Razyus

Right, start with the power. We know that absolute value of 3x is larger than 3x+1 (x is negative). But we know that as x is a negative integer both 3x and 3x+1 must be negative. So now, we have -x to be raised to that power. -x must be positive. So it is A^(-B) or A^(-C) where A, B and C are positive. If B>C we know that A^(-B) will be smaller 1/(A^B) or 1/(A^C). So the answer is B is greater. Think about it like this, x is negative so you can essentially strip the minuses out of the first part and compare x^(-3x) and x^(1-3x) which is bigger x/3x or 1/3x

I borrowed what I could from a library- 2,3,5,7,8

So I'm done with my GRE-I thought I'd offer some advice on how I chose to prepare. First of all, I'm pretty capable. I'm not trying to come across as egotistical, but I went to an extremely well regarded university for my undergraduate degree and have done pretty well in school throughout my life. That's why I didn't think I needed 3 months of 8 hour days to prepare. It's easy to say this when English is my first language and I'm well read, but that much preparation is crazy-I honestly don't think you help yourself by trying to prepare that way. I probably did an average of maybe 4 hours a day for just over a month. During this time I was holding down my job so it fluctuated. I'd get up at just after six (or five if it was one of the two days during the week were I ran 10k) and work for about an hour before getting the bus to work. I'd get the bus for an hour and work as much as possible on the bus, then do the same thing on the way home and work for an hour after dinner. This wasn't possible every day and certain things got in the way so I'd try to do a fair bit at the weekend. How did I prepare: I actually started about 7 weeks ago, writing my own flashcards of the Barron's wordlist while watching TV or doing something. This was a waste of time-as many people have pointed out, find some flashcards online. Also isolate words you don't know. There were a lot of words I knew on that list that I didn't need to spend time doing. For the first couple of days I spent a couple of hours memorizing flashcards and went through the ETS maths review and tried to do all the questions . I got a reasonable amount right, but I did get some wrong (particularly in some problem areas). I then went through the math question types in the Barron's 12th Edition (I got it for free). After about 5 days I did the Barron's 12th Diagnostic Test-I scored about 690V-690Q. I was pretty pissed off with myself, as far as I was concerned this wasn't good enough. Next, I tried to finish of as much of the Barron's book as I could in a couple of days- I didn't really pay a huge amount of attention to a lot of the tricks (particularly for Verbal) because a lot of them are pretty obvious, but the pointers can be pretty good. Having finished everything in the Barron's book other than the sample tests I moved onto the ETS book. I went through everything in the official guide in about a week. I even reread through the whole maths review (and did some of the questions from it). During this time I wrote some sample essays and finished of the Barron's stuff. I did a Barron's test (not really paying attention to the a is to b section of verbal and not doing the analysis). In terms of timing, I had time left over when I'd do a test, but not a huge amount. I did my first paper based test from the ETS book at the end of this (about 10 days in). From memory I scored Q161 and V163. At this point I was all "Yeah, that's more like it you smart son of a gun"-like I said, I'm modest. At this point I had a busy week of work and real life so I got a bit behind. I then worked through the rest of the Barron's sample tests noticing that I was getting quicker and better. I did these not really under exam conditions (as in if I had to stop to get the bus etc.) and didn't try to double check my work. I started to notice the sort of mistakes I was making that were quite simple. As in I'd keep forgetting to pay attention to negative cases if x^5 etc. At the end of that week I did my second paper test from the ETS guide (afterwards I'd planned on doing powerprep really quick, but sort of forgot about doing that). In this one I scored Q163 and V167. At this point I was about 3 weeks out from taking the test and a bit stumped. As far as I could tell, that was pretty good, but I really wanted to hit above 90th percentile on Quantative. The rest of it is pretty simple. I worked through all the questions I could, I worked through the manhattan guides. I began by trying to read the hints and tips, but quickly decided that this was pointless and then just did all the problems I could. I didn't look up solutions, I just kept doing it. This whole process took about a week. What I can say on its usefulness is this: Manhattan write their questions in a different way, it isn't entirely different, but it doesn't feel like an ETS problem-after a couple of hundred you'll know what I mean. The other thing is, the designated hard questions in the manhattan section-often are. That's a good thing, I found that they were usually harder than anything on the actual ETS paper (except that ETS sets weird questions that just make absolutely no sense sometimes-or require you to think about it in weird ways like the Octagon Powerprep II question). I also did all of the verbal stuff in manhattan-I only glanced at their word list, but I'd say it is probably better than the Barron's one, in that the words in Barron's are either obvious or incredibly inaccessible. Manhattan's words were also more accessible. They also have a list of common phrases-again I didn't really look at this in any detail, but I'd imagine it would be really helpful if you struggle with English. That took me to about a week and a half out from my exam. I planned a couple of essay questions and did one or two, but I really didn't focus on AWA throughout the process. I borrowed the NOVA prep book from a friend and worked through their diagnostic stuff and general maths questions in the big topics (but not every single problem set because I was confident I knew how to do all of the basic skills stuff and they were still testing it in other areas). I did a lot of the verbal stuff here as well, but again the main problem sets. At this point I knew what I knew, I'd identified a couple of areas earlier on where I was struggling (particularly permutations and particular style of reading comprehension where it wants you to asses the purpose or the author's stance). Finally I did some problem sets from the Maths for Standardised tests for Dummies (this wasn't hugely useful to be honest, but it was easy to get hold of). I then (about 6 days before my exam) did the two Powerprep tests. I got 167V 163Q on the first one and 165V 162Q on the second one. However, two important things-these were much easier than my exam was today (the final three sections QVQ actually got pretty tricky) and I didn't use all of the time. I could do 40 questions in the time limits they give you, no sweat, possibly more. I didn't aim for speed, but I found that I got a lot lot faster. And I got a lot quicker at making sure I was identifying the right point in the question. With my last couple of days I was busy at work again so I tried to fit in a few of the papers from the Big book (averaging about one a day at home and on public transport), these were a bit hit and miss if I'm honest). Then on the day before I read through the maths review, went for a run, looked at some argument and issue prompts plus read through my notecards, but not wasting time on words I knew. Then I watched some TV and made sure I got a good sleep. The testing centre was weird, but that's life. Hope that helps someone, any questions?

