As a senior, an undergrad from Anna University and PhD student at University of Miami and as someone who has gone through the GRE, here are some tips for those who are going to be taking this test.
Please familiarize yourself with the format from a GRE book like the Barrons first.
About GRE classes
First and foremost :- PLEASE DO NOT GO TO GRE CLASSES, especially those like LYCEUM (in Madras)! They only want their money, and they don’t care a damn about you guys. The TIME institute is better, but it is still not worth it at all! It is best to study by yourself. GRE is a lot of fun when you study in a group too, so maybe you could study all those seemingly boring words with your friends, it will make it much easier and a lot more fun!
When do you start?
2nd year vacation.
For students who are in the 1st, 2nd and beginning of 3rd Year!
What do you start with?
Barrons Wordlist
Start studying the words. This is the first thing to do. Buy a BARRONS and start learning the wordlists at the end. Many people might call this early, but if you start early, you can enjoy the whole thing and not just rush through in the end, which would be very stressful.
How do you study random words? : Make sense of them and don’t just mug the up!
So go wordlist by wordlist, each word that you come across, go to the website: www.dictionary.com, read all the word meanings for that particular word. Go online, see how its used. Try using these words everyday, if you start early you can take your time with actually understanding each word and its usage instead of just mugging it up. Vishal has put some useful tools up for learning words in this website, use those too!
A time table for learning:
Lets say you learn 25 words every day. Learn the words in the morning. Next day, revise the words that you learnt the day before, also learn 25 new words. So everyday, learn new words, and revise words that you learn the day before. Keep the weekends for ONLY revision. Revise all the words you learnt in the week, during the weekend again.
If you don’t revise, trust me, you wont remember a thing!
Vocabulary building books
These books like ‘Word Power Made Easy’ and ‘All About Words’ are very effective too. The really help you improve your English. So this way, you would really be improving your English, instead of just studying for GRE.
Read the newspaper everyday
Read a good newspaper like ‘The Hindu’. They use very good English. As you read, underline all words you don’t know the exact meaning of, and look up the meaning. Make a list of all these words and try remembering them.
For students who are in the middle of their 3rd year and suddenly realize that they have to give the GRE in less that 6 months!
Okay so now you have less time and have to make the best use of time, so here goes:
Barrons word list
Study one to two wordlists everyday!
How do you study random words? : Make sense of them and don’t just mug the up!
So go wordlist by wordlist, each word that you come across, go to the website: www.dictionary.com, read all the word meanings for that particular word. Look at the thesaurus, look at the antonyms. Try using these words everyday, since you have lesser time now, you have to work hard, so work real hard! It is going to be worth it! Tsite has useful tools up for learning words, use those too!
A time table for learning:
Lets say you 2 wordlists everyday. Learn the words in the morning. Next day, revise the words that you learnt the day before, also learn 2 more wordlists. So everyday, learn new words, and revise words that you learn the day before. Keep the weekends for ONLY revision. Revise all the words you learnt in the week, during the weekend again.
If you don’t revise, trust me, you wont remember a thing!
Don’t stop with barrons, do everything else you can to build your vocab, but since you are running short of time, atleast do barrons.
Math prep
GRE math is easy, but don’t take it too light. You can get an 800/800 so try to cash in on this aspect. If you think you can get 800 with absolutely no prep, you are very wrong! You need to work for this too.
I have heard GRE math is getting tougher with the calculations. You guys will most probably know all the concepts here, but you need speed and accuracy.
So here is how you prepare (start 2 months, and minimum 1month before the GRE):
- Go through the Barrons math, do every single thing there. Though it may seem real easy, some 9th standard level math, do it! You will finish all the math in less than a week if you even do it for some 1 hour a day.
- There is this official MATH guide in the ETS website itself. So get it from there, and go through each and every word. This is even easier than the barrons, but the Americans use different terms for a few things, so you need to be familiar. So go through every line of the guide. This will take you just one day!
- Finally TAKE TESTS. Take the TOUGHEST of tests. Take Kaplan, take 800score.com tests. Take all the toughest math tests. GRE math has really gotten tougher, and many of these practice tests are still oblivious to that fact, so many of them will still be real easy. But that’s not how the GRE math will be.
- Practice calculations, i.e., multiplication addition division & subtraction with big numbers.
This is one area where you can score 800/800, so please put in an effort and make the best of it!
Practice Test taking
This is THE MOST IMPORTANT factor. You need to start taking tests 2 months before the GRE ideally, and minimum of one month before. You need to take practice tests atleast for a month.
The fact is that, most of the while, most words wont even come from all the Barrons word lists you learnt! (But please know Barrons wordlists in and out, because those words basically comprise the words any college going student at our level in the U.S. would know) So test-taking is a very important skill. What if you get a new word? You have to learn tactics to guess the right meaning from the choices given. Practice is what will finally contributes the MOST to your score.
Gather all sources of practice tests like – The Big book (tests here are easy), Kaplan, Petersons, Barrons, 800score.com and anyyy other source of tests! We seniors will try to provide you with all the software we can get out hands on.
In the last month before your GRE, I would expect you to take atleast one full length test everyday, apart from separate math and verbal tests.
What is a good score?
The GRE is not a tough test to crack. You just need to be consistent with your preparation. You need to be extreeeemely organized, and make schedules that you can follow with all the other college work you may have.
The GRE is surely not the most important factor for PhD admissions (your projects are the most important!), but it’s the most basic factor. Anna University students generally score between 1300 – 1600. A good verbal score would be 600+ and Math score would be 750+ . Many colleges use this as a cut-off while selecting students in the very first round of filtering. This is most probably going to be the first step you take for your U.S. admit, so put in your best!! And this is certainly not a tough test to crack if you organize yourself well!
