chuck in sc

NDure - I don't have firsthand experience with those materials so I can't speak to their quality. That said, prep is prep is prep. While some materials are surely better than others, anything that exposes you to lots of high level vocabulary and high school math problems is going to be helpful. In that vein I'd bet even an SAT prep book would help with the GRE :)

sbburnsi - The only practice tests I took were the PowerPrep ones and the free diagnostic one from P.Review. In all honesty, any practice exam you can get your hands on is good though. The more questions you are exposed to prior to the test, the better.

Hi Ian, Being in the same geographic region, I've actually spoken to a graduate admissions person in the CS dept there at Georgia Tech. My questions about admission were a little more speculative since CS was not my undergraduate major and he pointed out early on that the one non-CS person they admitted to the master's program recently was an academic wunderkind from Princeton. That said, I think what he told me about GRE scores is applicable to your situation. He said a low GRE score could keep someone out of the Georgia Tech master or doctorate programs but that beyond some minimum threshold, the number made no difference. I was told that if I were to hypothetically pursue an M.S.C.S. at another school and then apply to GT for a Ph.D, the #1 factor far and away would be research work. His position was that a decent GPA at even a 2nd or 3rd tier score, a merely not unacceptable GRE score and outstanding research achievements would get me further than a high GRE and a killer GPA. While anybody making an admission decision would certainly evaluate us very differently, I'd imagine they would still dial into your research achievements in the M.S. program. Best of luck with your plans. Please let me know how it turns out for you!

slashragnarok - That is the book I used. Specifically, the 2nd edition of The Princeton Review's Word Smart for the GRE by Anne Curtis. You can probably find a good deal on a used copy on Amazon as it is three years old. raggamuffin - Congratulations on your 1260. That is a very respectable score! A score like that falls squarely into the area where your GRE score will not be the reason an admissions department decides to turn you down. It is one more obstacle to achieving your dreams that you can check off the list. When it comes down to it, that's what we're all looking for :tup:. I found I was just the opposite as far as my energy level in the testing center. I had such a burst of adrenaline throughout the whole test that I can only even remember one of the questions; I can't remember how many reading passages I had, their length or their placement within the verbal section. The only reason I remember the one question is it was the closest to a guess I made the whole day and as I answered it I thought "Well if I've missed any, this is definitely one of them." The energy was very outwardly focused while I sat in the waiting room but the moment I sat down in the testing room it was like the world around me disappeared. Baseball pitchers describe a state of concentration, called being in the zone, where all the thousands of screaming fans simply seem to melt away; taking the test felt the same way for me. In a bit of a strange twist, I spent the couple of days immediately after the test depressed. My score is about 500 points higher than I needed and, truth be told, I simply don't have the undergraduate GPA to get into the kind of schools where a number like that would make a difference. It left me thinking how different life might have turned out if certain events hadn't happened in college, or if perhaps I had persevered through them a little better. Luckily, as the saying goes, every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around. I finally got the hard copy of my scores in the mail this past week. It has been a harrowing and strange couple of weeks. I checked the score page in the test center multiple times but as soon as I left the room I began to question if I had really seen what I thought I had. It's funny how you will start to question your own senses when you are confronted with something so singularly unexpected. I guess you could chalk the whole episode up to cognitive dissonance. As the moment became further and further removed, it became surprisingly easy to believe that in the flash of adrenaline I had misread it. It's a relief to have physical evidence that I can hold in my hand and look at whenever I please now. The whole experience was very paradoxical and just about the complete opposite of how I would have expected to feel upon earning a perfect score. I am a little embarrassed to report that I scored a 5.0 on the AWA which doesn't even put me in the top 10% of test takers. Going into the GRE I was confident that I would score "well enough" all around so I didn't even bother practicing with the writing. If I had known that I would top out the two main sections I would probably have written some practice essays just to try to make it a clean sweep. It was not meant to be I suppose. C'est la vie! Good luck to everybody still preparing for the test. I hope you score well enough to do whatever it is you need the GRE for. Just be forewarned, if you do too well you might just find yourself in the grips of an existential crisis :blush:

Pranjal: I think the best single source for reading comprehension questions is the PowerPrep software. All in all I found that material to most closely match that on the actual GRE. The PowerPrep software also seemed to give a more accurate score than the free practice tests from the test prep companies. This makes plenty of sense when you realize that said free tests are actually marketing materials, and that the companies have an economic incentive to make you think your score will be lower than it is. For what its worth, my practice test scores: Princeton Review online: 650V, 700Q PowerPrep #1: 740V, 800Q On an only tangentially related note, I just listened to an interesting audiobook that worked in quite a few GRE-level vocabulary words. If anybody is looking for an edifying break from GRE study, I'd recommend finding a copy of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. A great listen, to be sure. The vocabulary is high level, the subject matter (everything, and how it got here) is fascinating, and it will keep those neurons firing :D

