<p>Hello everyone i have a situation. I'm 29 and i have decided to go back to school and i want to get into a PA school after I'm done with the prerequisites but there is one obstacle in my way and its the GRE. I have bachelors in criminal justice from 2008 so i have been working in prisons since and working there is not stimulating at all. My weakness is vocab and my question is the test as hard as the prep books make it out to be? I have a weak vocab and is learning 5000 words really going to help me? That seems to be what i will be having most of my problems. How do you really prep for a year like this? Any help is great</p>
<p>Yes, the vocabulary is honestly pretty similar to what you see in the guidebooks.</p>
<p>I bought a set of 500 “most common GRE words” flashcards, I think it was published by Princeton review, and many of them appeared either in the questions, or in the answer choices. (Sometimes both).</p>
<p>At the very least, start brushing up on your latin roots, because even if you didn’t learn a word, you may be able to figure it out, but I highly recommend also getting some flash cards.</p>
<p>Yes… there is a wide range of vocab you can be tested on.</p>
<p>I second the suggestion to learn the Latin roots. Use them alongside your instinct and logical reasoning… for example, even if you don’t know their definitions, can you tell which words have positive connotations and which have negative ones? Can you tell which words sound like they have similar meanings and which sound like they are opposites? Which words just don’t sound right for the context?</p>
<p>You’re probably not going to know all the definitions, so it is important to train your intuition and reasoning abilities for the verbal section. Of course it will also help to read alot.</p>
<p>good luck dude. it must be difficult simply because working in a prison environment the vocabulary you hear on a daily basis might be limited. so i really sympathize with you. but you can do it. if you made it through with a BA in criminal law, that is a good foundation. i need to take the GRE and simply working fast enough is hard for me, i am going to snag the 500 word book mentioned above. i bet that will help a lot. i plan to take the prep test over and over as many times as i can possibly stand doing it. repetition is really helpful for me on these types of tests. good luck and keep us posted.</p>