harmeetw

I concur. RC is incredibly important in the current GRE and is very difficult to improve within a short period of time.

Thanks bullseye. I'm glad that you found my debrief helpful. @ All I'm happy to inform that I have been accepted at CMU,GeorgiaTech and UCLA. Thank you everyone for the support and encouragement

I wish this book were there when I was preparing for the GRE.. Solving crosswords for gre vocab seems fun.

I agree.ManhattanGRE 5 lbs book is good for quant but for verbal, it doesn't make the cut.

Hi all, I’m finally done with the GRE and I’m grateful to all the help that I got through these forums. These forums really helped me nail it. When the conquest began I started my prep early in April so that I can get done with my GRE in August and then have enough time to apply to schools. To get my feet wet, I start with a GRE diagnostic test from ETS ..I did fairly well on Quant but the verbal score shook me badly. The Armory/Arsenal for the Conquest ETS OG, Kaplan GRE, GRE Verbal Grail, Manhattan GRE 5 lbs books ETS OG- Every GRE test taker should have this book- it’s a must! Kaplan GRE- I got my hands on the Kaplan book so that I could refresh my concepts. It was okayish for verbal(not enough questions though) but the math questions were too easy. GRE Verbal Grail – Verbal was my pain area and this book proved to be an antidote,so to speak. Since half of the questions that appear on the GRE are RC questions, GRE Grail proved to be very useful as it’s RC section focuses a lot on strategies, approach for various question types and then provides a great number of RCs to practice. This is the book to go with if you are struggling in verbal. ManhattanGRE 5 lbs book- Very good for quant practice. I was looking for practice in quant because conceptually I was strong. This book helped me do that. Plus it gave free access to 6 full length tests . Worth the money. How the Conquest progressed The Juggling Act… I had to juggle my studies alongwith college and then with internship so it was hectic but taking out 2 hours at the end of the day wasn’t too much of a difficult task. I somehow took out 2 hours everyday and studied without any distractions. I finished the Kaplan book in 2 weeks after which I started with GRE Verbal Grail and it took me another 3 weeks to finish it. After that I started with manhattangre 5 lbs book and I practiced it for another 3-4 weeks after which I started taking full length tests. Building Vocabulary… I kept on learning vocabulary everyday. I would make flashcards when I got up in the morning and then would carry them in my pocket to my college or place of internship. Each day I’d carry 20 such flashcards and by night, I used to ensure that I finish them. These words used to be usually either totally new words or words that I learnt in GRE Verbal Grail/from the newspaper articles that I read or any other source. Alongwith this, I kept on reading the newspaper everyday. It helped me in two ways- it enabled me to see the application of the words that I learnt and it helped me indirectly in reading comprehension as I started developing mental stamina and familiarity with different topics. On the G-day I sailed through the exam without many hiccups. There were one or two questions that I couldn’t answer but I felt confident that I was doing well on the test. Looking back: In hindsight Don’t go crazy accumulating a lot of material. Just refer to a few good books and extract the best out of them and you should be good. Take at least 6 practice tests. I got access to 6 practice tests free of cost with the purchase of ManhattanGRE practice tests. Spend a good amount of time in analyzing the questions AND in learning from the questions. Focus on doing a few questions rather than a lot of them. Believe me there’s no point in doing hundreds of questions when at the end of the month, you won’t even remember what have you learnt from the questions that you have attempted. Be positive- There will be times in your prep when you will really feel like giving up out of boredom. Remember that doing well on the GRE is your goal and it’s a goal that you must achieve.

The problem with posting on the verbal forums is that hardly anyone replies there!

I have been through Aristotle RC99 and it is clearly not for the GRE. The question types, passage length and structure are clearly for very different from the GRE and doing them may be a waste of time if you ask me.it's better to practice some other material...by the way,i had ordered gre verbal grail from their website and received it in 3 days..

Have been through the GRE Verbal Grail RCs so far and I really liked it. Can't thank you guys enough for suggesting it. Have done around 60 RCs so far and have seen my accuracy improve quite a bit

I think there's nothing much you can do anyway..Just relax and take your test.I'm sure that everything will work out ..Even if it doesn't life doesn't end after first attempt; there's always a second one :)

Congratulations on the great score. I've my GRE soon..Am taking it for the second time..Did a lot of mistakes while preparing for the first time especially by relying on the princeton book that i later realized wasn't good enough for scoring high..Got my hands on gre verbal grail 2 weeks back and i think i've improved a lot on RCs...will post my experience soon

Yeah ETS is good but it has very limited practice material. You will need other practice material if you want to practice.

If you answer a question incorrectly or leave it empty, I think it's the same thing. Based on how you will perform on a section,you will then receive questions of higher or lower difficulty level in the next section

Fulbright scholarship at this score looks difficult,if not impossible. I'm also aiming for it and am targeting 165+ both on Verbal and Quant. Let's see whether I get it or not

Frankly speaking you have a low quant score and getting through a good or even an average MS in Telecommunications would be a struggle. You may have a shot at the lower rung schools though