Taking the GRe

[Palin]

Did a search and found little about this topic. Anyone on this board taken the GRE General Test before? I'm signed up for November and looking to get some prep materials beforehand, and would love some recommendations.

The GRE test site gives you free software and practice tests, but I'm looking for a little more. I did some search on Amazon and found various reviews on different review materials. I've been looking at so far:

Kaplan's: http://www.amazon.com/Kaplan-Premier...0V8VD2F2B8ZZ3P

Princeton's: http://www.amazon.com/review/product...DateDescending

Barron's: http://www.amazon.com/Barrons-GRE-Gr...9618208&sr=1-1

I also plan on buying these Vocabulary flashcards: http://www.amazon.com/Kaplan-GRE-Exa...MKDDRNJPJ8SBNE

I generally have a good grasp of the basic Math that will be on it, just will need a little review. I'm an extremely good writer but worried I may get a prompt that I simply can't make an argument out of. Basically I'm most worried about Analogies/Antonyms and maybe the writing section, since I did some practice tests and didn't know about half the vocabulary.

Anybody taken this who has any tips and recommendations as far as test prep materials go?

[Daydreamer]

It wasn't the GRE, but when I was studying for my ACTs wayyyy back in high school the Kaplan book helped a LOT. I'd recommend them as a brand.

[Denchi]

My gf just got some books for the GRE. She had some good recommendations from friends who scored really high on them. I'll ask her what she got in a little bit here. I think it was Kaplan's Vocabulary, then Princeton's study book.

[archibaldcrane]

Took the GRE to get into film school (lol) - all I did is take the practice test that came with the materials after I signed up and did fine...but it was film school, intellectual competition wasn't too bad.

Analogies were fucking brutal - XXX is to XXX as (insert 5 pairs of words here) and then not knowing what maybe 8 of the 12 mean exactly sucks. Without a good base of Greek and Latin roots you're a bit fucked. English was my worst part, was like 78th percentile on it. Logic (story problems) were cake, but with computer adaptive test-taking I didn't finish the last two...getting all of them correct meant that they just got longer and longer and longer. 780/800 on that part just because I didn't finish the last two.

[Lasareth]

Grab the vocab flash cards, for their price they're probably worth more than the study guides since you can get the basic idea of the test from other, free sources. The hardest part of the test is encountering a word in verbal that you just don't know, in which case you're screwed. Math is pretty easy if you remember high school concepts and the writing is something you can B.S. through as long as you know what the prompts will be asking before you go in ("defend or refute" and "critically analyze").

I took this test recently and, as I expected, did worst on the verbal because I didn't take to memorizing the words seriously enough.

[riddaraan]

My girlfriend said depending on what you're going for, and your college's preference, it should be pretty easy, because your college only picks 2 out of 3 categories to grade you on, or something.

[Lauzian]

When I took it they provided a lot of options for the 2 essay/argument questions. It's been a long time but I think I had 4 questions per argument I could answer. The hardest part was the 1 hr (I think) time limit on each question. Where I took it, the essay had to be typed into the computer at the end of the hour, fortunately I was able to type it as I wrote it in my head but if your keyboarding skills are lacking you might want to look into it.

As for the math, the questions kind of seemed progressive where they got harder as I answered more in a row correct only to see a definite drop in difficulty on the ones I had to guess. I still scored very high on the math though.

[volcanicweather]

Start studying the vocab ASAP, the more words you know, the better.

The Kaplan stuff is junk, I don't recommend it. Go with the Princeton or or Barron material. If you are technologically proficient, you should be able to find copies of old tests along with study software for the GRE pretty easily.

Practice, practice, practice is all I can recommend unfortunately... good luck.

[Haud]

I used Princeton to study for mine. Really, the GRE is the SAT on steroids. As an English major applying for an MA in English, the writing part was really easy, and I got like 5.5/6 or something like that on it. If you consider yourself a good writer, you should have no problems. The prompts are pretty general in that they won't ask you to write about the specifics of things -- usually broad things like "Freedom isn't free -- do you agree of disagree and why?" Stuff like that; so long as you're making logical sense and writing in a clear, concise mater, you'll be fine. Also, I don't know how true it is, but the Princeton book I used said that the length of your essay matters -- the longer essays tended to be scored higher than shorter ones. Make sure to use full paragraphs, an intro, several bodies, and a conclusion, and you'll be good. The verbal, on the other hand, is really fucking brutal, and I did worse on it than I did on the math each time I took it. Really, take the vocab studies seriously; it really matters.