Pranjal - I am sorry I can't be more helpful than to suggest the Word Smart book. It was literally the only vocabulary list I used to get ready for the GRE. As I said in my post above, my first time through the book I found I already knew 7 or 8 of every 10 words in it. The words I didn't know tended to fall into a category that I would term English Language Trivia. In a quarter of a century reading, writing and speaking the English language voraciously, I have never encountered them in writing or in speech. They are simply too esoteric for most people to bother with. Words like inveigh or inveigle are neat to know but using them in speech with anybody not studying for the GRE just ensures that you will fail to make yourself understood. In this way, knowing and using them actually hinders communication. Unfortunately, it is this English trivia that the GRE uses to differentiate among high scorers on the GRE. Ultimately, memorization of lists can only take you so far. The Word Smart book had many hundreds of words in it - I would estimate it on the order of 700. If 300 of those words are new to you, trying to memorize their definitions from a word list in a rote fashion is going to take a whole lot of time and might not even be optimal. Here's a thought I considered though didn't try. When you find a word in a word list that you don't know, look it up online. Don't look for the definition of the word; try to find it being used instead. I tried googling inveigle. The top 20 results are all entries from online dictionaries. Changing the search to include only books returns an interesting usage. It is an English translation of The Works of Horace. The word inveigle appears thusly: I know that this little tidbit will stick with me far better than a single six word definition among 300. Just a thought! :-)

trinitys - Sorry, I don't remember any specific questions. I was focused on solving them, not storing them away in my brain for posterity. raggamuffin - I think your strategy of solving quant problems until you are blue in the face will give you the best return for your time in terms of score. That said, I think the common thread among people who score highly on the Quantitative section of the GRE is that they have taken lots of math classes beyond the level of the math presented by the GRE. It isn't because the advanced math classes are focused on making you especially good at the same old high school math - it is that they develop a general mathematical intuition. The class with the most payoff in that regard for me was Calculus I. While taking a semester long calculus course for the sole purpose of improving your GRE score doesn't make sense, maybe you can work on your mathematical intuition in other ways. Try graphing equations by hand, and then just mentally; learn the various shortcuts for checking divisibility; avoid using a calculator for anything, ever! One idea that helped me develop my mathematical intuition aside from advanced coursework was to turn math into a game. Ever since I can remember, I've done things like trying to turn the numbers on a digital clock into an equation. 12:34, for instance: 3x4 = 12. 12:35: 3x2 - 1 = 5; 12:36: 1x2x3 = 6 or 6 -3 = 1 + 2,etc,etc. On and on and on. This is not something I started doing a week before the test - this is something I've done my whole life. Learn to multiply big numbers by decomposing them into easier numbers. With 22*21, for example, I would mentally break it down as the following: 22 * (20 + 1) = 22 * 20 + 22 * 1 = (2 * 20) + (20 * 20) + (22 * 1) = 40 + 400 + 22 = 462. You won't be solving multiplication problems this way on the GRE but being able to do this quickly and correctly greases the right gears in your brain, so to speak. Short version: keep doing what you are doing - it will give you the best return in terms of score versus time spent. Also, consider learning more math or even taking a higher level math class just for the heck of it.

