Wednesday, 11 September 2013

Saurav Tripathy (319 (Q-165, V-154))

Score : 319 (Q-165, V-154)
Section Order : QVQVQ
Practice Tests : ETS - 320,322 (pretty accurate!)
Manhattan - 316, 318

QUANT:

The first two quant sections seemed pretty similar in difficulty. The last one had very basic questions - must have been the experimental one.
The Manhanttan set is quite comprehensive. 5 lb covers all kinds of quesitons.The practice tests are very useful. If you are starting out, no need for any other material.

Magoosh - This deserves every bit of praise. Almost all questions were very similar to the ones in the website.

VERBAL:

Studied for 3 days . [I just aimed for a high quant score] Used only Magoosh (again!) videos. If you think their maths section is good, english is extraordinary! Its all about sentence structure in the GRE. I didn't even come across a single unknown word. But the Magoosh (yet again!!) vocab ebook helped a lot with multiple meanings of words and their usage.

For RC tactics, I also referred the Aristotle GRE Verbal Grail - very systematic and thorough.

ESSAY:

Issue - I got the same essay described as an example in the Magoosh (seriously stop now!! :P).
Argument - Breezed through. Used the tactics shown in M...well, yeah. Best $99 dolars ever spent (yet :))

Overall, focus on tricky quant questions and practice RC like crazy!

Now, I have 2 questions:
1. I wrongly entered a US school for my UG. What do I do now ? 
2. (Silly) Is the score that we see once the test is over, the final one ? I mean is there any chance the final scores might change (read increase :P). I was kinda expecting more in quants :|

Thursday, 5 September 2013

Leena Panchmatia 326 (Q- 167, V-159)

Scored 326 (Q- 167, V-159) (VQVQV)  
Seriously thankful to the whole group and the admins  
This would have never been possible if I haven't joined the group...

Kaplan MSTs (1-324, 2-5 :322)
Manhattan : 329
ETS 1 : 326

Verbal:
TC/SE: More emphasis should be on understanding the sentence
RC: Manhattan is enough

Quant:
Even if your basics are strong, practise enough since you may get drained during the exam which may lead to silly mistakes.

For verbal , I did Norman Lewis word list once.. getting 25 words everyday 3 months prior to exam.. BArron 800 in the last fifteen days.. I think that much is enough... because there is very little emphasis on vocab..... SE/TC are more about understanding... all the MSTs have such questions... for practise, I didn't find any book having such questions so it is better toreview thoroughly each of the verbal tests you give

RC : Manhattan 5 lb passages are actually tough as compared to actual.. and doing them properly with proper review is sufficient... I solved manhatan 5 lb and princeton which I downloaded from here

Quant: I did manhattan 6 books for polishing all the concepts.. I didn't do much practise during the last month but I had FAITHFULLY solved RS agarwal during my vacations.. so it might have helped.. Drill sets at end of Manhattan series are nice .. u can afford to give ur time

Manhattan test quant is very much like GRE .... Just do the tests FAITHFULLY .. Quant just needs practise so u don't get drained..otherwise its easy

Pavan Kumar Silla 320(Q : 163, V : 157)

My GRE experience :
GRE score : 320 (Q-163 V-157) gave my GRE yesterday : VQVQV

Firstly, AWA is all about writing the tasks in 30 mins... follow a standard format and practice writing issue and argument tasks. ( I wont suggest more since my AWA score is not yet out)

Secondly, Verbal needs you to learn words. There were not many esoteric words. I learnt the wordlists in majortests.com. RCs is all about managing time, try to give minimum of 17 mins for RCs, you can answer every question of RCs if you have time after reading two or more times but ifyou are a good reader, not a big problem.
SE/TC : knowing the meaning of the word is 60% significant and understanding the complexity of sentence is 40% according to me. I knew the meanings of all most words and luckily i never had the case of two words having very subltle meaning.. all words meant different and if you understand the context of the sentence, you would have no problem in answering the TC/SE. SE : most of the answers i got were synonyms, so trying to read words in groups of synonyms would be beneficial.

Thirdly, Quant is all about solving the questions within the given timeframe. DI is important as you can score 6 marks at a go. Most of the DI questions were linked up with percentages. Statistics and Geometry are also important. Infact, everything is important. Questions were not that trickey but lengthy. Just practice doing 20 questions is 30 mins a 5 mins to check the ones you have a doubt in. Whenever you have a doubt in a question, mark some answer and then proceed to another as you have 1/4th probability that you get the answer right.

Finally, give as many practice tests as you can. Give Powerprep1 one week before your Gre and powerprep2 two days prior. Don't forget to review after you're sone with the test. GRE scores will be very close to your powerprep scores. My PP1: 318 (Q-166 V-152) PP2 : 314 (Q-164 V-150)
Take the Kaplan practice tests using the crack given in the group. Write your last three tests with AWA. Take Manhattan and Princeton review free tests.