The good news is that, in some cases, the GRE is more of a formality than an actual decider. For me, the head of the English department I was applying to was cool about it, and said that the GRE will not make or break my acceptance as it was not important at all besides formalities. Then again, it's different for every one, and some schools/departments take it really seriously.

[Palin]

Thanks for the tips guys. I ended up buying 3 things:

The Kaplan general prep guide (http://www.amazon.com/Kaplan-Premier...V0ZTSFWV8RVZFP)

Barron's Vocab Words: (http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Word...ref=pd_sim_b_4)

and the aforementioned Flashcards (http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Word...ref=pd_sim_b_4)

In the end only came out to about $45.

I went overboard on the Vocab since the sentiment here and elsewhere seems to be that memorizing the vocab words is the best thing to do for the Verbal section. I double checked the schools I'm looking into's Admission standards, and most aren't looking at Writing, just Verbal and Math (Thanks riddaraan for tipping me about that). So my plan is to use the GRE software provided on signup as well as the Kaplan general guide to review my math and familiarize myself with the Writing prompts, and then go overboard with learning the Vocab.

Any more tips and recommendations from those who've taken the GRE are most welcome. I'll update when I get the books with my impressions!

[berticus]

Don't focus exclusively on vocab for verbal. There are a few other subtle skills that the books don't do a very good job of revealing, for which I'd say the best approach is reading really dense writing.

As for the vocab thing, break down each section of the verbal, list their memorization component and do a cute little weighted average:

Sentence: 75%, not 100 because context is REALLY important
Reading: 0%
Analogies: 50%, relationships are really the key, hard words don't appear until 650 or 700 and above
Antonyms: 100%

(225/400 = 56%)

So only a little more than half of the verbal section requires you to memorize a 5000 word list. That much sucks, but with perfect vocab and a lack in the other areas you may only get somewhere between 600-650.

The math section is a clone of the SAT's. If you've mastered concepts, to further excel there grind practice problems and get really steaming mad when you get tricked. There's only a finite number of trick "genres" so once you get them down you'll rarely get owned by them down the road.

I planned and used a formula for both the GRE and the GMAT writing sections and got near perfect and perfect on each. The prompts were so obscure that I have NO idea what they were 8 months later and probably wouldn't recognize them among a group of 3 or 4. I forget if the GRE is the one with an issue and an argument, but for the issue if you just do a formulaic high school essay: intro, 3x support paragraphs, conclusion, you'll do really well. One other gem I learned about both computer scored writing sections is that length NEVER hurts. So if you finish up and have time left, add a fourth support paragraph if you can and your score will go nowhere but up. This won't work with spamming the "b" key for 40 pages, but anything coherent will likely bump you by .5 or 1 depending on where from.

It's been a while since my last round of standardized tests but if you need any more specifics I can try to dig Honestly, the ideal approach is best determined by your target score and which programs you want. Care to divulge?

[Palin]

I'm looking to apply to graduate schools in Social/Personality Psychology, their average admissions standards are about 1250 GRE. Obviously I'd like to be above that, so I'd say 650 or higher on each would be preferred.

[berticus]

Oh yeah, the ETS software is both an incredible predictor of your score and good preparation for not being bogged down by the computer thing. Being the sheltered computer nerd I was I didn't expect this, but tons of people perform worse because of the CAT format. So you probably have like a 10-20 point boost from that from the times of the paper test.

The main reason I asked about programs is that most highly technical and quantitative programs demand an 800 in math. I'd guess your field shouldn't so that's a relief. Math is annoying because 800 is only 93rd percentile; 7% of test takers are "perfect" on the curve Verbal could be pretty important though so suck up doing the list - I read every word on these lists and wrote ones I didn't know, then studied that list - and focus a bit on the other areas I mentioned (context in sentences and relationships in analogies).

You should do great. Best of luck!