How to start you GRE preparation?

How to start you GRE preparation? Well I started preparation for GRE around three months back, and this was the very same impasse that I landed in.

Q How to prepare? Why just follow the posts on TestMagic of course.
Q Where to prepare from? I'd recommend in order of preference (difficulty from challenging to a bore): Power Prep, Big Book, Barrons, Kaplan and maybe Princeton Review
Q What to prepare? How much time needed to prepare? Read on )


How much prep time?

Ok first of all, if you have the time available, I would suggest a 3-4 months prep time. Why? Well, since many of us come from Engineering or Non-literature backgrounds, we do not get the opportunity to built that large vocabulary set that ETS tests on. I feel 4 months is a sufficient time to make up for that deficiency. If you have a year at hand, thats even better. You really can ace the dreaded verbal section with that much prep. 4 months is enough to do the quantitative practice side by side too.


Vobabulary Building?

Ok, well and good. How to go about the vocabulary building? Well many people have suggested many different techniques, and at the end of the day, the one that will win is the one that suits you. I prefer the flash cards, and making them myself. They don't have to be cards, just get plenty of A4 size pages and and a paper cutter and start cutting cards of the apposite size. Make plenty of them. You can never have enough. And even after your GRE, you can still look at them to jolt your vocabulary. Maybe your kid brother and sister might use the same for their SATs or GREs or GMATs or if they are in good shape and you have no intention to humor the words further, you can sell them for some quick bucks he he he. I am sure many people would be interested hehe.

Now for the words. I'd suggest that you start with the Barrons 350 sth high frequency words. Go through the list once. Some words you would know. The ones which you don't know, make flash cards for them. It helps if you can put a definition and a short sentence, context or phrase for the word too. Context is important for remembering the words. It really makes the whole exercise worthwhile too, since you would remember the words long after you have given the GRE too. Leave some place on flash cards for future additions, e.g. synonyms you come across, difficult antonyms for the words, confusions etc. Yeah I know many of you would be "This seems like a lot of hard work", but trust me: you will have a really powerful vocabulary at the end of the day, which you can use to impress people in your otherwise daily routine too.

Ok, coming back to the word lists, first do the Barrons High Frequency. Some people go to cram the whole Barrons 3500 list. Ummm, I have come across people who knew the whole list, but only this list, and got words they were seeing for the first time. So in my opinion, if you are short on time, diversify the word lists. I would suggest you do the Princeton Review list next (around 350 words and very relevant). Next do the Arco list (another 300-400 words). Ok by now you have a decent inventory of words. Go for the Kaplan's List now. It will help you learn whole groups of words. There would be overlap, but you will encounter many new words too.

Another excellent source of words is the Big Book. It has some 27 actual administered paper GRE tests (2q and 2v sections each). Start giving the tests asap, and while you are at it, learn the new words from these tests. Remember these are the real tests, so you should know these words. By the end of the 27 tests, your vocabulary will be richer by another 500 or so words, not found in the previous lists.

Side by side, I'd suggest the use of some vocabulary building software like Guru's GRE (freeware available and can searched for on google.com). Its a nice easy way to learn new words. By now you would have learnt many words. So I'd suggest that you take all the 51 tests in Guru's GRE. You would know around 50-60 percent of the words. Don't guess on the words you don't know. The good thing is that the software remembers the words you didn't attempt. You can then continue to learn those ones.

Number2.0 has a good vocabulary building online engine. I'd recommend it wholly. Ok, now you can come back to the world of Barrons. I am assuming you still have some weeks left before the test. Go through the more common letters first like O, E, I, D, P, R, S, T, A, you etc. you and D help a lot with a lot of antonyms as in usage like dis- and un- which reverse the word. So you would be learning two words with each word.

And yes make flash card for whatever word you don't know, in Big Book or any other tests you take. The good thing with Flash cards is that you can dally with them on the run, say waiting for your friends to show up, or waiting for you meal in the office etc. Plus another good thing with flash cards is that you can "shuffle" them and "mix" with other sets of flash cards and "isolate" the ones you need to work on. Shuffling helps to break mononity and you get to see a new assortment of the order in which the words come. Mixing helps to do the same. Isolating the words you don't know allows you to concentrate on those words more easily and learn them. Plus flash cards allow you to look at a word in isolation and identify it. I have heard that with this technique, the minds forms a mental association with a flash card, and whenever you see the word again, the neurons do some V = IR^2s (thats the Ohm's law by the way ) and jolt your memory and volla the meaning comes to you.

