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Does anyone have any good tips for cracking the verbal section of the GRE, specifically the reading passages?
Thanks!
Thanks!
Does anyone have any good tips for cracking the verbal section of the GRE, specifically the reading passages?
Thanks!
I second the Princeton review. I used Kaplan for the old gre so its not directly comparable, but so far I like Princeton more, especially for math (which I realize you didn't ask about).
Just curious, but what specifically are you liking better about Princeton, mewtoo? I too used Kaplan for the old GRE, and may have to update the darned thing one of these days...
I think Princeton has more strategies in it than the old Kaplan, but it could also be that the Princeton strategies mesh better with me. I'm not really certain since it was over a year ago now that I took the old GRE and used Kaplan and my study habits have vastly improved since then.
I think so far that Princeton offers more strategies for the quant section than Kaplan did (I'm just really delving into the math part now, so I'll know more later). I think Kaplan tried more to get you to understand the content and solve it the old fashioned way while Princeton tries to get you to understand the content and offers some really valuable strategies. I know that one of the tips Princeton gives about the quant comparison (one of the hardest types for me) pretty much rocked my world and since then I've been getting a lot more of those types correct. For the verbal part I think it outlined more strategies than Kaplan too.
Hopefully that wasn't just some rambling mess.
Very helpful--thanks, mewtoo!
And good luck with applications. The APA quandary sounds like a pain. I hope you find a strong research match at an APA school.
Does anyone have any good tips for cracking the verbal section of the GRE, specifically the reading passages?
Thanks!
I just took the GRE yesterday. I had taken the GRE in its previous incarnation and did much better this time. I noticed were that it was heavy on the reading comprehension (~2/3 of the questions) and that there was very little in the way of obscure vocabulary words. I've been studying off and on for a while (I've been on the fence about retaking it, decided I didn't need to and was now forced to take it) so I'm sure that's helped me a lot, but what I think was most important is that I've been reading the newspaper (new york times, maybe an average of an article a day) regularly for the past few years. I know you can't take a few years to start reading a paper, but I think that if you have a few months before the test or regularly read high quality content you can do very well on the verbal section. Magoosh actually have a post about this on their blog.
On a related note, the math was very much conceptual. Some questions had few to no numbers. I liked it it because I didn't feel penalized for misremembering the formula for mortgage amortization, but I can imagine that others may really dislike it.
Below are my thoughts on materials I've used to study for the test in case this is of use to anyone. All apps are on the iphone.
Taken before first test:
Kaplan class - Minimally helpful. I am not bad at math, but have a terrible memory and hate rote memorization. This was almost all math review and a little talk about how to approach the writing section. We were told to memorize the vocab (I didn't). I think tactics taught by these courses are somewhat of a scam. Does anyone really need to be told not to consider an option you know is wrong?
Kaplan book that came with class (including practice tests) - Helpful. Hard to say how much. I didn't really study vocab words, but I think I did all the exercises (except for those essays)
Taken before the second test:
Watermelon Express GRE Connect (app) - Terrible. At the time this was the only app I could find and it was horrible. Very buggy, difficult to use and the answers were often wrong or incomplete. I don't know if they improved, but I wouldn't trust them. I didn't really use this to prepare, but I wanted to warn any other suckers out there.
Kaplan vocabulary flashcards(app) - helpful. Something about doing this on my phone made it less terrible for me. Like most things, I think you need to spend a good deal of time with this for it to sink in (at least that's true for me). I mostly used this about two years ago when I thought I was going to retake the GRE.
Smart Vocab (GRE) (app) - I liked this more than than the Kaplan app. I thought it was better organized by levels of difficulty and you have to correctly identify a word more than once, which is better at assessing long-term retention. I started using this about a month before the GRE.
Kaplan GRE premier book - I got it because it came with free tests and I wanted a refresher. The best thing about it is that it came with a code that allowed me to take a bunch of tests and other materials online. They didn't have a couple of the verbal and quant practice sets so they gave me access to a free database of 2500 questions. I'm pretty sure they were mostly written with the old GRE in mind, but very helpful regardless. I also found the Kaplan verbal questions to be a lot more difficult than the GRE (I sometimes disagreed with their answer choices for the reading comp questions...). The math was more concrete, but I thought it was generally pretty good.
ETS Powerprep II - A good simulation of the test. I took the 2 tests during the 2 days before my test, but I think I'd recommend taking the first one relatively early to test your strengths and weaknesses. Also, the test is adaptive in the sense that the second verbal/quant section difficulty depends on your performance on the first section. This means that after taking the test you can spend some time studying and then retake it. You will probably do better so there's a good chance you'll get a harder second section than you did previously.
Good luck to everyone out there. I hope this is helpful.
Awesome post! Would you mind sharing your scores or just how much they improved?
I should also mention that I'm terrified in case I misread the scores or that they can somehow change in some way. I'll sleep better when I get them or see them online.
In any case, verbal by about 6 points according to the old-new conversion chart ETS put up. Math went up by about 2 points according to the chart. The change in the verbal score is much more dramatic because of the way those scores are distributed.
Also, I just wanted to share that Princeton right now has a free mock-GRE test out right now: http://www.princetonreview.com/grad/free-gre-practice-test.aspx
Good call. I would definitely encourage anyone to take as many practice tests as possible. Test taking leads to better performance and context (which in essence includes the length, make-up, and format of a test) during practice leads to better recall (transfer appropriate processing, etc. etc.).
I took it and I think it was pretty good. Only complaint is that I think the digital calculator that comes with it doesn't have all the functions that it was supposed to. I thought it was supposed to have a root function and a squaring function and the Princeton version did not. Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken on it.
You get the root function but not square. There's a picture of it on one of the PDFs about the test on ETS's website and you will see it when you take the powerprep tests.
I also read somewhere (Kaplan?) that test takers performance can be somewhat differentiated by the way they breath. I think better test takers breathed normally and performance dropped when breathing was shallow and rapid. I think taking the length of the GRE and taking practice tests makes us get in the habit of skipping over these breaks. I used all the breaks I had to close my eyes for a second, breath, and try to relax. I also got up, ate something, had a drink of water and went to the bathroom during the longer break. Because there were always questions I didn't answer or wasn't sure about I felt like I was doing poorly at the end of each section. I think doing that stuff helped me avoid having the feeling of bombing on a section affect my performance on the next one.
You get the root function but not square. There's a picture of it on one of the PDFs about the test on ETS's website and you will see it when you take the powerprep tests.
I also read somewhere (Kaplan?) that test takers performance can be somewhat differentiated by the way they breath. I think better test takers breathed normally and performance dropped when breathing was shallow and rapid. I think taking the length of the GRE and taking practice tests makes us get in the habit of skipping over these breaks. I used all the breaks I had to close my eyes for a second, breath, and try to relax. I also got up, ate something, had a drink of water and went to the bathroom during the longer break. Because there were always questions I didn't answer or wasn't sure about I felt like I was doing poorly at the end of each section. I think doing that stuff helped me avoid having the feeling of bombing on a section affect my performance on the next one.