I got done with my GRE yesterday. Ended up with a score of 328(170 quants+158 verbal). A few people requested me to share my story here so that others could benefit from it I'll break down the entire syllabus into subsections(the way I looked at it) and tell you how I prepared for it and what it was like facing that particular section on the test day. Additionally I will list out the material I utilized.
Maths: I have studied in CBSE until class 12th and am currently in final year mechanical engineering, which largely contributed to my confidence in maths! I did not do extensive maths drills or practice from any particular book. The only time i practiced maths was when solving full length computer based practice papers. However, a few friends of mine recommended Nova and Princeton 1014 for maths practice of GRE level. Also, I highly recommend "Cracking the GRE" by Princeton Review. That one book can help you get past 315 with ease! Any edition after 2012 would help guide you through the new format test. The techniques given in the above mentioned book are priceless! Be it verbal or quants, Princeton Review techniques will help you hit bulls eye! On the test day, the questions were slightly tricky. Not withstanding the fact that I was able to complete each section within 20-25 minutes, there were alot of trap answers and multi-layered questions to try and deceive you.
Vocabulary: Some (un)wise people recommended me to start spending my nights with word power. I'm glad I didn't listen to them! Not only would it have been painstaking, it would be utterly useless! ETS says the new format is not vocabulary based and they're right. The sentence completion and sentence equivalence questions on the GRE are built not around vocabulary, but around complex sentence structures! Once I got past section 1 with ease, section 2 did contain some uncommon words, but there again, about 95% of those words were from Princeton Reviews "Hit Parade" and "Beyond Hit Parade" list, which is a modest 480 words in all. Additionally, while solving computer based full length tests, I kept a notepad open at all times and kept on adding words I did not know the meaning of to the list, to look up the meaning later. I was able to come up with a list of about 70 words there too from 11 papers(about 25-26 verbal sections). Also noteworthy is the fact that questions on the test that are structured around vocabulary have very simple sentence structure, which means if you know the meanings of all 5 or 6 words, you can mark the answer in less than 30 seconds.
RCs: At this point you may think I have set out to advertise Princeton Review, but I am being honest when I say its the best book I found out there! I used to score only about 4-6/10 in RCs per section before reading their chapter on RCs. Thereafter, my scores have been 7+ consistently! On the test, your first section(non adaptive) will contain such answer choices that almost always you would end up with 2 "maybe"s when applying Process Of Elimination. Surprisingly I found the RCs of my 2nd verbal section quite easy, which initially led me to think I must have messed up my first verbal(its adaptive) but then my scores were fairly decent.
Essays: Since I'm looking to apply for MS in Engineering, I don't really need good essay scores. I need an average of 3 of 6 and that's what I worked for. In all papers except my last 2, I did not type out full essays. However, I would read the topics and list out the following:
Issue essay: keywords, my points for, my points against, my conclusion.
Argument essay: the arguments conclusion, the premise, the assumptions, how I'd attack the assumptions.
This basically forms the outline of each essay, so on the test day you would start by listing out these things and then elaborating on each point. These techniques on essay writing, again, are taken from Princeton Review Cracking the GRE 2014.
Material:
1. The Princeton Review "Cracking The GRE" 2014.(for tips and techniques)
2. Princeton 1014 questions.(sent comp, sent equal, RC drills)
3. ETS official GRE guide.
Online Tests and scores:
1. Kaplan MST 5 online tests : 322-332(quants: 168-170, verbal: 152-162)
2. Princetonreview 4 online tests: 324-332(quants: 170, verbal: 154-162)
3. Power prep 1: 325(quants: 169, verbal: 156)
4. Power prep 2: 323(quants: 170, verbal: 153)
Additional computer based practice: Kaplan practice sets(10x verbal, 10x quants practice sections), I used to score 13-18 in those.
Good luck all! I hope my experience would benefit you all
Any more queries, feel free to mail me
Best Regards,
Danish Patel
Maths: I have studied in CBSE until class 12th and am currently in final year mechanical engineering, which largely contributed to my confidence in maths! I did not do extensive maths drills or practice from any particular book. The only time i practiced maths was when solving full length computer based practice papers. However, a few friends of mine recommended Nova and Princeton 1014 for maths practice of GRE level. Also, I highly recommend "Cracking the GRE" by Princeton Review. That one book can help you get past 315 with ease! Any edition after 2012 would help guide you through the new format test. The techniques given in the above mentioned book are priceless! Be it verbal or quants, Princeton Review techniques will help you hit bulls eye! On the test day, the questions were slightly tricky. Not withstanding the fact that I was able to complete each section within 20-25 minutes, there were alot of trap answers and multi-layered questions to try and deceive you.
Vocabulary: Some (un)wise people recommended me to start spending my nights with word power. I'm glad I didn't listen to them! Not only would it have been painstaking, it would be utterly useless! ETS says the new format is not vocabulary based and they're right. The sentence completion and sentence equivalence questions on the GRE are built not around vocabulary, but around complex sentence structures! Once I got past section 1 with ease, section 2 did contain some uncommon words, but there again, about 95% of those words were from Princeton Reviews "Hit Parade" and "Beyond Hit Parade" list, which is a modest 480 words in all. Additionally, while solving computer based full length tests, I kept a notepad open at all times and kept on adding words I did not know the meaning of to the list, to look up the meaning later. I was able to come up with a list of about 70 words there too from 11 papers(about 25-26 verbal sections). Also noteworthy is the fact that questions on the test that are structured around vocabulary have very simple sentence structure, which means if you know the meanings of all 5 or 6 words, you can mark the answer in less than 30 seconds.
RCs: At this point you may think I have set out to advertise Princeton Review, but I am being honest when I say its the best book I found out there! I used to score only about 4-6/10 in RCs per section before reading their chapter on RCs. Thereafter, my scores have been 7+ consistently! On the test, your first section(non adaptive) will contain such answer choices that almost always you would end up with 2 "maybe"s when applying Process Of Elimination. Surprisingly I found the RCs of my 2nd verbal section quite easy, which initially led me to think I must have messed up my first verbal(its adaptive) but then my scores were fairly decent.
Essays: Since I'm looking to apply for MS in Engineering, I don't really need good essay scores. I need an average of 3 of 6 and that's what I worked for. In all papers except my last 2, I did not type out full essays. However, I would read the topics and list out the following:
Issue essay: keywords, my points for, my points against, my conclusion.
Argument essay: the arguments conclusion, the premise, the assumptions, how I'd attack the assumptions.
This basically forms the outline of each essay, so on the test day you would start by listing out these things and then elaborating on each point. These techniques on essay writing, again, are taken from Princeton Review Cracking the GRE 2014.
Material:
1. The Princeton Review "Cracking The GRE" 2014.(for tips and techniques)
2. Princeton 1014 questions.(sent comp, sent equal, RC drills)
3. ETS official GRE guide.
Online Tests and scores:
1. Kaplan MST 5 online tests : 322-332(quants: 168-170, verbal: 152-162)
2. Princetonreview 4 online tests: 324-332(quants: 170, verbal: 154-162)
3. Power prep 1: 325(quants: 169, verbal: 156)
4. Power prep 2: 323(quants: 170, verbal: 153)
Additional computer based practice: Kaplan practice sets(10x verbal, 10x quants practice sections), I used to score 13-18 in those.
Good luck all! I hope my experience would benefit you all
Any more queries, feel free to mail me
Best Regards,
Danish Patel
No comments:
Post a Comment