GRE question

[itsinthegenes]

Hi all,

I have been revising for the GRE and have a question. Case wants 500 and 500 for the verbal and Quantitative respectively. I took a practice test before I started revising and got 520 verbal and 530 quantitative. Now having practiced both sections, I took two more practice tests and in both got 520 verbal and 600 and 640 quantitative. Clearly the practice is helping my maths (I did a genetics degree, with lots of maths, which I completed in 2002, so guess I just need to refresh). My question is regarding verbal. Clearly my score is identical before practice. Do you think that is just my level verbally? Any suggestions on how to improve? My score breakdown did not show a particular weakness in any one area of verbal (i.e. I was not particularly bad at antonyms as opposed to anything else). I am stuck as to how to improve the score. I want to take the GRE at the end of March and am nervous that all my scores are so close to my schools minimum.

Thanks in advance

[CNM2B]

Hi! I got a review book that listed the 300 most common GRE words. I made flashcards and learned all of the words that I didn't already know. I believe that helped TREMENDOUSLY and I got a 710 verbal. It wasn't too hard---I spent about 20 minutes a night for a couple of months on that...

Good luck!

Jennifer

[Asherah, BSN, RN]

Like Jennifer above, I think the key to making progress in the verbal section is boosting your vocabulary. I used the Kaplan and Princeton Review books to find the commonly seen vocab words and used flashcards. Its not the most advanced learning technique, but if time is on your side, it works!

Good luck!

[Bree124, BSN, RN]

I think in order to improve the verbal scores, you have to do something similar to what Asherah and CNM2B did. I have a large vocabulary, and was shocked at how few of the words I knew on the vocab section - probably less than half of the tough ones. Rote memorization is probably the best way, I really don't know what else you could do.

[cooldude41]

Irs very hard to remember GRE Verbal words, but over time and practice, you can remember all the words.

you can find words that were frequently asked in GRE. For examples, if you search online for 299 frequently asked words in GRE, Top 50 words or so, you can find some frequently asked verbal words. Alos, for math its depends on strategy and skills you get from practice exams.

2 months will be good time to get score abourt 1100.

[UVA Grad Nursing]

I had to take the GRE twice since I had more than 5 years between my Masters and PHD. My strategy was to overprepare --- so I used a LSAT prep book. I found the reading comprehension and vocab in the LSAT book to be harder than that in the GRE.

When it came time to take the GRE for my PhD application, I sailed through and had extra time on all sections. I was ablet to raise my Verbal score by 80 points from the time I took it for my Masters 8 years earlier as well.

I do not recommend this for everyone, but I wanted to get full scholarship for my PHD so needed excellent scores.

[AWanderingMinstral]

FLASH CARDS!!! I used them for both the SAT and the GRE and I scored over 1300 on both. It certainly cannot hurt!