How to study for GRE?

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bsw

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I am considering MPH and I wanted to ask anyone how do you begin studying for the GRE? I don't know much about this exam. How long does it take to study for it? The last exam I have taken is the USMLE.
Appreciate any input.
thankx
 
bsw said:
I am considering MPH and I wanted to ask anyone how do you begin studying for the GRE? I don't know much about this exam. How long does it take to study for it? The last exam I have taken is the USMLE.
Appreciate any input.
thankx

How did you review for the USMLE? As for myself, I used text from Barrons, Arco, and Rea. I used Princeton Review only for the writing section. I think the more practice exams you take, the better. That, and reviewing how to be an effective test taker for the GRE helps as well. I did not take a course on GRE prep, however, I created a "self study" program and studied for around 3-4 hours a day. I did that for about 3 months or so? And I did pretty well.
 
I think sappho_sapphics has the right idea in suggesting that you create your own study plan for yourself based on the areas in which you feel you need preparation. I was not as dedicated as sappho_sapphics in studying for the GRE (wow, impressive study skills!), but I did fine as well.

For me, the CD of practice tests supplied by GRE was the most helpful thing. I also used the GRE website to find out about the types of math questions that would be asked. They also have (somewhere, you might have to dig around to find it) a pool of analytical writing questions. It was very useful for me to see the types and range of questions that could be asked, and to think about how I would go about answering those.

The general test-taking strategies from the GRE people are helpful, too.
 
Is it necessary to be good at standardized exams, to do well on the GRE? I have not had much luck with them in the past?
 
icebreakers said:
Is it necessary to be good at standardized exams, to do well on the GRE? I have not had much luck with them in the past?
Icebreakers, in this case, I would say yes you have to be good at the GRE and get well competitive scores or at least receive scores close to or above the minimum recommended. If you score below the minimum (most schools, but not all, require between 1000-1200, of which verbal should run around 480-500 and quantitative/math should be around 600). Again, you need to check the school bare minimums. I think you might be able to get along if you do not get stellar scores, but do keep in mind that if they had a choice between two people with same experiences, but one with higher GRE scores, they probably will select the one with the higher scores.

I was never great at standardized exams as well. I ended up retaking the exam, and scored about 100 points better the second time around. IF you honestly do not feel comfortable taking standardized exams, I strongly suggest studying and preparing for the GRE's now.
 
Overall:
I want to echo what has already been said about doing practice questions and practice tests. It helps you get good timing down and just get a good sense of how you can go about answering the different types of questions that they might throw at you. The GRE is also a test where its a good idea to understand how they do the scoring. For example, I know the GRE is changing but the computer-adaptive one I took had a lot of interesting quirks about how they scored questions. I used the Princeton Review prep book to study and it went over all the important rules of scoring that ended up being very helpful for me.

For the writing section:
The GRE website has sample essays and guidelines of how they do the scoring. I thought the sample essays were really helpful in displaying the type of style and format one should write in to acheive a good score. For me, after I had established what type of format I wanted to use for each essay type, it was a matter of just practicing and getting the timing down.

For the Verbal Section:
I think those lists that Kaplan and Princeton Review have of the most frequently seen words on the GRE are helpful. I studied those. Beyond that, I made a concientious effort to learn new words. In terms of the reading passages, they seemed less intense to me than MCAT verbal reasoning because you'll most likely have more time to devote to each passage. But the types of questions they asked about from the passages seemed very similar to question types on MCAT verbal reasoning. Do a lot of practice questions.

For the Quantitative Section:
Its just a matter of doing sample quesetions and sample tests to get a good sense of how they ask questions and how you can go about solving them. The math is high school level math so I don't think it'll take you forever to review the concepts.


Good luck.
 
basten0 said:
Overall:
I want to echo what has already been said about doing practice questions and practice tests. It helps you get good timing down and just get a good sense of how you can go about answering the different types of questions that they might throw at you. The GRE is also a test where its a good idea to understand how they do the scoring. For example, I know the GRE is changing but the computer-adaptive one I took had a lot of interesting quirks about how they scored questions. I used the Princeton Review prep book to study and it went over all the important rules of scoring that ended up being very helpful for me.

For the writing section:
The GRE website has sample essays and guidelines of how they do the scoring. I thought the sample essays were really helpful in displaying the type of style and format one should write in to acheive a good score. For me, after I had established what type of format I wanted to use for each essay type, it was a matter of just practicing and getting the timing down.

For the Verbal Section:
I think those lists that Kaplan and Princeton Review have of the most frequently seen words on the GRE are helpful. I studied those. Beyond that, I made a concientious effort to learn new words. In terms of the reading passages, they seemed less intense to me than MCAT verbal reasoning because you'll most likely have more time to devote to each passage. But the types of questions they asked about from the passages seemed very similar to question types on MCAT verbal reasoning. Do a lot of practice questions.

For the Quantitative Section:
Its just a matter of doing sample quesetions and sample tests to get a good sense of how they ask questions and how you can go about solving them. The math is high school level math so I don't think it'll take you forever to review the concepts.


Good luck.



It sounds like you took the MCAT as well as the GRE. How does the GRE compare? Do you know if your MCAT scores "predict" what you may get on the GRE?
 
hopefullypeachy said:
It sounds like you took the MCAT as well as the GRE. How does the GRE compare? Do you know if your MCAT scores "predict" what you may get on the GRE?

The GREs versus the MCAT are two totally different things and exams. Take a look at the practice MCAT/GRE's out there and you will see the difference in subject matter and scoring.

I do not believe your score on either the GRE or the MCAT determine what you get on the latter.
 
hopefullypeachy said:
It sounds like you took the MCAT as well as the GRE. How does the GRE compare? Do you know if your MCAT scores "predict" what you may get on the GRE?

MCAT was definitely harder than GRE. They are pretty different; the only comparable part would be the verbal, and even there it's quite different. For example, I felt memorizing vocab helped me a lot in the GRE verbal section, whereas in MCAT vocab is not relevant. The "feel" of verbal passage questions are also pretty different, with the MCAT ones definitely being the harder.
 
hopefullypeachy said:
It sounds like you took the MCAT as well as the GRE. How does the GRE compare? Do you know if your MCAT scores "predict" what you may get on the GRE?


Yea, MCAT is a lot harder than GRE. It is also a completely different beast. Besides just the obvious differences on what you are being tested on, there is much more reviewing that has to go on for the MCAT before you are really ready to learn how to tackle MCAT-type problems. This is not the case for the GRE. There just isn't that much stuff to review on the GRE in my opinion. And GRE studying for me, basically meant doing problems and writing practice essays. Even if you go about trying to learn new words for the GRE, 1) I don't really consider that review, 2)learning words is not the same as reviewing science concepts on the MCAT and 3)some people go about learning words as they are doing GRE practice problems.

I don't think your MCAT and GRE scores will correlate. I mean if you are a super genius than I guess you will do really well on both but that has nothing to do with the GRE and MCAT scores correlating. I will say this: if you can do well on MCAT verbal, I would think you could do well on the critical reading passages of GRE verbal. There might be some correlation there.

Also, how "well" you do on either test is dependent upon fellow test-takers as well (i.e. your national percentile rank). And the group of kids who take the MCAT are very different from the group of kids who take the GRE not only in terms of academic skill-set but also how much time time they spend preparing for the test. I would guess a lot more kids go into the GRE with little to no preparation than they do the MCAT.
 
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