by Saurav Suman

Hi everyone. I have taken my GRE general test yesterday and I would like to share my experience with you all. Since I have learnt a lot about gre through blogs and forums its my duty to payback. First of all, I am a medical student presently in internship from India. I have given gre for getting admission into MPH course. I scored 1380 (610 verbal + 770 quantitative). Though it is not a great score but I think it’s a healthy one. Now let’s trim the fat and come to the crux. One more thing, if your weak point is quant you will be less benefited by reading this article.

1. Gre General test or simply Gre test is of 1600 scores. 800 verbal and 800 quantitative. Verbal section is basically English section where U will are tested on 4 types of questions:- antonym, analogy, reading comprehension and sentence completion (30 questions, 30minutes). Quant section is maths sections where questions will be from :- arithmetic, geometry, data interpretation, permutation and probability, probability is a misnomer, question will be from it, certainly (28questions, 45 minutes). There is also an analytical writing section where you have to write 2 essays. 1st – present your own views on the topic (45 mins.) and 2nd – analyse an argument (30 mins.). Analytical section is evaluated on a six point scale. On the exam, 1st analytical section will appear, u have to write 2 essays, then ten minutes break then verbal and then quants. After quant a 5th section appear. At prometric I came to know that I can leave that section, so I left it. After that comes the warning, whether U want to see your scores or not. If you agree they will show your verbals and quant score and u r now officially one time gre test taker. If you think that ur exam has gone bad and U deny seeing ur scores they will not show it to u and they wont report anywhere that you gave exam once. Even after declining there is a provision in ets to get your scores within 60 days of declining (not 100% sure about this). After the score you will get an opportunity to send your scores to 4 institutions for free. So better be prepared for it in advance. Analytical result comes in 15 days.

2. Gre test is a not linear test. Non linear test means that if U answer your 1st  question correctly next one will be slightly tougher and so on it will go until  U make your 1st mistake when the level of question will decrease. So, all questions do not carry equals marks. Its an intricate process done by ets.

3. I feel that for MPH you should try to be close or above 1350 and at least 3.5 or 4 in analytical section.

4. Average time required to prepare – 4-5 months. Though someone may feel its too much but when you start mugging up the words then its so soporific that you barely go through 100 words a day initially.

5. 1st book for gre :- BARRONS

6. Its really difficult to cram gre words because most of the words are unknown to u, u have to remember not only the words but also its meaning. I will recommend that for mugging up the words take the use of mnemonicdictionary.com help. Excellent website. It has all gre words which u will find in Barrons. It really worked for me.

7. If you are very poor in English like me, take WORD POWER MADE EASY just for fun to counterbalance the ennui of the word lists….it will ease you during barrons word list memorising.

8. once u r though with all the 50 word lists then start other things. I want to say that try to complete your 1st reading of word lists in 1 month and don’t do anything other than that (Of course u can entertain urself with word power made easy).

9. On flashcards I would say that I never used it. I used some different method. I have a nokia smartphone and I found various gre word lists softwares (gre guru, barrons gre) on the web. I installed them on my mobile and checked my ken on word lists whenever I was outside. Gre guru is good, which is just the imitation of barrons word list. U can hide the meaning and show with the push of a button and U can also mark and unmark the words. Very effective for me. I wouldn’t have used flashcards even if I hadn’t found this software.

10. 2nd book :-KAPLAN. Excellent book. Barrons is very basic. Don’t rely on barrons too much other than its collection of word lists. Although u should solve all problems of barrons but that is not sufficed. Kaplan is slightly tough than barrons and well poised.

11. Start other things too, like working on analogy, sentence completion and analytical writing. If possible take help from a friend good in English to evaluate your essays. U can lure ur friend on promising a grand treat if ur gre goes well. It really works. Anything which can boost your gre score, u should do that.

12. Reading Comprehension is the toughest part on the exam and you will have to develop your skills to solve. In the actual exam you will know how much question a particular passage contains. Don’t read the entire passage. First read the question and then try to find the key words of the question in the passage. If the first question of a passage is “general idea” about the passage try this. Read the whole introduction para, then 1ts line of every body para and last line of the conclusion paragraph. You can get almost perfect idea about the orientation of the whole passage. But the key to reading questions, like all other keys is practice. Don’t only practice but give some time in the explanation and try to understand why a particular answer is the correct and your answer is wrong.

13. For practice take “BIG BOOK”. Believe me its not a big book it’s a great book. I can vouchsafe you that you will earn at least 50 points extra in your verbal because of this book. U can download its pdf from web. It has 28 practice sets with 2 papers in each set. Don’t worry about time initially. Work  on accuracy. Make a note of words from big book that are not in barrons. They are equally important but don’t go through big book’s worl list. Its quite a long list. Only pitfall of big book is that u don’t find explanation  to any problem.

14. For essay, I found a book on the internet which had remarkable explanation of both types of essay with the same topics that are commonly tested in the gre. (I had already practiced the same argument which I found in the gre exam.)

15. Practice to the point of exhaustion with these materials but don’t forget the word lists. Practice is the key of this exam. Before giving the actual exam I revised almost 10 times each word.

16. Try to find all the free material from the net. Some good websites are 

• 800score.com- it gives scores 

• Kaplan’s test – 3 full length CBT tests. Similar to what comes in actual exam.

• Ets powerprep – gold standard of actual exam. Questions are very much alike.  There will be no repetition but exactly similar.

17. Few important things. The more u can procrastinate ur first mistake in a section better score u will earn. I have read somewhere that if u don’t make a mistake in the first ten question your score will cross 700 directly. It does not mean that u cant score 700 if u made a mistake in top ten questions. Never make a mistake in the 1st four question of verbal or quant. It will ruin your score. If u score 22 /30 correctly in verbals in any of the tests mentioned above in actual exam conditions you will get around 600 in the actual exam.

18. There are few sites which prepare for gre like greedge.com. It helps but not too a great extent. I think better for quant than verbals. If u think 3000 rupees is not too much for you, U can take its supscription.

19. Give your ets practice test 1 , 1 week before actual exam and practice test 2 , 2 days before the exam. 

20. I haven’t seen Princeton book for gre, so I cant comment on that.

21. Don’t panic

22. Personal queries and qualms are welcome

23. Best of luck