uchicago

thanks for asking. my wife needs to know which city to move to, so we settled first on location. i've been admitted to a smaller seminary (gordon-conwell), but am applying to harvard divinity. i won't know until march if i'm admitted.

oops-- i misrepresented myself. i studied ALOT for the real GRE. i didn't study at all for the pilot GRE, meaning i haven't studied any GRE stuff since july. there's no equivalent score to the old GRE yet. ETS just showed how many questions you get right and wrong. you don't get to review which ones you missed either.

i participated in the study that ETS is doing. if you've taken the GRE this year, find out if you can get paid $80 for taking the new GRE. i missed two questions on quant (the lady at the test center told me NO scratch paper. i think she got the directions wrong. that made the math MUCH harder. i had to keep everything in my head.) i missed six questions on verbal. overall impressions: • writing will be harder if you struggle with time limit. they cut the issue time down to 30 minutes. wasn't too much of a problem for me, but i did pretty well on the AWA. • quant feels the same, but there are alot more wordy problems. to be honest, it felt easier and less tricky. • verbal had the biggest difference. no antonyms, no analogies, trickier sentence completions, more involved reading questions, alot more reading passages. i like this better since the emphasis on vocab feels like a lot less. no more CAT, you can mark questions and go back to review. you can also skip and go back at the end. the changes are definitely implemented to target nonnative English speakers. being an avid reader and decent writer, i feel like i would've scored better on this exam. if you can manage to wait and you're similar to me, then i'd take the new one-- although it is more tiring. for reference, i took the real GRE in july (Q800, V730, AWA 6.0). i didn't bother studying one bit for this test.

most of the essays were official ETS prompts. some of the early ones were from either kaplan or barron's. my wife would pick a topic and post it; i would write. the ones near the end were from the "Practicing GRE" book or from powerprep. i did these because i could compare what i wrote with what ETS considered a 6.0 AWA. here's a list of words i collected that were helpful, especially for the argument essay. accompanying adulterate allude ancillary antipathy apocryphal apodictic appropriate assay attribute attune ballast canard cardinal characterize claim coalesce cogent collate concomitant conflate conjectural consequently contribute corollary corroborate currency delineate disabuse discount discrepancy discrete distract divert elliptical elysian embody emend endorse engender engrave episodic ersatz espouse exceptionable exculpate exemplify expatiate expostulate germane harmony hypothesize ignore illusive incise imponderable in view of indemnify indicate invention legerdemain legitimate limpid luculent meretricious mirror misrepresent munificent obfuscate oblique obtrusive obverse ordinate overlook parallel peremptory perforce pertinent plait plumb portend portray precipitate preclude predilection prepossess prompt putative ramify reduce semblance shunt sinuous sketch specious speculate stultify substantiate suggest supposed supposititious syllogism threaten trajectory trenchant turbid typify warrant welter veracious verisimilitude zeitgeist

yes-- that's right. ETS ranks difficulty levels of 3, 4, and 5, in increasing difficulty. and #18 means #18 was the first question i missed on quant.

ok-- got online to do the basic service review. shows i missed six questions on verbal (one level three, five level five). on quant i missed five questions (three level five, one level four, one level three). so you can get an 800 while still missing five questions! the first quant question i missed was #18. the first verbal was #4 (yikes!). seems like missing level five questions don't hurt your score too much as long as you nailed alot of other level five questions BUT when you take the test, there's no way to know the difficulty level of a question.

so practice does help the AWA. write enough essays and you'll start to get a feel for whether you wrote a good essay or not... official score report: v: 730, 98% q: 800, 92% awa: 6.0, 96% i was hoping the 730 would squeak into the 99% which is why my initial goal was a 750. oh well. i'm happy though-- 6.0 should help with the apps. hopefully counter my abysmal undergrad GPA (

real thing: 730/800 (verbal/quant) kaplan: 700/690, 780/730 princeton: 790/710, 660/750 practicing GRE book: 800/780, 750/800, 740/780, 740/800, 750/800, 790/800 sample on GRE website: 790/800 powerprep: 760/800, 770/800

manasi4gre: my RCs improved after i systematically looked for the answer in the passage every time. i could do this since i usually go really fast through the other parts of verbal. when i first started, my problem with RCs is that i tend to make conclusions that weren't in the passage. by finding key words/phrases to confirm/eliminate answer choices, my practice scores went up. freeze: the iFlash is only for mac os x. and my word list is in iFlash format so it won't work with your program. sorry!

