Jul 222009
I talked to someone at the counseling program and she gave me some GRE tips. Mainly these:
- Take a practice test right away so I know where I am.
- Start studying!
- Take a practice test weekly (say, every Saturday).
- Head to Dictionary.com or some other word-of-the-day program and start grabbing my words-of-the-day.
- Take the test next month so that I have time to take it again (need to have everything in to admissions by 12/1).
So what are your tips? What did you do? (For other folks looking for ideas, Artemis left a bunch on a previous entry, which you can find right here.)
(By the way, Noah said, “You’re going back to school? I don’t know how I feel about that. It’s just pretty weird that you would be in school and I wouldn’t be!” I told him he could go to school, too, but he politely declined.)
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I say put Noah in charge of quizzing you on vocab. I bet he’ll take it to heart and quiz you like mad. Other than that, sounds like you have it all set. Do you need to study for the math part too? I really should get mine done too. Ack…
I’ve tutored people before and I’d encourage you to find friends who’ve been there and can help you with anything you’re rusty on now. Being good at test-taking (which you may well already be) is largely a matter of understanding how the people who write tests think. If you can learn that, you’re golden. And, again, you may well already be. Take that practice test before freaking out.
Read one of the strategy books that tells you about the logic of the test questions and the best ways to deduce answers.
Is there a good computer game out there now? I found that was the best way to study.
I am lucky enough to be a good test taker, which I think is half the battle. If you are, that’s awesome! If not, I would learn some relaxation techniques to do before / during the test – most problems with test taking are (I think) anxiety related.
As for the GRE in specific, I just read through one of the review manuals and took lots of practice tests.
Last time I had to take a test like this (it was a certification test for work), I did a lot of reviewing, took a lot of practice tests, and then crammed like heck the last week.
Giving yourself time to take it twice is a great idea, because it should reduce a lot of the stress you’d otherwise have over you if you only had one shot. Plus it’s good practice in and of itself.
green with envy. would love to go back to school. want to study too much though. how would I possibly choose? writing? new meda? philosophy? sociology? good luck to you.
No need to freak out at all!! I’m sure you’re going to be OK. I mean… I did take my GRE 11 years ago and all, but I did super duper well and I couldn’t even believe it. Now, will dictionary.com have the words they require the most on that freakingly weird list of theirs? I’d go with the first suggestion here — get yourself a GRE book and get Noah to quiz you. Begin with the first & more common 300 words (I think that’s all I studied) and go from there.
I have confidence in you and I know you’re on the right path. More later, shoot any questions you have my way — although my experience is outdated, I guess
. I LOOOVE test taking, so, if you enjoy tests, it won’t be hard.
I like tests, too! But I’m scared of the math. Bleah.
I got a math tutor when I took the GRE as a senior in college – for some crazy reason I didn’t have to take math in college and so was totally rusty on algebra. After a few tutoring sessions – and a jillion practice tests – it totally came back to me. I only prepped a little for the vocab stuff and ended up doing v. well on that part. YOU CAN DO IT!
The only math I took in college was stats. Yikes. I remember liking Algebra in high school but I never got past Algebra II (no calculus). Double yikes.
I did practice tests but I was also one of the last rounds of pen-and-paper GRE test-takers. Definitely find out as much as you can about how the test is put together/scored – I’ve heard that things are somewhat different in the computer version.
Also, I am a smart person but I BOMBED the math section. Really, really bombed it. Perhaps I should have expected it, but I had a reasonable amount of math education & thought I had studied enough formulas, etc. Turns out, not really. Area of a cylinder? Area of a cone? it didn’t matter much because I was applying for a liberal arts discipline & they didn’t care about my math scores, but it was much more difficult than I expected. I rocked the other half, though, so keep up with the practice exams!
I also might have found it helpful to visualize myself taking the test, feeling calm, blocking out distractions, etc. There was a guy who was coughing like he had pneumonia or TB or something & the room was very very hot & for a while I had a difficult time concentrating. Eventually I blocked it out, but practicing those techniques might have been helpful. Best of luck!
Areas? What? Isn’t that why god made computers or something?
I need at least a 500 in each area to get in but if I want to try for a fellowship, I need to get in the top 25% but I have no idea what that would be (and neither did the person I spoke with ‘cuz she says it varies).
I used number2.com when I was studying. They’ve got sample questions and a vocab builder. You also might want to try a practice essay or two. All the possible essay topics are on the official GRE site. (or were a few years ago)
Good Luck!
I wish I had practiced doing the timed essays more. I have completely lost the ability to write under pressure since high school.
Email me if you’d like help with the math – I used to tutor SAT students and I’m pretty good at this stuff.
You can download practice software from the official GRE website – I found it very helpful. http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem.1488512ecfd5b8849a77b13bc3921509/?vgnextoid=302b66f22c6a5010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD&vgnextchannel=d687e3b5f64f4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD
Hi, I’m delurking for this one. The GRE website has a LOT of information that you can download or print out, including tutorial booklets and a free practice test. I found the test prep materials from the website extremely helpful. I also got a test prep book from the library – I needed math help and also got a flip book of vocab words which I carried around with me for a few weeks. I also took a few practice tests and went back through them to check my incorrect answers and made a list of the stuff I didn’t know (this was very helpful for vocab).
One other tip is to get a practice test that you can do on the computer to help you get comfortable with the software. That will save you some time during the test and reduce some anxiety!
I also agree that doing a few practice essays is great. Even if you write daily as a job, the GRE requires a particular type of writing that doesn’t seem to occur in the real world and it’s helpful to practice it.
And definitely read up on how the test works. The computerized version works in some complicated way where if you’re doing well the questions get harder or something like that. Having that in the back of your mind when the questions seem really tough can also help reduce some anxiety.
Good luck!
Take a review course and, even more importantly, buy access to online question banks. (Kaplan, or whatever else is out there). Then retake the questions until you know them in your sleep. (No, I don’t work for any of them). I had to take the USMLE and many of the questions in my online review course were re-met during testing. Those of us with review courses did a lot better than those without.
I just did my GRE and got a score that I’m happy with.
I did what artemis did, and worked my way through a book of practice questions and used a strategy book for help. If you are planning to take the computerized test however you would want to take some practice tests on computer becuase the format is a little diffrent. A lot of the GRE is just being a smart test taker and not psyching yourself out. I suspect you will do great on the written sections.
Oh yeah and the math is maddening, lots of middle school-high school level geometry, algebra plus some graphs that are about as clear as mud (and intentionally so)
Just jump in and take a practice test to start. My guess is you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how you do on the verbal section. Your a reader and a writer and people with those skills usually do pretty well right off the bat. Take lots of practice tests for the verbal section since just familiarizing yourself with the format and the types of questions asked will boost your score.
But I would forget the vocab quizzes and spend your actual study time working on the math. I did pretty well on the verbal section with almost no prep at all. I bombed the math section way worse than expected on my first go round. After studying I brought the score up quite a bit but it took about 2 months of working on it a little bit most days just to get to decent. I had really and truly forgotten EVERYTHING I learned in high school and college math.
Definitely revisit your math and remember that crap like the square of two negative numbers is a positive, etc. etc. — a lot will resurface without that much effort.
At least these days they’re all computerized, so you don’t have to wait for weeks for the results.
I bought one of the GRE prep books with a practice CD (so I could get used to the test-taking environment) and did a gazillion of the tests. A lot of vocabulary words came up over and over again so that helped me to improve.
I don’t think doing all the tests will improve your score beyond innate ability, but it will allow you to achieve the score you’re capable of because you will be practised and confident, and so less likely to freeze in the test situation.