Questions about GRE Exam

[SUNYAggie]

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1) What year in undergrad is best to take this exam? I'm assuming 3rd or 4th if you are not applying to any early acceptance program?

2) Some schools such as Cornell do not grade the Analytical Writing section of the exam, but would doing it anyway impress them or would they just simply not care? (Am I supposed to just skip this part then and go home after completing verbal and quantitive reasoning?)

 

[lalzi22]

take it your junior year, like in jan-march so you can always then take it again in june/july if you do not like your score, and your scores will last longest. also, you have to take the analytical section no matter what. you cannot complete the test without it.

 

[bardsle1]

take it your junior year, like in jan-march so you can always then take it again in june/july if you do not like your score, and your scores will last longest. also, you have to take the analytical section no matter what. you cannot complete the test without it.

totally agree with this, take it early junior year so you can retake it like 2 times (damn exam lol).. i am not sure if you have to necessarily take the analytical section, but most schools do require it now so just take it in case you want to branch out in the schools you are applying to, better to take it all at once than needed to retake it because you skipped it the first time.

 

[bruinvetman]

technically you could also take the test second year of college. the math is all high school stuff. Take it third year if you think your vocabulary or reading comprehension skills might improve over the year. I took the test after my third year in college (actually a month before vmcas were do last year) simply because i procrastinate things like no other.

 

[twelvetigers]

Take it whenever you'll have time to study for it, basically! It's a good idea to plan to take it twice. If you do well enough the first time, then you won't have to worry about it.

You have to take ALL of it... I mean, you can not worry about the analytical section (it's a bit weird to study for anyway) but I would at least make an effort. Don't leave it blank. It won't say that you didn't finish - you'll just get a 0 or something.

 

[bruinvetman]

also, the writing section is always at the beginning of the gre. The only way to skip it is to siply not write anything , hit submit, and just take an actual 0 for the analytical section. But you probably don't want to just apply to cornell, don't put all your eggs in one basket. There's plenty of good vet schools out there. The writing section really isn't that bad and its not like vet schools want a perfect score in this section

 

[deleted266066]

Like everyone said... take it whenever 🙂 But generally, the sooner, the better. Aside from the fact that the math is stuff you likely will have not seen in years (unless you're a math major maybe), waiting longer won't benefit you. It also gives you time to retake the exam if necessary, without worrying about getting a better score on time for applications. And definitely complete the writing portion... as others pointed out, you might want to apply somewhere which requires it.

I took mine at the end of this past summer, which was leading into my senior year of college... However I am not planning on applying until next summer (application of 2010 for matriculation in 2011). This gave me a year to re-do anything if I ended up with a lower score than I had hoped for. Fortunately, studying on and off for a couple months resulted in a very satisfactory outcome, so now I don't have to worry about the GRE monster anymore. Yay!

 

[PicklePie]

I took it in May of my junior year, just in case I wanted to retake it over the summer. I used one of those prep books with practice tests, since the cd they give you when you sign up didn't work with my computer. Study the vocabulary lists like crazy and you'll be fine, the math is absolute cake.

 

[cowgirla]

I took it in May of my junior year, just in case I wanted to retake it over the summer. I used one of those prep books with practice tests, since the cd they give you when you sign up didn't work with my computer. Study the vocabulary lists like crazy and you'll be fine, the math is absolute cake.

Speak for yourself, I suck at math.
Studied my butt off for the math, didn't even look at the english or writing.
Then, go figure, my verbal and quant scores were exactly the same.

 

[twelvetigers]

Agreed, did average-ish on the math and very well on the verbal... wish I'd spent more time on the math.

 

[BlacKAT33]

i cant raise my verbal score for the life of me. i took a kaplan class (loved it) and aced the math and did horrible on verbal (worse than my practice tests lol)

 

[bardsle1]

i cant raise my verbal score for the life of me. i took a kaplan class (loved it) and aced the math and did horrible on verbal (worse than my practice tests lol)

i second that.. didn't do any math review and aced it.. verbal? umm i wish

 

[cuitlamiztli]

Junior year is generally a good time to take it but it really just depends on your schedule. Take it earlier if you feel ready! And, like others have said, it's certainly a good idea to plan to take it twice.

