<p>I just realized that I will have to take the GRE at some point. The verbal section will kill me because I have the vocabulary of a middle school student... Any suggestions on how to best prepare for the test? Does memorizing GRE word lists help? Should I even go back to SAT word lists? (I looked at a list of "basic" SAT words and I had never heard a single one of them!) </p>
<p>I am only a Sophomore so I have plenty of time to prepare.</p>
<p>yes i would say definitely start now with the vocabulary. Kaplan has a list of 200 words that could appear on the GRE, and I found that at least a couple of those words were on my test.
Also, one thing that helped me I think was I now get Mariam-Webster’s (m-w.com) “word of the day” in my inbox. Each word comes with an audio file of the word, pronounciation and meaning/history. I downloaded like 150 of those short audio files and put them on my Ipod. Then I listened to them when i was on a walk, in the car, traveling, etc. if you could do that for 2 years, your vocabulary would surely improve.
Also try to start reading the New York Times, the Nation, Mother Jones (those are liberal publications—but there are just as many conservative weekly newsmagazines out there if you want) and read them every week to expand your vocab. I find that many, many GRE words are in publications like this.
Hope this helps.</p>
<p>dfh has some good suggestions, but I would expand on one: READ. Most people read very little challenging material, if they read with any frequency at all. Whether it is the publications he listed or something else, make it a point to find challenging reading. It should be something interesting or entertaining so that it holds your interest, and it should be difficult enough that you frequently encounter words you do not know. </p>
<p>The great thing about reading is that it gives you the words in context, often repeatedly, rather than as memorization assignments. Outside of a lot of reading, my entire preparation for the GRE consisted of taking half a practice exam the day before, and I pulled a 720 on the verbal. </p>
<p>Still do the lists and word-a-day type stuff as well, by the way - there are a lot of GRE words that appear on the test and just about nowhere else in the english language.</p>
<p>Yikes. You want me to read something other than math? I thought I was branching out when I was occupying myself with physics and CS, but newspapers and literature…? <em>Shrug</em></p>
<p>I think I will stick to Barron’s 3500 word list. I am afraid I would stop reading challenging material after a few days because I just don’t care enough.</p>
<p>What field are you looking to go into? If you’re going into math/science/engineering, the Verbal score won’t matter overly much as long as you don’t absolutely bomb it. That is to say, as long as you pull above a 500 on Verbal you should be fine - going from what I’ve heard. Now, if you’re going into an English program, obviously the Verbal score becomes a whole lot more important…</p>
<p>But for math/science/engineering, the Quant score (and if applicable, the relevant Subject test score) is a lot more important than the Verbal score.</p>
<p>For math you just have to demonstrate that you know English well enough to teach acclass, not be a potential Nobel Laureate. It is a non-issue if you’re a native speaker. I did zero studying, got a 590 on the verbal section, and haven’t had any problems getting into schools. I think my professor that was originally from Eastern Europe said he scored in the 300s or 400s and still got in to Princeton.</p>
<p>I am not a native speaker, which is why I am having such a hard time with the verbal section. (But I am attending an American university and I am a permanent resident, so it’s not immediately obvious that I have only been here for two years.)</p>
<p>I don’t know how other math departments look at verbal GRE scores. The professors at my home college say that they do pay attention to the scores because they found a good correlation between verbal scores and students’ success in the graduate program. Of course that still refers to the old test format.</p>
<p>you are just like me… all math but no reading. well that’s the reason i picked engineering i figured. I did want to do well on the GRE though so I bought the princeton guide and read all of the verbal section. i got the strategies down and started making flash cards. they have a verbal list of ~600 vocab which is A LOT to me but no so much to others who crammed themselves into a 5000 word list. anyways i started 5 weeks b4 the test and could only finish half the list. took the test and no surprise i got a mere 440… i think 40% percentile. and 4.0W btw so not too good neither. i was in a panic for a moment cuz that’s definitely a below average score. i wanted to study more and take it again but it was already late november and i was running out of time. i found that i wouldn’t be able to raise my score significantly within given time frame so i just went with those low scores. good that i was applying engineering grad school so i guess the verbal scores were not so important and apparently it didn’t hurt me. I got into all the schools that i applied to.</p>
<p>moral of the story, study early and spend ALOT of time on memorizing the word list. you can’t do well on the test without a decent amount of gre vocab even if you know the strategies on how to tackle the test.</p>
<p>seems like you are doing math related program, i would say verbal is not so important, as long as it’s not so bad that would raise a flag. and a good verbal won’t help you so much either, except to compete for fellowship. so if you are like me and hate studying the vocab then just study enough so you can get average verbal score. the engineering schools that i applied to has an average verbal score of around 520 so i would aim for that if i were you. well that’s my targeted score but i just couldn’t get it :/. (Qualitative definitely is important, get 800, anything below ~750 would very likely hurt you)</p>