The question tells you that 100 is the maximum score (from the example with 90 and 95). So you know that A=100-W where W is the number they got wrong. Under the new system A* would be 100-W/2. Right? So Rearranging the first equation for W gives W=100-A and substituting gives: A*=100-(100-A)/2=100-50+A/2=50+A/2

I imagine nobody has replied because it can be quite difficult to help. Most of us would just say: read through some books, do a lot of practice, highlight your weak areas, read a variety of different sources (especially if English isn't a language you are hugely comfortable with) and try and come up with a plan. You've avoided getting the same thing ad nauseam, but you've not got much help. Have you tried to diagnose the problem areas? How exactly have you prepared so far? A bit more information would go a long way to helping you.

For the first question the key is the although which implies the meaning should be the opposite of precise. Symbolic doesn't really have any connotations of precision- it is far more figurative. Interplay is the noun for when two things have an effect on each other. That isn't really appropriate here as there are two competing schools who may advocate their individual.

Acknowledge: Accept or admit the existence or truth of. Whereas construe is synonymous with interpret. The important distinction is the element of fact. To acknowledge something generally involves the acknowledge being true, whereas to construe something doesn't. You can construe that because I only have one post I don't know what I'm talking about, whereas you could acknowledge that the post count is irrelevant because I'm right. We know that the vanquished are creating narratives for their own defeat and one might expect them to look for some sort of excuse. The use of spurious advantage is the real key though. Spurious is fake or invalid (particularly when applied to logic). They may acknowledge that the victors had an advantage, but they wouldn't acknowledge a spurious advantage. It's a case of a GRE answer where it is almost right and, if there were no other options, would make do-but it's a little off. Construe, however, implies that this may be some sort of misapprehension and supports the notion that the advantage is irrelevant (or false). I hope that clears it up. I'd go with Forgery; Ballooned; Discrepancy. I'm not going to explain this in order though. For the second blank, if prices had blanked so much in the 1990s that it might fetch a hundred times then you can eliminate weakened. Furthermore, the opening sentence describes it as non-trivial. It would be very difficult to support this if prices varied. The 'might' is a false clue because it draws the reader to varies, but (again) it would be difficult to exploit a varying price for profit. If it ballooned, the non-triviality and profit makes sense and it fits with the sentence. Given that you know blank II, you don't have any extra information regarding blank I. All three could theoretically explain the price changes, but if you look at blank III you can see that if someone took advantage of any of these blanks for profit it would be a forgery. Similarly, peddle often has quite negative implications so forgery is the natural fit. Moving back to blank III, duplicity is another eye catcher. Forgery is duplicitous, but their is nothing duplicitous in one photograph being more expensive than another. The duplicity is in passing off one as another for profit, not the profit itself (ignoring any would be marxists). So you are left with ambiguity and discrepancy. Similar words, but different meaning. The former implies a lack of clarity while the latter actually implies a clear distinction (because it must stand out from the group). One could exploit the fact that they are both pictures to pass off a new print as a vintage, but you might reasonably expect that there is something unambiguous in being vintage. How else is there a separate market? Discrepancy implies a difference. What the fraudster is doing is exploiting a difference-a difference in price for profit. Overall, I think the structure of the three sentences helps. It's a conclusion followed by a premise and then a second premise (Actually, it's more of a conjecture). However, it gives a sense that 2 and 3 are connected because 2 allows 3. Which leads to 1. I hope that's helped.

So I've got three weeks left until my exam date and I was wondering what I should do next. I've worked through Barrons 12th Ed (I know the exam is different, but lots of the sections are still relevant and it is extra practice) and the Official ETS guide. I've not gone through PowerPrep yet, but on the ETS Guide paper tests I've scored 167V/163Q and 165V/161Q which are pretty decent results. I know that I've got some problem areas that give me trouble and I can work on those particular question types, but i was wondering if anyone had any advice for what next? A friend has lent me a couple of the Princeton books so I was going to work through those (primarily for practice in maths questions). Thanks! Any advice would be appreciated.