed out the 4 pages of vocab words on Kaplan's site, signed up for two word-of-the-day lists (Merriam Webster and Dictionary.com, I believe), and looked up every unfamiliar word for about 2 months before the tests. I had people quiz me but they had worse vocabularies than I and they couldn't even pronounce anything so it didn't help a lot. ALWAYS read the derivation (etymology). ALWAYS look at alternate meanings. TRY to learn words in groups of similar meaning (for example, words that mean "criticize"). I have a computer dictionary (Webster's New World) that has a synonym study feature, so for some words it will explain subtle differences between similar words. TRY to find the words illustrated another way, not just a definition or one sentence. For example I found a piece of art with "Calumny" in the title and I studied that painting! I really hate the reading comprehension questions. I feel like they want me to read their mind. Also having to stop and read slows me down; I need to zip, zip, zip!! I found a lot of practice questions were poorly worded but on the real test it wasn't so bad. The exceptions were in the experimental section. I think one had to be 3,000 words long; I hated it. But I knew it was experimental so I just skipped through it. For math, I focused on the things that seem important to GRE but I never really spent much time on in school. Probability and combinations, inequalities, basic geometry I'd forgotten, and sequences and series, to name a few. Know everything in the official GRE math prep materials: they flat out tell you what is on the test. Get to be really facile with exponents and roots. Of course you should know your multiplication tables, prime numbers, perfect squares, etc., as high as you can. Especially know the powers of 2 and 10 ... you should not have to figure what 2 ^ 5 is and how many zeros 10 ^ 8 has. Practice a lot. Take as many tests as you can and go over the questions you miss. I used all the official Powerprep materials and booklets. If you're really pressed for time, don't even take the test; just look at the section that explains how they got the answer. Also don't get discouraged with your scores on the practice tests. The real computer adaptive test is so different. I actually saw my raw score and although I only got one verbal question wrong, I got quite a few math questions wrong (and still scored 790). I even guessed at the last math one due to time. I think they didn't hurt my score because they were all 5 difficulty (they told me the difficulty). But had that been a paper test it would have scored me much lower. I was scoring low and mid-700s in most of my practices, sometimes as low as 690, and I was very discouraged! Luckily it made me study a little harder. If you go to the test and it immediately gets extremely difficult, that's a good thing! You are getting questions right.
  4. Sign up for a word-of-the-day list. Look up every unfamiliar word. Always, always read the derivation and understand it. I wouldn't even use a dictionary that didn't include etymology; it's a waste of time. Learning is about making a connection. If I tell you X means Y, you don't remember it unless you can connect it to something else. Some people use mnemonic devices such as making pictures out of the sounds of the words; personally I will only do this as a last resort as I prefer to know the derivation. However, sometimes even that fails, especially for words where the derivation comes from a person's name (e.g., martinet) or the meaning has actually become opposite to its original intent. See if there are other connections you can make. I couldn't remember "calumny" until I saw a very detailed artwork The Calumny of Appelles. So look for the word used in context, the more vividly the better. Also, learn words in groups of synonyms. For example: words that mean "criticize," words that mean "praise," words that mean "stubborn." Also, I get confused by words that sound similar but are often completely unrelated. For example: incipient, insipid, and insidious. I made sure I drilled these into my head.
  5. Took the GRE 10 years ago (when they had an analytical section of logic puzzles) and got 770V, 770Q, 790A. Since I had scored best in analytical, I was mad that they took it away! I didn't go to grad school then though and had to retake it. I learned the first time how the questions get hard and stay hard if you're scoring well. Therefore, the second time around, I only studied intermediate and advanced questions. It produced the opposite effect: everything seemed much easier this time. I actually would have preferred more of a challenge. I used a variety of practice exams and study books, plus signed up for a number of word-of-the-day mailing lists. I always checked the explanation of any I got wrong *immediately* so it would stick in my mind. Since I had now been 15 years out of my last math class, I had to review almost everything, but especially combinations and permutations, basic trig and geometry, etc. First thing I did was write on my scratch paper OxO=O, OxE=E, ExE=E and O+O=E, O+E=O, E+E=E. It's supereasy to figure out what happens when odds mix with evens but it's even easier to use a cheat sheet and save even a second of thought. And you know ETS is obsessed with whether numbers are odd or even. My goal was to at least get the score I'd gotten last time, and I was shocked and thrilled to see I'd surpassed it. Again, this test seemed much easier, even though I ran out of time on the last quant question and had to guess. I'm usually a quick test-taker so that never happens to me, but I guess I'm slowing down in my old age. I'm pretty sure the last section was the experimental (verbal), because if it wasn't I would have bombed. By then my brain was mush, and the questions just seemed clunkier. The reading passages were crazy long. I guessed a lot, unwilling to take the time to unravel a poorly worded question. Even though it's [this] close to a perfect score, which would have been so much more fun to get, I'm very satisfied with my scores. Now I just have to wait for my writing score. Please note: I didn't spend one thin dime on a class or even a book. I used the Power Prep, library books, some free online stuff I found, and took a free diagnostic test from Kaplan. You don't have to spend money to score high! :grad:
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