<p>Middle son has just decided he wants to take the GRE this fall. He is interested in getting a masters in public policy. Any advice on preparation? Any info on prep courses?
Thanks in advance for your help !</p>
<p>I know it’s not very active but try: [GRE</a> Prep - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/gre-prep/]GRE”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/gre-prep/)</p>
<p>Back when I took it a million years ago, I thought it was a lot like taking the SAT except my scores were slightly better.</p>
<p>get a book. Take a couple practice exams. Get to know the exam.</p>
<p>It is important to get answers right in the beginning of the test for the highest score possible.</p>
<p>^^^
That’s right. THe test is a CAT (computer adaptive test) now. So if you mess up on the first questions (of medium difficulty) it screws up your chances to get a really high score. You will never even see the harder problems.</p>
<p>If you can get a computer disk, or online practice test to give you a feel for this type of test it will help.</p>
<p>And the verbal portion has analogies, which can be tricky without practice. I always found them a lot harder than those “fill in the blank in the sentence” questions.</p>
<p>Everything I’ve read recommended not taking a prep course for GRE; as long as you did decently on the SAT, you’ll probably do OK on the GRE, too.</p>
<p>The verbal portion has some fairly off-the-wall vocabulary words, so that might be an area to brush up on. I prepped for about 2-3 weeks before I took it by answering questions out of a few prep books that I got at the used book store, and then took a couple of practice exams (I think the GRE’s web site offers a few free practice exams). I was working full-time, so I didn’t have much spare time to prep, but I still came within 100 points of my SAT score.</p>
<p>I just took the GRE… bought one of those big books with everything (math, verbal, writing, practice test) and a vocab book.</p>
<p>Make sure you go over the writing part… they want specific types of essays, and the book will explain what to look for.</p>
<p>I was bummed because I didn’t finish the math section, but I still did really well on it (spent longer on the first questions as they are very important), so don’t get frustrated.</p>
<p>The percentiles correlated to raw score on the verbal is very forgiving.</p>
<p>I also think the GRE website offers computer practice exams (once you sign up), but I didn’t take any of them.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the responses! And for the advice on test taking technique.</p>
<p>Soccerguy, what book did you think was the most helpful?</p>