GREs

Jilly,

I'm in the middle of GRE prep at the moment, scheduled to take it in early October. I didn't choose an expensive prep course, rather, I purchased the Kaplan and Princeton Review guides (via Amazon). They seem to be well regarded, and both feature supplemental CDs with full-length practice tests.

I would suggest finding out what the competitive score ranges are for the schools are will be applying to, so you will have an idea of exactly how many hours of prep you need. I have heard that it is not recommended exceeding two months of hard studying, due to the possibility of burnout. The schools you are applying to will be able to tell you exactly what their looking for in terms of verbal, quantitative and analytical scores. Sometimes, surprisingly, they only want you to achieve a score at the 50% percentile.

My plan is to brush up on my math (its all 7th-10th grade math anyway), and vocabulary, and then push myself by taking one full-length, timed practice test each Saturday until my official test. The ETS website (www.ets.org) also has a lot of great study tips, a full-length exam and lots of advice.

Good luck!

I just took them this past saturday and got a 1330. I studied for several months. I used the Barrons book for vocab and math strategies. I used a Kaplan cd for testing stuff. I am pretty happy about my score and I think that making use of the strategies was most helpful for me.

oh, and I never took a full length test, only portions of tests. I couldn't bring myself to sit for 3 hours to do it.

great job on your results! Thank you for answering my question you guys! I will go and purchase the books you suggested and start doing a bit of studying myself here and there I may not end up taking them until next fall after I am done with my bachelors. Thanks again! You both are a big help!