i've been pretty silent on these forums, but this site has been extremely helpful in helping me prepare. i hope my little post can contribute to the good amount of advice already available here. thanks to erin for taking the time to create and maintain testmagic. my general study schedule-- after reading a whole bunch of different threads here, i spent the first two months casually building my vocab up and slowly working thru the barron's book. then the final month i simply took as many practice exams as i could. as i said earlier, my first goal was a 6.0 on AWA, second a 750 verbal. quant would just be a pride thing. here are some thoughts that i hope will help others: AWA • start writing! in the last two weeks i was writing at least one essay a day. • find a harsh critic. this way, you'll know when you've written a good essay. i actually created a blog to write essays, and my wife would review them with comments. it feels strange to share this, but it might help someone just as this site definitely helped me: http://uchicago2006.blogspot.com • when i was practicing my AWA i used a dictionary, but kept the time limit. the only way i learn to use new words is to use them, and this helped to expand my writing vocab. • essay length is one of the best measures on how your writing skills have progressed. the longer your essay, the better. for me, it reflected a good flow of thought. rule of thumb was to try and hit 650+ words for issue, 450+ for argument. • stop reading junk. if you read badly written stuff, it will seep into your essays. i noticed i was reading a lot of stupid stuff on the internet (blogs, etc). when i stopped surfing the web and started reading well-written books, more writing improved. • here are two essential books for the AWA. first, a rulebook for arguments by anthony weston is invaluable to learn how to dissect and construct an argument. then, a history of knowledge by charles van doren will make you very smart by allowing you to properly name drop historical figures. if you have a lot of time, try reading daniel j. boorstin's trilogy of discoverers, creators, and seekers. also any intro to philosophy book helps to refine logic, like thinking through philosophy or blackburn's think. verbal/quant • iFlash was my primary tool for learning new words. it's a program only for mac, and i'd be happy to send you my word list if you're using this program. despite learning all the barron's and then some, i still picked up two words i had never seen before on the real test... ugh... • practice, practice, practice-- just keep taking practice tests... • one helpful thing for me was to keep a notebook and write down every single question i missed. this helped me notice any trends in bad thinking and served as a little punishment for careless errors. and it was a handy review book the morning of the test. • others have given good advice to take two days off right before your test just to study-- yes, do it! my test scores were steadily improved during that time. too bad i got panicky when it counted. my mini-reviews of the test prep books • i used my library to check out all these test prep books except the "practicing the GRE" one. a very cheap way to do test prep. • barron's: had the most review of all the books. five paper exams. includes CD with one diagnostic and one CAT. • kaplan: forgettable but provides one online diagnostic and one online CAT • kaplan verbal: extra exercises for all three categories • princeton: most difficult quant problems. online access to four CAT tests. i took two and it seemed harder than powerprep, but their questions felt very different also. • practicing the GRE: the best book by far because the questions are obviously most similar to the real thing. warning: the first test in this book uses the same questions as powerprep, so don't take it if you want powerprep to be a fresh experience. • i read somewhere to avoid non-official test prep books the week of your test. i wholeheartedly agree. you can tell after a while that the quality of the questions just do not compare. here were my practice exam scores. i took the tests in the order reported, keeping the official exams for the last weeks of my studying. you'll understand why i was disappointed with my verbal score. i'd flip-flop my verb/quant in a heartbeat. my last five verbal tests were all 750+, but that's the nature of the test. a bit of luck definitely plays into the verbal section. scores are recorded as verbal/quant. kaplan: 700/690, 780/730 princeton: 790/710, 660/750 practicing GRE book: 800/780, 750/800, 740/780, 740/800, 750/800, 790/800 sample on GRE website: 790/800 powerprep: 760/800, 770/800

took it this morning... tiring... i'm hoping to get into a philosophy or religious studies program so my goal when i started was a 6.0 AWA and 750 verbal since my undergrad GPA is abysmal. on my last 5-6 practice exams, i hit that target (the verbal, at least), so i was a bit disappointed today. the test was a lot harder than i expected. also, on powerprep, verbal always went first. today, quant was first, and it was TOUGH. i had always finished every practice with at least five minutes remaining. i actually ran out of time today and had to guess on the last two. this played poorly into my verbal since my brain was wasted and i was a bit flustered. when i finished, i had taken enough tests to know what a 750+ feels like, and i was guessing i had a 710 or 720. that "report scores"/"cancel scores" is a fun screen when you know you did worse than expected. i thought about the $115, how hard it would be to cancel and not know, etc. in the end, i reported the scores because i felt very confident about the AWA portion, and that was the section most crucial to me. waiting on AWA-- how long does it take?

REPROVE : REPRIMAND blame : censure control : contain persuade : convince thwart : confront inconvenience : effect can you help with this bridge? answer is blame : censure i don't see the relationship since blame has to do with responsibility and censure is just criticism. i chose persuade : convince, since those terms are at least related.

http://tinypic.com/6pltad.jpg the above is from the math review i saw here doesn't seem to restrict square roots to just positive. this is from page 10, is there somewhere else to look? or i guess if we want -4, it would be -(sq rt 16), which seems circuitous. anyway-- i'm sure the real GRE won't ask such an ambiguous question.

http://tinypic.com/6p4yl1.jpg i got this question on the kaplan CAT; i think they have it wrong because the square roots can be either positive or negative, so D is the correct choice. anything i'm missing?

i've been taking practice tests and even when i'm patient and deliberate, i'll finish 5-10 min before the time limit. during the CAT GRE, can i just move on or are the sections on a schedule? if i finish early, can i leave, walk around, etc-- or am i just stuck sitting for 5 min? thank you for your help!