<p>Sorry if my questions have been answered elsewhere, but you parents always seem the best, most efficient of resources. DS#1 (rising college senior) will take the GRE late summer/early fall. We've spent some time on the ETS site but are a little confused. I know the format is changing August 1st (I think to computer-based, adding some new types of questions, new grading scale?). We've looked over on the "GRE Prep" section of CC and have not found much useful information. I'd like to order in some test prep material for him, but first I guess we need to make the basic "old version or new version" decision. Looks like both will be offered for a while? I have no idea which way to steer him in terms of which would be the better way to go. Unfortunate all this change is going on the very year he needs to take it.</p>
<p>Please parents of future grad students--what have you found out that you can share with me? (Again, first of all we're looking for thoughts re: old vs. new versions, and then recommendations for test prep, i.e., Kaplan vs. PR vs. Barrons, . . . . I know ETS's own stuff is the best place to start but we'll likely go with two sets of prep material.)</p>
<p>Thanks. I figured that out after a second <more caffeinated=“”> read of the web site.</more></p>
<p>Hopping on over to that thread! (Although if I find out it’s a bunch of parents of 4.0 rising college seniors who are all headed to Harvard Medical School, I won’t be staying long. )</p>
<p>I know the format is changing August 1st (I think to computer-based, adding some new types of questions, new grading scale?).</p>
<p>The GRE is already computer-based (it does offer paper-based to other countries). </p>
<p>I think one of the changes is that students will now be able to “go back” to a skipped question or change a previous answer, within a section. The “old GRE” would not allow that option…which was frustrating because of time-pacing. </p>
<p>I don’t know if analogies will still be on the GRE</p>
<p>My son took it last year and got a 800 Quantitative and a 770 Verbal. He wishes that he had had the option to skip/change answers/go back in the Verbal section. </p>
<p>I don’t know what your child’s strengths are, but typically if a kid is strong in math, he’ll do well in the Quantitative section…but often kids don’t score as well in the Verbal section.</p>
<p>My son would suggest getting either a Barron, Kaplans or Princeton Review GRE book. He used Barrons. He studied the GRE vocab, which he was glad because a very odd word was on his test, and he only knew it because he had reviewed the list.<br>
The word was: Cavil…which means: to raise trivial and frivolous objection. I don’t think I’ve ever heard or read that word before.</p>
<p>*(Although if I find out it’s a bunch of parents of 4.0 rising college seniors who are all headed to Harvard Medical School, I won’t be staying long. *</p>
<p>LOL…med students take the MCAT. They only take the GRE if they’re doing MS or PhD.</p>
<p>Oops–of course. (And I haven’t had to think about any of this GRE stuff since I took it 150 years ago. We had to carve our answers on stone tablets but were allowed to use an abacus.)</p>
<p>I’m a recent college grad taking both the old GRE (next week) and the New GRE (in August). I’d have to second the Barron’s suggestion. It’s very thorough, it has three practice tests, lots of exercises with complete explanations, and a word list that is absolutely golden (though vocab won’t matter quite as much for the revised GRE). Also, I just started using Sparknotes GRE Math, and it’s incredibly clear and helpful. It’s also written very conversationally, which makes it a lot more interesting that staring at dusty, unused formulas all day long. And it’s all online: [SparkNotes:</a> GRE: Meet GRE Math](<a href=“SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides”>SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides)</p>
<p>This has really helped me study for the quant section… Seriously, I’m the girl that could never understand quadratic equations or get all the fuss about pi (yes, I’m a liberal arts major), but, cheesy as it sounds, Sparknotes seriously scraped some of the fuzz off of my math skills in a matter of hours.</p>
<p>EDIT: Also, the new GRE will not have analogies or antonyms or any vocab out of context, though they are adding a curveball to compensate: some questions have TWO right answers or THREE seperate answers in one question (all fill-in-the-blanks vocab), and ALL of them have to be right in order to get credit. (At least, that’s what it sounds like from the descriptions on ETS and the new prep materials.)</p>
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