mattie

Oh cool, how'd you manage that? The school website showed your scores? You haven't gotten them in the mail yet either, have you? My account is showing they were sent to the schools on December 10, so I'm wondering if that's when they would have been mailed to me as well. Then again, I never got a Powerprep CD or confirmation or anything else in the mail after I registered, so I hope there's not a problem with my address.

You're welcome! This is what I mean by the GRE book: Amazon.com: GRE: Practicing to Take the General Test 10th Edition (Practicing to Take the Gre General Test) (9780886852122): Educational Testing Service: Books It's the only in-print ETS publication on the GRE. It's my understanding that it's very similar to the now out-of-print Big Book. I can definitely see it being more useful for verbal than math, but when using it I was focusing primarily on the quant sections, so I can't say for sure. (FWIW, my scores on the two verbal tests I took from there were 700 and 800, which average out to just about exactly my real score.) And ha, you're probably right about overthinking the reading comprehension bits!

Nothing beats the ETS Powerprep software to give you an accurate feel for the questions. I used both Princeton and Barron's to study and there were still things in the ETS quant questions that hadn't been covered by either book. Plus you learn the kinds of tricks and problem solving methods ETS wants you to use. In addition to the two practice tests, there are several sets of practice quant questions, which I found very useful, and which shouldn't be missed. Word lists: I was already scoring high here on the practice tests, so I didn't spend as much time on it, but I did make a point of writing down and looking up every word I came across in every practice test that I wasn't solid on the definition of (even if they weren't in the question, or weren't the correct answer). For the word list I assembled over time (from both published word lists & tests), I made flashcards that included the words used in sentences -- to find those sentences, I searched Google News for each word, to find it being used in context! This is the best way for me to stick the word into my memory; nothing sucks more than getting a word you know you've studied, but you can't remember the meaning. Practice pacing! Also be very familiar with the need to be slower and more careful on the earlier questions, since they affect your score so strongly. The Princeton Review book even has a handy chart that shows how many questions you should do per 15 minutes of the test based on your target score (including 800s). DON'T waste your time on the GRE's published book of tests -- all the tests are 20+ years old and the types of quant questions are way too easy and don't include a lot of more recent things like stats, graphing, etc. Total waste of money and hours. I think what tripped me up on the verbal section was a couple of uber tough reading comprehension questions nearish the end. There were at least two questions where I could CLEARLY make the case for more than one answer being correct, so that was frustrating (especially since I was an English major!). I'm not really sure how to study for that besides saying prepare for the need to discern nuance. I ended up with a 1550 (790Q, 760V) (a huge, pleasant surprise!), so good luck. :)

If it's a matter of the scores only missing the deadline by a few days, I'd say go ahead and apply anyway. Obviously every admissions department is different, but I've worked in an Ivy League grad school admissions office, and we definitely kept adding scores for at least a few days after the official deadline, understanding the vagaries of ETS.

The ETS site says scores are posted online 10-15 days after the exam: I'm wondering how many days it took 'til yours showed up. (I took my test December 1st, and it's the 14th now, so I know I'm just being antsy, but I'm also curious about the average.)

You don't get credit for the question if it's not answered or confirmed, and an incomplete question counts against your score. If you're out of time, it's definitely best to make an educated guess on the last few questions, since getting them wrong generally won't hurt your score as much as leaving them blank. The questions at the beginning of the test count much much more to your score than those at the end.

It's probably just updated with newer test info. Of the two, I'm sure it's better to have the more recent one, like you do.

I had the same situation yesterday, in the US. I was unbelievably relieved not to have two quant sections, status unknown -- although I was a little nervous after reading this post. Luckily it all seemed to work out fine.

Just wanted to say thanks so much for this post! It was incredibly encouraging (and funny) when I was in the depths of pre-test despair.