Advice on GRE prep

vadrn · Mar 21, 2006

The book GRE for Dummies helped me imensely. I can't speak for everyone else but after going through a couple of prep books, this one fit me best. It gives a lot of tips on how to pick up on the tricks of the GRE. It has a very good math review in my opinion. I have been out of school almost ten years and math was definitely my weakness, and the second time I took the test my math score increased by over 100 points studying this book and taking the powerprep practice tests. You can download these from the GRE website, or they will send you a disc when you schedule your test.

The director of my program suggested the Princeton review. You can take it in a classroom setting or online. It is VERY expensive (like 1000 bucks), but they guarantee a 200 point increase in your original score.

You don't have to send your scores immediately when you take the test, but it will be your responsibility to do so when you are ready.

Hope that helps you.

MmacFN · Mar 21, 2006

what happens if you take the test more than once? Do you send the most recent scores or the both?

Is it averaged or do they place the weight on yer latest scores?

thanks for the book ideas. ill take a peek

vadrn · Mar 21, 2006

To my knowledge the scores are not averaged. They take your highest. If you take the GRE and you don't think it's competetive you don't have to send that score, but I'm not sure if all scores show up when you do finally send one in. The schools understand that not everyone will score their best the first try, so if you score a 1200 on your second try, the fact that you may have scored an 800 on your first won't matter, unless of course it is below their minimums.

Someone else may have more info, but that's what I know just from my GRE/application experience.

WVUturtle514 · Mar 21, 2006

I used the Kaplan GRE book to help study for mine. It comes with a CD rom that is very helpful and contains TONS of practice questions, including questions for the writing part of the exam. Also, when you register for the GRE, they will send you a test prep CD-rom that has a couple of practice exams on it. And on a side note, I know that there are schools out there who will waive the GRE if your GPA is high enough. My school (Georgetown) will waive the GRE if your undergrad GPA was above 3.3. Good luck to you!!!

darienblythe79 · Mar 21, 2006

I used the Kaplan GRE book to help study for mine. It comes with a CD rom that is very helpful and contains TONS of practice questions, including questions for the writing part of the exam. Also, when you register for the GRE, they will send you a test prep CD-rom that has a couple of practice exams on it. And on a side note, I know that there are schools out there who will waive the GRE if your GPA is high enough. My school (Georgetown) will waive the GRE if your undergrad GPA was above 3.3. Good luck to you!!!

:yeahthat:

Couldn't agree more. Kaplan's book really helped me out

Floridanurse · Mar 21, 2006

I found this wonderful site through my search here:

http://www.number2.com

It has a free online review for the GRE. I will be utilizing this and some books I have purchased mainly dealing with the verbal as I am good in math. One friend of mine paid for a review class, memorized what they said verbally, thought math was awful and after the test, didn't make 1000 and thought the math was easy, but the verbal portion was atrocious. Another friend of mine said to study study study words. He used 5 different books to learn techniques for answering the verbal questions and he made a 1500. So, studying is basically the answer for all of us.

saturn_girl · Mar 23, 2006

Hi! I just took the GRE a couple of weeks ago and boy am I glad that's over with! I studied for about 6 weeks sporadically before taking the test. I started out by using the Math review on the GRE website. It's a no frills concise review of the basic math you'll need to know (mostly highschool stuff). Since I hadn't done this level of math in 10 years, this was a good place to start. I also used the ARCO review book. The math review was just ok, but the GRE vocabulary list at the end of the book was excellent. By using this vocab review, there were only maybe two or three words I had to guess about on test day. Beware, I have found that most of the practice tests in the review books are MUCH easier than the actual GRE. I would recommend downloading the powerprep software from the GRE website (it's free) as the tests on there are much more indicative of the actual difficulty of the GRE.

About your scores...While it may be true that schools will put more emphasis on your higher scores, any school you choose as a recipient of your test scores has access to all scores from all GRE tests taken in the last five years. You can cancel your scores at the end of the computer based test, but you will not get a chance to see the scores before you have to choose whether or not to cancel. The quantitative portion was so much more difficult than I had ever imagined that I absolutely freaked out and almost cancelled the scores. When I was taking it, I kept thinking "this has got to be a research section! Please please let this be a research section!" I ended up with a 1300 (660 verbal/640 quantitative) so the moral of that story is try not to panic. You are probably doing better than you think. Anyway, enough of my rambling. I hope this helps. Good luck, you will do great!

MmacFN · Mar 23, 2006

good advice!

Hi! I just took the GRE a couple of weeks ago and boy am I glad that's over with! I studied for about 6 weeks sporadically before taking the test. I started out by using the Math review on the GRE website. It's a no frills concise review of the basic math you'll need to know (mostly highschool stuff). Since I hadn't done this level of math in 10 years, this was a good place to start. I also used the ARCO review book. The math review was just ok, but the GRE vocabulary list at the end of the book was excellent. By using this vocab review, there were only maybe two or three words I had to guess about on test day. Beware, I have found that most of the practice tests in the review books are MUCH easier than the actual GRE. I would recommend downloading the powerprep software from the GRE website (it's free) as the tests on there are much more indicative of the actual difficulty of the GRE.
About your scores...While it may be true that schools will put more emphasis on your higher scores, any school you choose as a recipient of your test scores has access to all scores from all GRE tests taken in the last five years. You can cancel your scores at the end of the computer based test, but you will not get a chance to see the scores before you have to choose whether or not to cancel. The quantitative portion was so much more difficult than I had ever imagined that I absolutely freaked out and almost cancelled the scores. When I was taking it, I kept thinking "this has got to be a research section! Please please let this be a research section!" I ended up with a 1300 (660 verbal/640 quantitative) so the moral of that story is try not to panic. You are probably doing better than you think. Anyway, enough of my rambling. I hope this helps. Good luck, you will do great!

BlaineCM · Mar 23, 2006

I had to take the GRE 3 times in order to get a satisfactory score. The first time I prepared by taking a GRE prep course offered as an elective in my psychology program at UF. That wasn't much help at all! The second time I studied GRE CAT for Dummies and I used Kaplan's Flip-O-Matic for the vocab. I got the same exact score as I did the first time around. The 3rd time I took the GRE I used the Flip-O-Matic in conjuction with Kaplan's GRE and GMAT Math Workbook. My score went up by 240 points. Number2.com is also a valuable source for vocab. Schools only consider your highest score.