How you all study for Analogies ?

SDN Members don't see this ad. (About Ads)

How do you study for analogies ? These questions are ridiculous and who really does know the meaning to them all. Every practice test I take has questions on analogies section that I have no clue on.

I could remember 1000 vocab words and still not have a freaking clue on how to answer them.

Sure they're easy if you know the meaning of a word, but WHAT IF YOU DON'T ?

Any help is great ya all .

Thank you
peace

You can't really study for them too well honestly unless you already have a sense of what specific words are already in your vocabulary. The only "studying" you would get would stem from doing lots and lots of practice analogies which I would encourage. A lot of it is getting yourself in the right frame of mind to do the analogies, I always do "this is to that" as "this is to that" in my mind while I'm doing the questions and relate them in some way, shape, or form, that makes sense logically. Some will always be "gimmes," while others will be a little more tedious as uncommon words can be used. That's just the way it is unfortunately.

Do most people just guess on analogies ?

How did you get that from your only reply?

Originally Posted by owlegrad

How did you get that from your only reply?

I'm guessing they were guessing about people guessing.

Originally Posted by BadgerPharm

I'm guessing they were guessing about people guessing.

I guess so.

Truthfully I think you can study for it. Learn a lot of new words everyday. Pick apart the words and try to break them down. On top of this, buy the pearson practice exams. You will notice there are only a few different ways they ask the questions. For example, they could be complete opposites which in some cases, gives the answer away immediately.

Rather than copy & paste a relevant post I just made to another thread about word roots, I'll just link: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/show...3&postcount=17

Originally Posted by xtsukiyox

Rather than copy & paste a relevant post I just made to another thread about word roots, I'll just link: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/show...3&postcount=17

That's an easy example. People are always talking about learning how to break down words for the verbal ability section. How about breaking down the word raconteur. Is it a common word, I don't know, I just learned it recently, but how would break it down. Raconteur means someone who tells stories, maybe a story telling expert or something along those lines. I would like to see more difficult word examples being broken down.

The way I'm studying for analogies is basically memorizing words. I memorized all words on Dr Collins study packet, what else should I do? I don't know what else to study or how else I can be prepared for this section. I might get an IPhone app for 500 GRE words that I saw someone on here recommend, but other than that, how else can I study? They can choose any word in the English language for this test, and there is only so much time and so many words you can study?

Originally Posted by Prepharm0425

That's an easy example. People are always talking about learning how to break down words for the verbal ability section. How about breaking down the word raconteur. Is it a common word, I don't know, I just learned it recently, but how would break it down. Raconteur means someone who tells stories, maybe a story telling expert or something along those lines. I would like to see more difficult word examples being broken down.

The way I'm studying for analogies is basically memorizing words. I memorized all words on Dr Collins study packet, what else should I do? I don't know what else to study or how else I can be prepared for this section. I might get an IPhone app for 500 GRE words that I saw someone on here recommend, but other than that, how else can I study? They can choose any word in the English language for this test, and there is only so much time and so many words you can study?

You are correct, they can potentially use any word on the exam; However, with analogies, the words have to be somewhat related and by memorizing word roots, suffixes and prefixes ... it was pretty easy. I scored a 92 in the Verbal section through memorizing words, knowing my roots, prefixes, and suffixes.

As for raconteur, it's a french word and since I spoke French, the word was already in my wheel house. Foreign words have foreign roots, thus you'll have to memorize said words unless you are familiar with the word in that language.

Originally Posted by chemguy79

You are correct, they can potentially use any word on the exam; However, with analogies, the words have to be somewhat related and by memorizing word roots, suffixes and prefixes ... it was pretty easy. I scored a 92 in the Verbal section through memorizing words, knowing my roots, prefixes, and suffixes.

As for raconteur, it's a french word and since I spoke French, the word was already in my wheel house. Foreign words have foreign roots, thus you'll have to memorize said words unless you are familiar with the word in that language.

Great job. So how many words did you memorize, I have all of the Collins words memorized, but I don't think that's enough.

Originally Posted by Prepharm0425

Great job. So how many words did you memorize, I have all of the Collins words memorized, but I don't think that's enough.

I memorized the Top 300 GRE words and there was a bit of overlap.

IMO, standardized exams tend to use similar word lists, although nothing is a guarantee. I think that there were 2 or 3 words that I didn't know throughout the entire verbal section ... Granted, I had a graduate degree prior to taking the PCAT, so I like to think that I took the exam with a solid vocabulary base.

Bottom line, Collins list was very solid and I remember laughing to myself that I had seen a fair number of these questions previously. (Granted, I took the exam in January of 2010, so things may have changed ... although his packets have not, apparently.) For myself, the verbal section contained the largest amount of material that I remember seeing through Collins' materials.

Originally Posted by chemguy79

I memorized the Top 300 GRE words and there was a bit of overlap.

IMO, standardized exams tend to use similar word lists, although nothing is a guarantee. I think that there were 2 or 3 words that I didn't know throughout the entire verbal section ... Granted, I had a graduate degree prior to taking the PCAT, so I like to think that I took the exam with a solid vocabulary base.

Bottom line, Collins list was very solid and I remember laughing to myself that I had seen a fair number of these questions previously. (Granted, I took the exam in January of 2010, so things may have changed ... although his packets have not, apparently.) For myself, the verbal section contained the largest amount of material that I remember seeing through Collins' materials.

That's good to know regarding Collins word list. I'll study GRE words as well, thanks. I'm surprised you only got a 92 on verbal considering that there were only three words you didn't know, it's not a bad score at all, that's a great score, it just kinda concerns me that we have to know everything in order to get in the 90's. Appreciate your help.

The only clue I would have about the word "raconteur" is that the ending ("-eur") looks like some words I know in English - restauranteur (one who manages a restaurant), entrepreneur (one who enterprises). So I would be able to narrow down based on the suffix alone & after that I'd have to guess based on my gut.

Here is what I started doing lately. I bought Verbal Advantage program and told myself that I would study five words per day. This way I will have thirty five words remember by end of the week. In few months I think i'll be solid with my vocab. However, I'm sure this really does not guarantee anything. I'm also using a software called "Anki". All this is a simple flash card program that uses some sort of algorithm for repetition sequence. So far it's working superb.

Anyone else use Anki?