<p>Well.... I am taking the GRE exam in 2 days, and have run into a problem....</p>
<p>I am applying for CMU MISM (accelerated program). I have been told the score that CMU likes to see is 600 Verbal, 700+ Quant. The Quantitative section is perfectly fine, I took several practice tests and got 800s on 2 of 3...</p>
<p>But verbal, for whatever reason it does not seem to click the slightest. I took my 3rd Practice Verbal test, and had the following scores...
490, 520, 530.</p>
<p>Its great to see there is improvement, but my scores are not actually making the cut. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions for how I can improve my score? I have studied and memorized 1400 "GRE-like" words, and yes, they have shown up on the exam, but not to the extent that would help me above the 600 mark. Any help would be much much appreciated! Thank you</p>
<p>You probably don't need to be reminded of standardized test-taking strategies (e.g. if two of the answer choices mean essentially the same thing, then don't choose either), but that's how I got through the verbal section. It would help if you could expose yourself to more vocab lists, even if you can't memorize them in time: that will improve your "intuition" in cases where you have to guess.</p>
<p>One common mistake is to pick the synonym instead of the antonym. You have about one minute per question so take the time to check yourself.</p>
<p>I have memorized a good chunk, at least 1000 out of my 1400 list, and I have seen the same words used from my vocab list and the GRE practice tests.... but I still manage to do poorly overall....</p>
<p>Are you able to identify which portion of the Verbal you are having trouble with? As in, should you be worrying about memorizing more words, or improving your reading skills?</p>
<p>Powerprep is unfortunately usually very accurate.Your best bet at this point would be to memorize more words. Get barron's 5000 word list and get to work. They usually have short 1 sentence definitions for each word. You don't have to memorize them all (I don't think you have time anyways?), as i didn't either. But all my words on the GRE that showed up were words i saw on Barron's list. Try to memorize as much as you can. I was just like you in that I could get an 800 easily on math as an engineering major but far from it in verbal but ended up with a decent score on verbal after some studying.</p>
<p>And make sure it is vocab you are having trouble with as the other poster stated. If its reading comp, thats something much harder to improve upon. Regardless, if you get most of the antonyms, sentence comps, and analogies right, you'll get above a 600 easy.</p>
<p>Thanks for that site nshah, and to the person that mentioned Barron's 5000 word list... I think I am going to try that.</p>
<p>I took my test today, and received 480/740.... "/ <em>sigh</em> I think I need to retake... does anyone know if the University sees our highest scores/ number of times we took the test?</p>
<p>The universities you apply to will receive all of your scores from the past 5 years. If the other parts of your application are really strong, maybe you can write a little note about your GRE score if you feel that strongly.</p>
<p>Good luck if you decide to retake. I am retaking it in 2 weeks.</p>
<p>I'm also considering applying to the MISM program and I would recommend considering taking a GMAT practice test to see if you do better. The questions (verbal) on the GMAT are based on critical thinking, sentence correction and reading comp and don't have oddball words like "eleemosynary". </p>
<p>I took the GRE and did well on the math (they might as well just take SAT math scores as this was really no more difficult imo, maybe even less so) and writing/essay sections but my verbal score didn't really match up with the other categories.....as for math the math on the GMAT is apparently a little harder but this isn't really high level math so I doubt it will make a difference. I have scheduled an appointment to take the GMAT and I have had no severe problem with the math on any of the practice tests so I doubt that you will.</p>