Also--agreed on the math sucks part (the cake is a lie). It may "only" be high school level, but if you're not good at math, not good at standardized math tests (this would be me), or both, I would certainly start reviewing as early as I could. Actually, I'd start reviewing early for each section even if you feel confident in them. It never hurts to be prepared.

 

[eventualeventer]

I'm OK at math but it took practice to be able to do it quickly enough for the test. On my first practice exam, I ran out of time with half a dozen questions left, so it definitely wouldn't hurt to practice.

 

[DVMDream]

I also agree take it as early as you can; so if need be (hopefully not) you can take it again. Also do the analytical writing, you never know what schools you are going to want to apply to.

I also have to say that the verbal section sucks. I barely raised my score when I re-took it (70 points). However, the math section was easy for me. (Also raised it 70 points the 2nd time around, even though I did not need to).


Good Luck when you do take it!!

 

[BlacKAT33]

I'm OK at math but it took practice to be able to do it quickly enough for the test. On my first practice exam, I ran out of time with half a dozen questions left, so it definitely wouldn't hurt to practice.

i agree, the only reason i was able to do so well on the math part wasnt only because im good at math, but also... i took a BILLION kaplan online practice tests/quizzes so i could do the math FAST. it comes out to doing the harder questions in 2 min. and the easier ones in 30 sec. I def had to practice time managment for the math section.

 

[mr1985]

2) Some schools such as Cornell do not grade the Analytical Writing section of the exam, but would doing it anyway impress them or would they just simply not care? (Am I supposed to just skip this part then and go home after completing verbal and quantitive reasoning?)

You might as well write the analytical section. It's the section that takes the least preparation. As I remember it, you're spotting flaws in arguments / making arguments, so it's really just about being about to spot flaws quickly and write clearly. If you decided to go to another school that looks at the analytical section, you won't need to redo the whole test to fix your zero grade.

 

[nyanko]

As I remember it, you're spotting flaws in arguments / making arguments, so it's really just about being about to spot flaws quickly and write clearly.

Oh is that all?

I can argue with the best of them. I can't organize my thoughts given a short time limit, though.

4.0 both times on the AW portion 👎

 

[marycatherine]

I'm an English major and still did pretty poorly on the Verbal section, there were just vocabulary words on there that I'd never seen before! Luckily I've got a few years before I'll be applying to vet school, so I'm going to be studying flashcards until then, hahaha.

 

[deleted266066]

Ohh definitely study things like groups of words with positive/negative word charge! And groups of words with similar topics and/or meanings. I took an online prep course through Kaplan and it had the best little pocket review book (I used this more than the giant book the packet came with!). I'm sure there are other versions of a similar booklet (or floating around online somewhere). This helped me way more than trying to study individual words and prefixes and so on.

 

[sumstorm]

Remember that some schools 'expire' the GRE scores after three years, which may mean an early take falls off if you have any delays or reapplications.

 

[BlacKAT33]

I took an online prep course through Kaplan and it had the best little pocket review book (I used this more than the giant book the packet came with!). I'm sure there are other versions of a similar booklet (or floating around online somewhere). This helped me way more than trying to study individual words and prefixes and so on.

I LOVED THIS LIL BOOK!! im never letting it out of my hands again in case i need to take the GREs later in life

if anyone is really struggling and needs help/motivation i def recommend kaplan. i took princeton review for SAT and Kaplan for GRE so ive had some experience with both. princeton was good, but kaplan was great. PM me if you want more details

 

[jesiah]

eh i took it a month in august 28 this year about a month before the deadline for vmcas. i would rec. taking it at least two months before just because you never know if it will come on time and you might get stressed like i did. (everything went through tho)

i woudl take it whenever you feel ready/confident. i just studied the ets gre book and used number2.com (free) and did pretty good on the gre.

 

[racccjlm]

Seriously, the more time you can give yourself the better if you're not confident that you'll perform how you want to the first time. Due to an internship this summer and a semester from hell last semester, I didn't get to take the GRE until August 15th this year...didn't like how I did...so I took it again September 19th. I took it WAAAAY to close to the VMCAS deadline date, and I have yet to get my normal heart rate back! 😉

Some people can breeze through standardized tests...I'm not one of them. There is a lot of good prep material out there if you need it. Princeton Review is also a reputable source that you can pick up at a lot of book stores.