I wanted to take a moment to address the questions on how I studied. This was a central part of my big initial post that demoralizingly vanished into thin air the day before last; I've finally worked up the verve to give it another go. My study materials: - Princeton Review's Word Smart for the GRE, 2nd Edition - Princeton Review's 1,014 GRE Practice Questions - ETS' PowerPrep I used exclusively Princeton Review materials in my preparation. Please don't feel you need to go buy the same books. This is not an endorsement of their materials over any other company's - these just happened to be the books I found when I went shopping that fit my needs. The key is to get your hands on lots and lots of practice questions, and then to work them. Pay attention to the types of problems you miss most often and then seek additional practice on those. It doesn't particularly matter who produces those materials. My sole criterion in choosing materials was that I wanted lots of practice questions without any of the "this is how you take a test" frills that test prep services like to hawk as a value-add. I hold most such services in low esteem because they focus on teaching you a "one, single, proven method" and beating you over the head with it until you feel you have gleaned some great insight worth the princely sum you handed over. To be honest, the free PowerPrep software was the single most useful piece of my preparation. The 1,014 GRE Practice Questions book was HORRENDOUSLY rife with errors. Let me put it this way: I did not work every quantitative section in the book, but every section I did work had fundamental mistakes. The short answer key often did not match the answer indicated in the explanations section; the explanations for problems sometime did not even refer to the right question in the preceding section. A new edition of the book is due out next July and I hope for Princeton Review's sake it is of higher quality. Thankfully, the Word Smart book was of good quality and I can comfortably recommend it. My preparation routine was a tale of two sections: the quant section, which I in large part ignored, and the verbal section, which I absolutely went overboard for. My decision to proceed in this fashion had several motivating factors: the relative trickiness of a tricky vocab question and a tricky quant question; the story told by the score distribution percentiles; and, in small part, the utter frustration of having to check every "wrong" math answer in the P.R. book to make sure it was I and not the publisher who was mistaken. You may laugh at this notion but I assure you, it happened at least once every ten or twenty questions. Quantitative preparation consisted of a dozen practice problems, one or two times a week. Having taken more math than the average bear in college, I was confident that I could ace the subject matter; the practice was intended to shake loose the mathematical cobwebs that had been gathering steadily since I finished college. I've seen it posted here that anybody willing to devote the requisite amount of time can become proficient at math. I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. While my math prep bordered on deficient, my verbal prep was conducted zealously. I worked entirely from the GRE Word Smart book I mentioned above. I bought a Kaplan vocabulary book as well but I preferred the ordering of the PR Word Smart book, which was alphabetical and formatted more like a dictionary than a series of notecards. A previous poster alluded to his suspicion that I probably came into this whole ordeal with an above average vocabulary. At the risk of coming off as arrogant, I would agree with that assessment. I am a native English speaker but, more importantly, I have always been a voracious reader. The number one determinant of my score was my lifelong love of reading. That said, I am sure I did see a score increase from my efforts, and I am fairly certain I would not have done as well had I not studied so much. The lifelong reading habit might have gotten me within 50 or 100 points of an 800 but focused study and a solid dose of luck carried me the rest of the way. The first thing I did was to write every word and definition from the Word Smart book on a pad of legal paper. This cost me several days' time. I would estimate that I already knew 7 of every 10 words in the book the first time through but the process was valuable nonetheless. Writing a piece of information you have read activates more parts of your brain than reading alone; there are studies that show this enhances recall. Also, while you may feel comfortable with a word when you see it next to its definition or in context, the paucity of information given on antonym and analogy question types is a whole 'nother beast. My next step is where I might have gone a little overboard. (You thought writing 700 some words was going overboard? HA!) I wrote a simple data entry utility in Python that I then used to input all the word/definition pairs from the Word Smart book. I type quicker than I write; I would estimate I spent 10 or 12 hours on this data entry. I then wrote a second small utility program that would access this information and generate a multiple choice question about the meaning of the word. The program would present me with a randomly selected word, its definition, and three random definitions. It would put the word on a list if I got it wrong and ask me about it more often in that case. I would try to do 20 or 30 words a day this way, with at least 100 on designated study days. The triple whammy of reading all of the words, writing all of the words and then typing all of the words itself did a lot to cement my knowledge. The vocab program was useful, though probably no more so than flashcards. The upside was that I didn't need to carry 700+ flashcards and that it was topical work (since I am looking to study computer science in graduate school). Since I don't have permission to distribute either Princeton Review content or the Microsoft DLLs I generated when I compiled the program from python to an executable, I am unable to pass this on. That pretty well sums up my prep. I clearly did not spend as much time as is evinced in the accounts of some other test takers but the time I did take helped me. I feel that of the 58 questions on the GRE, four of my correct answers can be attributed to studying. Ultimately, my score came down to a healthy helping of luck as well. An educated guess between the meaning of the words frangible and nugatory comes to mind, specifically. If there is anything I have not addressed in this post, please feel free to ask. I'm cheering for everybody else out there. Don't worry that we may be competing for the same grad school spots; I've only applied to one program at one school in close to geographic proximity to me. Even if we were going head to head for a spot, there is a GREAT chance you would beat me: I have a 3.0 undergrad GPA and I am looking to pursue a discipline other than the one I earned a bachelor's in. My employer has offered to pay tuition and allow me to continue drawing a salary while I attend grad school in exchange for a part time commitment. When you combine part time attendance with the undergrad prereqs I will have to take before I can even start my grad work, I am looking at 4.5 years for a master's degree. It just goes to show, everybody has their problems - don't let a number so meaningless as a standardized test score get you too down! Warm Regards, Chuck in SC

My background, briefly: I didn't come into the GRE gunning for a 1600. I've always done well on standardized tests, but I saw 1600 for the white whale it really is. I didn't even consider it a possibility, even after a 1560 (V: 760, Q: 800) on the first PowerPrep test. My initial goal scorewise was to match or best my performance on the SAT; I earned a 1470 (V: 760, Q:710) on the SAT in 2003 without any sort of test prep, so I was comfortable that I could at least reach this goal.

I took time from work during lulls to write a nice post full of advice over the course of the past several hours. Unfortunately, I was logged out from the site due to inactivity and my carefully crafted post is now lost forever. It was Pulitzer prize worthy; I could-a been a contend-a! While I am dismayed with all the time I just wasted, I'm happy to answer any questions other posters may have of my score or how I prepared. Cheers, chuck in sc