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In light of all the GRE questions and common threads made to ask questions, address these questions and add commentary I still see a need to provide quality and free tutoring for preparing for the GRE. Thus this thread is born. It will include general overviews based upon my own tutoring experience, links and problems from free access websites with links left at the bottom and some similar problems to those found in GRE prep manuals adapted by me to be atleast somewhat original... I will answer any general and specific questions I can as well. I will also discuss and answer question on the psychology and biology GRE👍. I do this because for now I have the time and money so I can actually give back to others for free. I will leave some good links as well, but you do not find them useful, please let me know. I am not linking paysite links, so relax🙂 Personally I am not happy with Kaplan, (though if you have done well with practice tests and are ready based upon full length simulations, do not change on my account) but I do like Oxford and I love Princeton, but yes, Barrons is acceptable.
The first thing about the GRE to keep in mind is that it is an adaptive test, a computer adaptive test (CAT) to be exact. In August 2011 that format will change somewhat and not every question will be adaptive. Also some the vocabulary section will be changed in favor of becoming more reading comprehension based, but it will still be retrieval and inference based with some adaptive components. In other words the antonyms and analogies will be removed from the vocabulary section. The number of geometry questions will be reduced so more data analysis questions more representative of real world problems will be added. There will also be a new 1 point scoring range. Though not verified as of yet students may also be allowed to use a calculator, but do not hold your breathe. Therefore each section of the GRE will considered from two perspectives: the 2010 held standard and the new August 2011 standard.
First some general advice all of the GRE prep books and free GRE study sites, state in one form or another and which should be somewhat familiar to us all:
1.) Do not rush and answer every question. Questions not answered will be held against you.
2.) Use process of elimination, (POE) which I recall hearing in fourth grade. Look at all of the possible answers after reading the question, story or problem and eliminate the obviously wrong answers and any asnwers that you know cannot be found so easily by just looking at the problem.
3.) Develop a pacing plan and keep track of the time so you fill out all questions with an answer.
4.) Use lots of scratch paper and write as neat and small as you can where you can still read it. Asking for more scratch paper can be time consuming and reduce your chances of answering all the questions or having time to write out potential answers.
5.) Lay off the caffeine unless you know your body does well on caffeine under stress as caffeine can be a serious stressor in many people. Also get plenty of rest the last few days before the test at least.
6.) Always ask yourself what method you should be using to anwer the GRE questions, what are you given and what you are looking for. There are many trap questions on the GRE so be careful not to fall for seemingly obvious answers easily found from just skimming the question; this is usually set up to throw you off. In terms of picking your methodology for solving the question: see if you need to just retrieve information from the problem or if you need to infer relationships. For example in an essay, the question maybe looking for a passage that is stating explicitly a fact, and this is retrieval. In analogies, however, you must infer a relationship between two words, and not just assume that your answer is two words that mean the same thing or different. They may have the same meaning, opposite or a little different so pay attention to the relationships between words.
For example:
Friction: Abrasion
(A) Cleanliness: sloppiness
(B ) rain, dry
(C ) smack, punch
(D ) heat, evaporation
(E) literacy, dumb
First ask yourself what is the relationship here? Is it one of synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, similar, or causal? Well, look at each word and define each word in terms of the other. In this case friction can cause abrasion so it is causal. Therefore the correct answer is D.
How about this one from the top of my head:
Wet, dry.
Immediately it should be obvious that this is an antonym. Antonyms are words that are opposites but on the GRE there may be more than one choice that seems to be a pair of words that have opposite meanings. In these cases you need to analyze what each answer option conveys to find the best answer.
7.) When time is running out and you used POE with looking in context, and still have more than one answer that looks good:
guess!
The first thing about the GRE to keep in mind is that it is an adaptive test, a computer adaptive test (CAT) to be exact. In August 2011 that format will change somewhat and not every question will be adaptive. Also some the vocabulary section will be changed in favor of becoming more reading comprehension based, but it will still be retrieval and inference based with some adaptive components. In other words the antonyms and analogies will be removed from the vocabulary section. The number of geometry questions will be reduced so more data analysis questions more representative of real world problems will be added. There will also be a new 1 point scoring range. Though not verified as of yet students may also be allowed to use a calculator, but do not hold your breathe. Therefore each section of the GRE will considered from two perspectives: the 2010 held standard and the new August 2011 standard.
First some general advice all of the GRE prep books and free GRE study sites, state in one form or another and which should be somewhat familiar to us all:
1.) Do not rush and answer every question. Questions not answered will be held against you.
2.) Use process of elimination, (POE) which I recall hearing in fourth grade. Look at all of the possible answers after reading the question, story or problem and eliminate the obviously wrong answers and any asnwers that you know cannot be found so easily by just looking at the problem.
3.) Develop a pacing plan and keep track of the time so you fill out all questions with an answer.
4.) Use lots of scratch paper and write as neat and small as you can where you can still read it. Asking for more scratch paper can be time consuming and reduce your chances of answering all the questions or having time to write out potential answers.
5.) Lay off the caffeine unless you know your body does well on caffeine under stress as caffeine can be a serious stressor in many people. Also get plenty of rest the last few days before the test at least.
6.) Always ask yourself what method you should be using to anwer the GRE questions, what are you given and what you are looking for. There are many trap questions on the GRE so be careful not to fall for seemingly obvious answers easily found from just skimming the question; this is usually set up to throw you off. In terms of picking your methodology for solving the question: see if you need to just retrieve information from the problem or if you need to infer relationships. For example in an essay, the question maybe looking for a passage that is stating explicitly a fact, and this is retrieval. In analogies, however, you must infer a relationship between two words, and not just assume that your answer is two words that mean the same thing or different. They may have the same meaning, opposite or a little different so pay attention to the relationships between words.
For example:
Friction: Abrasion
(A) Cleanliness: sloppiness
(B ) rain, dry
(C ) smack, punch
(D ) heat, evaporation
(E) literacy, dumb
First ask yourself what is the relationship here? Is it one of synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, similar, or causal? Well, look at each word and define each word in terms of the other. In this case friction can cause abrasion so it is causal. Therefore the correct answer is D.
How about this one from the top of my head:
Wet, dry.
Immediately it should be obvious that this is an antonym. Antonyms are words that are opposites but on the GRE there may be more than one choice that seems to be a pair of words that have opposite meanings. In these cases you need to analyze what each answer option conveys to find the best answer.
7.) When time is running out and you used POE with looking in context, and still have more than one answer that looks good:
guess!
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