Settle a SCORE !!!!. Review on How to Prepare for the GRE Exams

Since the request is for a quick light duty prep for GRE I will get straight to the point. First lets destroy some myths:

1. Never go anywhere near a GRE coaching center. You dont need them, self study should be more than adequate.

   
   




2. You dont need a PhD english vocabulary to crack the test.

   
   




3. You dont need years of prep, a few months of solid work should get you through.

   
   




4. Dont listen to anything anybody tells you, there are no such things as ''Bad scores in July'' or ''Easy Verbal in August''. That is all hot fresh bull.

   
   

Lets see how things can be handled section by section under the time constraints.

1. Verbal.

The Barrons guide is the one stop source for all your needs here. You should be ideally looking at going through all the wordlists at least once. This is going to be tough. But there are a couple of things you should look at, verbal per se is pretty tough to score very highly. Anything above 650 is great. But then the amount of work you have to put in to get say ten marks more in verbal, may get you a whole hundred marks more in quants or analytical. So before you jump into the bottomless verbal and vocab pit, remember, you may actually be better off devoting most of that time to quants and analytical. Many people, with a naturally good vocabulary, may find the verbal easier to handle, but again remember always that there are two other sections too.

Get lots of practise and make sure you have exposed yourself to lots of questions and all types of them. The RC part is tough and only a lot of practise can get you there. Read lots of stuff, and if reading speed is a persisting problem, try to develop better grasping power, that should give you accuracy at the cost of speed. Do lots of tests, in strict time limits to develop a feel and pace for the verbal questions.

And make sure you are strong on the High Frequency list, they do live up to their name.

1. Quants:

Practise and lots of it. First take a few papers and try to get the idea of the main concepts that appear in the test. This is one area where 800 is very possible. The questions require a fair amount of speed too, and accuracy is vital. Both these qualities can be developed through lots of testing at home. Keep time limits, and keep a track of what questions you miss out on, and add the concept to your database. Also if you see any particularly interesting concept or problem, mark it out and refer back to it later.

There are lots of easy questions in quants, and they will come in the exam too. So dontworry too much about this. Quants is your for the taking, but do your homework too. Like I said, 800 is definitely possible, but go for a 750 plus, anything less will be give a dissapointing total.

Analytical:

Start off with games. Get the hang of them. They vary in terms of complexity and unknown variables, or dimensions as some people call it. There are no shortcuts or anything. A few thing to ease out these questions are:

1. Draw a diagramatic representation for each problem, makes it much easier.

   
   




2. Develop your own ways of aproaching problems, stick to it and get good at it.

   
   

Once you get the hang of immediately representing a problem as a diagram or figure, it will be much easier and simpler to do.

And the games play dividends, once you get everything sorted out in a question, you can score loads of marks.

For the other questions expose yourself to lots of questions, till you have an automatic reflex method to solve each one of them.

Thats very briefly for each section. Get as many CD and questions you can get your hands, I suggest Barrons, Princeton, Kaplan, Arco and anything else. Each on has got a different character, that should help you prepare to face all sorts of questions. The first few questions in each sections are important on the day of the test, and as you answer correctly you will get tougher questions with higher marks, so start well too. Always do tests in time limits.

If you need any further assistance just mail me. Its been a long time since I gave mine and I have definitely missed out on a lot of points.

The analytical section too has changed I believe, and I can vouch for how applicable my advice on that will be.

My score V-690, Q-790, A-800 - 2280.

Best of luck !!!