Verbal Section:

Ok, apart from the vocabulary building, the other piece of advice I have for you in the verbal section is practice, practice and more practice and time yourself while doing it. Do practice at a stretch while your head hurts . Take a power prep early on, infact I would say that a dose of reality doesn't hurt you. So give the power prep within your first month of prep. You might feel depressed the next couple of days, but giving a Power Prep early on gives you a correct and verisimilar picture of where you actually stand and how much you need to go. So don't despair. Everyone does badly on the first few tests. Why? Coz ETS really sucks at making tests. The test doesn't check your intelligence or anything. It only sees if you have a huge vocabulary, whether you can run against the clock and if you have practiced or not. Thats it. That ladies and gentlemen, is the whole truth behind the GRE. Timing and pacing yourself, keeping a cool head, a good vocabulary and practice. You can signifantly improve your scores from those first dismal power prep scores, even by as much as 400 to 500 points. But practice and consistency would be the key.

Get the big book. It costs a lot, but its every penny worth it. No other book even comes close to the amount of practice that big book can offer you. Give the verbal tests. The timing is stringent as compared to the current GRE and that helps you to develop a good pace for attempting questions. The reading comprehension is difficult as hell, which is a good thing coz in the actual GRE the same is the case. And its a good vocabulary building exercise too.

As far as verbal strategies are concerned, I would recommend in order of preference : Kaplan, Barrons and Princeton Review. Princeton Review is in my opinion too easy to get to those high 600 + scores in verbal, but if its available, do try to go through all three.

Reading comprehension is a difficult section, and I would suggest that you make it a habit to read the English newspaper daily especially the editorials and columns. You can even subscribe online to Washington Post, New York Times or Wall Street Journal. Plus its a little expensive, but I really like the Economist for its strong English. You can see all the GRE words here at work. Read, read and read through those four months. The effects are threefold. First you are improving your vocabulary. Secondly you are assimilating ideas for your essays in AWA. Last but not the least, you are improving your Reading Comprehension. When you read some passage, attack it ! ... And no that doesn't mean that you start thrashing it around with a flail . It means scrutize it. What does it say? Whats the main topic and theme? Whats the actual scope, and what does the author hope to accomplish through this writing? Note the author's tone. It is sarcastic, approving, neutral, disparaging or skeptic etc. You will see that this exercise will increase your RC skills by leaps and bounds.

As far as analogies and sentence completions are concerned, I would again recommend the same three books plus practice from Big Book. And yes power prep exercises are an absolute must. It would be equivalent to sacrilege if you do not do them.


Quantitative Section:

Ok, not many of us Engineering students get the chance during undergraduate to indulge in high school maths while we are bogged by calculus and differential equations and stochastic processes and transforms. So its natural your basic math skills could rusty. True for other disciplines as well. If you are applying to Engineering or Sciences programs, a good quantitative score is an absolute must. So do not ignore quantitative. Start working on it from the earliest possible time. Barrons has a very good Maths review plus tips and so does Kaplan. The quantitative tests at the end of Barrons are more challenging than any other book that I have come across. Do those. Do the quantitative review from Power Prep as well, along with the exercises. And yes don't forget the big book. TO start with, it is difficult and a good source of practice. You need to do 30 questions in just 30 minutes, and you can really learn how to pace yourself. I would suggest you keep giving the tests from Big Book till you have successively obtained some 8-10 800 scores. Then if you want, you can give yourself a pat on the back and look elsewhere for more difficult problems, say the TestMagic Forum (www.TestMagic.com)

AWA:
Theres no better place than right here at TestMagic … During the run up to the GRE, try to write at least one essay per week to brushen up those writing skills. During the last, make it a point to go through the list of the issue prompts at least one. Just take out a topic, think about it mentally and move on to the next one. You save precious brainstorming time this way on the actual GRE.

And finally, once again, practice makes perfect. Theres no short cut for it, no surrogates or substitute. If you have any question, I will happy to answer it.

Regards,
Ali