maxis7

Way to go man :tup: congrats

Thanks freethinker, ish and spring_06 Nope havent played either of them. I just cooked up this nick myself! Anyways who is maxis in the sims?

Thanks manasi and samy dg

Thanks forrest. hope your test goes well too For quant i only did the stuff given in the barrons math review section and the powerprep math review. I was basically comfortable with math since from an engineering . background. I am not sure about which books you should read for math but i think the testmagic Gre Math section should have some tips.

Thanks engsamah, unihehe, anandiyer and charanya. When i started my vocab level was decently high but probably just above average and not too great. For instance i knew most of the high frequency (the ones marked with boxes in BARRON) but in every wordlist there were 10-25 words which i hadnt come across before or didnt know the meaning of. So basically i first went through all 50 wordlists marking these words i didnt know and then over next 1.5 month basically kept revising these words (learning them in context by using e.g. statement etc). Simultaneously i was doing the bigbook tests. in the beginning i was scoring around 670-700 but this started going up until at the end it was around 770 although i had scored 800 once. However i never expected 800 on the real gre since in all my Computer prac tests- 3 Kaplan(780,740,750) and the Powerprep(750,780) i used to make like atleast 2-5 mistakes usually either in rc or analogy.Basically i think getting 1600 involves a lot of luck with a few guesses having to go right. once you get into the 1500's its a matter of those 3-4 questions for which you dont know the answers for sure. To tackle analoges i guess best thing is practice, like keep doing as many as you can till you think automatically along their lines.The info in barrons and kaplan about bridgebuilding is pretty much what you have to perfect. For this knowing some context of the word helps a lot in addition to the meaning of the word, since this will help you in forming a more accurate bridge sentence between the two words. For RC kaplan has a very good startegy and once i put it into practice my mistakes started going down and in fact i started doing RC's faster. About quant since my background was engineering i didnt have too much of a problem and basically the math concpts in barrons/pwrprep math review were enough. hope this helped

Thanks coolgal,suja,manwiththemission and karthik

For wordlists i used kaplan and barrons. For verbal section, especially for RC Kaplan gives you very good advice. their strategy for the verbal section is very good. Barrons of course has its famous wordlist which basically covers most of the words you will see in the test. I also used bigbook during the beginning of my prep to get used to the verbal standard. I did some 20 verbal sections and it helps in knowing exam pattern well. so i guess ideal prep would be learning wordlists and doing big book tests side by side in the beginning part of prep( you will see your scores increasing with time as u progress through the bigbook test and also learn more words). then in final week before exam i took 5 computer tests- 3Kaplan and the 2 Powerprep.

Actually in the beginnin of my GRE test i found that the quant level was a little tougher than powerprep. most of my questions in the beginning required some amount of thought as to how to solve and were not like the usual questions in powerprep in which the solutions were fairly obvious. however the concepts tested are the same and no need to get worried. just keeping calm and working out the first 10 carefully will definitely get you a good score. but also dont get stuck in one question too long, say more than 8 mins and make sure always that u have enough time to finish the test as that is very important for your score due to the large penalty for not finishing.

Thanks everybody for the congrats Well i was basically form an engineering background and quant wasnt too much of a problem. however i found the real gre level slightly higher than the ones in powerprep or barron. best thing is to be familiar with all the basics in barrons/powerprep math review. And most importantly not to get stuck in a question and end up losing time and not finishing. In verbal, i had started on barrons wordlist one and half months ago basically first identified the words i didnt know before and then keep revising these. One thing i found helpful while learning the wordlists was paying attention to the way the word was used in the example statement as this gives the context and not just mugging the literal meaning of the word. Learning the word in context makes it easier to remember (especially if the eg statement is interesting) and also helps while solving analogies. as for RC'S. i ahve always been an avid reader of fiction and that probably helped. In addition i found the tips on RC given in Kaplan (the book) to be very helpful particularly the bit about puuting paragraphs into your own words as you read. hope this helped

Thanks suhrid:) but you did really well too for 1550 congrats.I dont think my score is too different iguess once you are into the 1500's getting a 1600 is a matter of luck on 3-4 questions and today things just happened to go right on those crucial questios for me which i had to guess

well i wrote the exam on the 30th of Sept and got 800 in quant The levelis slightly higher than the powerprep as in you have to think a little longer for many questions. Also the pressure of getting atleast the first 10 right makes you go a lot slower. However anybody with an engineering or any math related field shouldnt have too much of a problem. i had lot of algebra questions, not too many probability or stats.i had one on comparing standard deviation betwen two sets. just look at the dispersion from the mean and get the sd. greater the dispersion, greater the sd. no need to actually calculate the sd. i think most important factor in quant is the time. if you get stuck on a quaestion dont attempt for more than 5, 6 mins just make your best guess and move on otherwise it will get really tight at the end. also it is still pssible to get 800 with 4 mistakes especially in the middle and also the penalty for not finishing the test is huge and if u get bogged down in the middle you will have to blindly guess the last few qustions.

Thanks evrybody for the congrats the longest of my RC'S was on some 18th century female English writer then there was one on global ice ages i dont remembe rthe 3rd one now sentence completions were rather tricky but in the ones i didnt get for sure i could eliminate to 2 choices before guessing. i guess more than just knowing the word's meaning, it is important to have a rough idea of their context and also practice a lot of analogies and SC's. Once u start to think along their lines it makes a lot of difference.

Thanks indienne and morgantybest of luck to you too

GRE Real V800 Q800 Powerprep 1 V750 Q800 Powerprep 2 V780 Q770 Kaplan 1 V740 Q790 Kaplan 2 V760 Q790 Kaplan 3 V770 Q800 I took all these tests in the 5 days just before my exam and i found that this helped a great deal in calming the tension just before the test. I think powerprep is the best especially for verbal as the level in the real GRE is almost the same. Kapln also has roughly the same difficulty level but they penalise mistakes more. I also did 8 big book verbal tests and i think it is a very good tool for prep in verbal. i used to score 710-800 in these verbal tests. Hope allthis helped

Well i havent posted in this forum for a while but i visited it regularly during the 2 weeks before my GRE so thought i'll put in my share of info about the exam. Well im obviously thrilled with my score but i still cant believe i got it My issue was "should university profs be made to work in industrial job before teaching?' argument was some survey connecting survey and weight gain in my verbal secion, i had 100(4 questions), 40(2 quests) and 60 line RC'S(2 quests). igot the 100 line one first at the 7th queston. most of the words were barrons except 2 or 3- i can only remember parse, some of the other words i got were metaphysical, ineluctable, sanguine, I had to guess on 2-3 questions and looks like they went right:) In quant, basically i found the first 7 or 8 questions tougher than the powerprep but then i got stuck for some 7 mins at the 8th one (it was a question on remainders) and had to guess and move on. After that i could see a huge drop in difficulty level and i thought i had blown it but it turned out ok in the end. i finished quant with 5 mins to spare and verbal with 6 mins to spare so basically today almost evrything went right.:D i'll be glad to take questions and be of help. all the best to those writing in the future