I thought I should chime in here, since I did manage a 700 on the GRE verbal and some of my tips MAY be of use.
The thing about studying for the verbal GRE is that you really need to understand yourself as a student in order to study efficiently. I know alot of people (all of whom are intelligent people) that spent countless hours studying for GRE verbal, only to walk out with a below average score, and this was mainly because they didn't study well.
Reading Comprehension:
For the SAT, i used the method where you look at the questions first, but that actually screwed me over. For me, that took up too much time because even after finding the section with my answer, i would end up having to read the few sentences before and after just to get some good context. Doing that for every question was a serious waste of time for me, and ended up hurting me quite a bit. However, if you're confident in your ability to make some keen conclusions quickly, then this method might be perfect for you.
I changed my methods for the GRE, and approached the passages by reading them at a pace somewhere between 'focused reading' and skimming. Skimming was rather pointless for me, because i would basically just end up re-reading EVERYTHING after looking at the questions. Other than that, i don't have too much to offer, because it seems that for this section is something you've prepared for (or haven't prepared for) your entire life just by reading.
Analogies/Antonyms:
Now, there aren't many things I boast about, but I am a machine when it comes to memorizing word lists. So if you're like me, and actually get a kick out of the challenge of tackling a list with thousands of words, then go for it. Honestly, i didn't have to spend a penny when it came to this part of my studying. I literally went to google, did a search for something like "GRE vocabulary list" and a found a couple lists, each with a couple thousand words. From then on, it was smooth sailing, and a ton of the words overlapped between different lists, and several of popped up on my actual exam. Also, i might add that a lot of study guides provide word lists in the form of groups, so that you can learn the words in bunches. This can be extremely helpful, but i would urge you to-once you have the word groups memorized- to try to look at some of the finer differences between words within a group, because the GRE LOVES to screw people over by using words of a similar meaning. I suspect that a minority of students excel by this method, but if you think you do (I was able to tell this would work because i've always done well with word lists in my foreign language courses), then go for it. It should even be a little fun for you.
If not, then there are some other things you could do. If, as someone above suggested, you're good at figuring out the meanings of words by context, then you could try some literary works. However, i don't know if this alone would be sufficient/efficient enough to get yourself a high score on the antonyms/analogies. Some people do well by learning latin/greek roots and such, but i personally found that there were too many exceptions to the rules for it to be helpful.
Most of this is probably stuff you already know, but i was mainly trying to point out that you should analyze yourself as a learner before you go and waste time studying inefficiently.
Hope this help, otherwise i just wasted a buttload of time 😎