<p>This is what I learned from other cc-ers, profs, and my own personal survey:</p>
<p>It really depends on the program you’re applying to and also, who you’re competing with. If you’re at the border line (e.g. someone else has similar credential) then 300s / 400s verbal scores might make a difference. Remember, some schools use GRE as an initial cut-off, some use it to determine the recipient of the highest fellowships, some use it to overcome mediocre GPA, etc. </p>
<p>In my case, I was accepted to a number of excellent programs (not the top 4: Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Caltech - well I didn’t even bother to apply to some). I did 800Q low400V, GPA is top 5% (from top 50 univ) with no peer-reviewed publications. My take home message is that GRE would be very important for those schools as all applicants are excellent in all dimensions or have nobel laurette recs / nature pubs. But I wouldn’t worry too much if you’re applying for math / engineering at some ivies or well-known public universities (top10usnews). Just get that 800Q and hope for the best =)</p>
<p>GL! keep us posted on your progress</p>
<p>ps: I think most profs already knew that GRE score is not an accurate indicator to begin with. But you have to understand that schools ranks according to the ‘reliable usnews’ will be impacted by low GRE score, and thus, it would negatively affect the overall credibility of the program, sadly…</p>
<p>Do not underestimate this section of the essay! I am very comfortable with silver dollar vocabulary, but made the mistake of assuming i would do well without studying for this part. Start studying now (you don’t need to worry about the math section).</p>
<p>try</p>
<p>[top</a> gre words list](<a href=“http://topgrewordslist.blogspot.com%5Dtop”>http://topgrewordslist.blogspot.com)</p>
<p>I started off with a low verbal score ~500 when I first started studying. My final score was 670. Some people scored high off the get go. You don’t want to listen to people like that–they prolly would have done regardless of their study method. Some people didn’t even score all that high–listening to them is a waste.</p>
<p>Frankly, I don’t agree with most of the advice given on GREs in this forum.</p>
<p>You are MUCH better off going to the [TestMagic</a> Test Prep](<a href=“http://www.testmagic.com%5DTestMagic”>http://www.testmagic.com) forums. They have a strong dedicated GRE forum.</p>
<p>For verbal, this study method is the GOLD standard:</p>
<p>For Math:</p>
<p>–Barron’s first (~25$)
–The ETS GRE math review 2nd
–Nova Prep Course textbook 3rd (free—it can easily be found online)
–Powerprep practice problems 2nd
–Powerprep CATs 4th</p>
<p>That will give you a killer score. You can add in a few other CATs (like Kaplan’s 2004 CATs and online CAT as well as the 800score CATs if you can find them online—they are floating around).</p>
<p>Verbal:
–Firstly those megasized word lists are a waste
–Secondly, get the Kaplan 500word flashcards or books. These really are the high frequency words that are most likely to show up
–3rd, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, practice using the BIG BOOK Gre tests. There are 27x2 of these. Go through a few a day. (free–found online)</p>
<p>This will max your Verbal score.</p>
<p>I did the test twice and I know what works and what does NOT work. I used Barron’s, Kaplan, and skimmed through a lot of other books.</p>
<p>The BigBook is the most similar test to the GRE verbal next to Powerprep.</p>
<p>Wait, moe, I’m studying vocab from Barron’s now (went through the 800-word book and am now going through 3500 more words in a bigger book by them). Should I scrap Barron’s in your opinion and just use Kaplan’s? I keep on hearing Kaplan as the name to use for studying vocab, but I was just wondering why people are so certain that their words tend to appear more frequently than the words by any other publisher. I was wondering where they got their evidence or anecdotes from.</p>
<p>Btw, moe, how long did you study for, particularly with regards to vocab? And did you use “flashcards”, as a lot of people seem to do (I have rarely used flashcards as study aids), or did you instead just read through the text (as seems to be sufficient for most people)?</p>
<p>There seems to be a lot of overlap in the worlds between Kaplan’s and Barron’s.</p>
<p>I used the Kaplan 500 word vocab book. Did NOT memorize anything more than that. No need to. These are the words that show up frequently.</p>
<p>Then I went through quite a few of the BigBook practice tests and timed myself for 25mins.</p>
<p>That is all you need for verbal.</p>
<p>The Kaplan 500wrd list is a perfect balance b/w covering enough words and focusing on the words that show up frequently.</p>
<p>I think the Barron’s 3500word list is a joke—a monumental waste of time.</p>
<p>The 500 words took me about 10days to commit to memory but I could have done it in less than 1/3 of that time. To be fair, I knew at least 1/2 of them already. I simply highlighted the ones I didn’t know and memorized them. No cute flashcards. No little tricks. Brute force memorization. It is only 500words so it shouldn’t take long.</p>
<p>moe, thanks for the help. I’ll try the Kaplan’s out. Where are you getting the GRE Big Book tests for free?</p>
<p>Also, when you say “2nd”, “4th”, etc. (as in “–Powerprep practice problems 2nd
–Powerprep CATs 4th”), do these refer to versions?</p>
<p>I agree to scrap the big one. I took the GRE this morning, and I only studied with a 500 word application for the iPod and the Princeton Review book. Did well enough.</p>