I have been out of regular college since 2002 except for a management course in 2011 for a year. Therefore, when I decided to apply for a masters (a kind of mid career option) that mandated GRE, it was a tough ask for me. However, given that I was mustering up for a tough masters I thought I would as well see if I am up to it. I managed a 164/170 in verbal, 169/170 in quant and a 5.5 in AWA with a couple of months of irregular preparation which gathered pace during the last two weeks when I took three weekdays off from my office. During this period I took the official mock exams too, to practice and time GRE better.
While the scores could have been better, I am reasonably satisfied.
When I started my preparation, most of the advise on the internet appeared as if they were written for 20 year olds. For those in the same boat as mine, here are some pointers.
Quant for GRE
If you are out of college for some time your quant skills would have got rustier than you would believe. What you might have solved in 30 seconds, you might now take a minute, and yet get it wrong. It might be that bad. Unless you practice. Being an engineer, my math skills were good once upon a time. The nature of my job in the initial years involved math. However, for many years my job has hardly anything to do with any kind of mathematics except probably addition and subtraction, that too on excel.
The books I did of quant:
1. Official guide to GRE and Quant for GRE by ETS
2. Manhattan series books (6 of them)
3. Magoosh online course
The Magoosh online practice really helped me. It mimics the online interface of ETS. You have more than 600 questions and by the end of it all, you would have recalled the concepts well. The good thing is, if you get a question wrong, it suggests the relevant videos to watch in order to clarify the concept. I have seen couple of Khan academy videos too. Had I not gone with Magoosh, I would probably have depended on Khan videos, they are equally good and free.
I kept the official quant practice questions by ETS towards the end. The last four days I did only official ETS material. I later threw in two more of their mock exams (PowerPrepPLUS) as I felt I would need them. One advantage of being out of school for long is that you might now have money to afford them. The manhattan series book comes with some online tests which are good for practice, but they may give widely varying scores.
One approach towards wrong questions that helped me: when I went wrong with a question, I compulsorily spent few minutes to understand it, even if it was a silly mistake. I pored over it till I was sure that I would not be repeating it.
One approach towards wrong questions that helped me: when I went wrong with a question, I compulsorily spent few minutes to understand it, even if it was a silly mistake. I pored over it till I was sure that I would not be repeating it.
Verbal for GRE
For verbal, it was a different case altogether. My vocabulary had improved over years due to constant reading of good quality material, including The Economist, which is my weekly staple. I didn't have to do much. However, I used the following material for Verbal section:
1. Official guide to GRE and Verbal for GRE by ETS
2. Manhattan series - only cursorily
3. Magoosh online practice questions
4. Online apps on the phone by Magoosh for vocabulary - whenever I found time
I struggled initially with Reading comprehension in most places, except the official version of the books/practice. It appears to me that most of the online material as well as unofficial book writers have got something wrong. The RC questions in these places, especially the inference and reasoning ones would fox you and their explanations are hardly any good. My suggestion would be, for those who already read a lot, to just stick to the official material. It might be fewer questions, but it would give you better insight into the dynamics of RC than hundreds of unofficial practice questions elsewhere. For those who are not in the habit of reading, one may go through questions for practice and to increase speed of reading. For text completion and sentence equivalence, two things matter. One, good vocabulary, and second, ability to decipher the sentence based on keywords used. This needs practice. A hundred or so questions would give a good hang if you already have your vocabulary right.
AWA for GRE
Analytical writing analysis consists of an issue and an argument task, each to be completed in half an hour. In the issue task, it is mainly about writing as long as possible in half an hour, covering both/multiple sides of the given issue as asked by the prompt, and making sense while you type away on that keyboard. Minimizing spelling and grammar errors help. I discovered that this trick helped me. I typed out around 750 +/- 50 words in my practice essays. I had purchased a subscription to ETS ScoreitNow software which is basically a machine grader for the essay. The diagnostic service that comes along does a decent job of pointing out the direction that one needs to take.
The argument task is basically about nitpicking the holes in the argument. You should sound graduate level while you do so. ETS ScoreitNow and official guide would be sufficient for a reasonably intelligent person who can write.
The argument task is basically about nitpicking the holes in the argument. You should sound graduate level while you do so. ETS ScoreitNow and official guide would be sufficient for a reasonably intelligent person who can write.
Official Power Prep mock tests for GRE
Two power prep mock exams come complimentary when you register. I bought two additional ones after I realized that this is the only official predictor of where one stands. Other mock exams I took gave me widely fluctuating results from one test to the next and I lost hope in them. My performance on them was as follows
PowerPrep 1: 14 days before exam: V 158, Q 162
PowerPrep 2: 10 days before exam: V 160, Q 163
PowerPrep plus 1: 06 days before exam: V 166, Q 162
PowerPrep plus 2: 01 day before exam: V166, Q 167
Actual GRE: : V164, Q 169
I started working with only official material towards the last four to five days to exam. Didn't study more than 3 hours in addition to the mocks.
As per GRE Diagnostic tool available on the account after few days, I had:
As per GRE Diagnostic tool available on the account after few days, I had:
Got 6 questions wrong in section 1 of Verbal
Got 4 questions wrong in section 2 of Verbal
So a total of 10 wrongs out of 40 for a score of 164 in Verbal
(Had an experimental verbal section too for which no diagnosis was provided)
Got 4 questions wrong in section 2 of Verbal
So a total of 10 wrongs out of 40 for a score of 164 in Verbal
(Had an experimental verbal section too for which no diagnosis was provided)
Got 1 question each wrong in both sections of Quant.
So a total of 2 wrongs out of 40 for a score of 169 in Quant
So a total of 2 wrongs out of 40 for a score of 169 in Quant