GRE Preparation

You just graduated from college and you are ready to take the world by storm. Everybody is concerned with their future and getting further studies such as enrolling in a graduate school could take you places in your career. In some society, the number of units that you earned as a student can sometimes be a basis for employment for the reason that you possess above average knowledge than normal college graduates. Students are pressured to study for their entrance exams and undergo GRE Preparation to make them confident in taking the examination and go into in their chosen school.

What is GRE Preparation? GRE stands for Graduate Records Examination preparation designed to prepare and test students if they are fit to be enrolled in graduate schools. It is a commercially standardized test, meaning the questions and the manner of checking the exams are consistent. GRE Preparation is invented and directed by Educational Testing Service (ETS) and the scores are recognized in some schools in United States of America and other English-speaking countries. The exam is divided into four categories; critical thinking, verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and analytical writing skills. These four parts are not designed to favour one area of study but it was formulated to test the basic information that a student must possess before entering a graduate school. Test takers pay $160 US dollars in taking GRE Preparation and it can be in a form of computerize-based examination or the old paper-based exams in some countries.

When undertaking GRE Preparation, you need to be familiar with the four parts of the general test. Critical thinking and analytical writing skills are combined into one exam, this is a test that will analyze your ability to process a situation using your knowledge that you learn in school and in your environment. You will need to process multifaceted ideas clearly. The second part, which is the verbal reasoning, is a way to test the ability of the examinee to understand written material through oral and analogical reasoning skills. The third part, the quantitative reasoning, focuses more about your knowledge in mathematics, such as algebra, arithmetic, and geometry and data analysis. According to ETS, they are planning to change the format in August 2011 with new test design, fresh set of questions and 50% off in savings.

If you register to ETS, GRE Preparation materials are given to you for free. This contains sample tests on how to answer the exam in four categories. For those who are not living in the United States, ETS is also providing free software to guide students on the basic things that you need to know about GRE. Aside from that, ETS is also selling test materials from previous examinations with answers and practice writing online, which are scored to judge your writing abilities.

Many universities require applicants for graduate school to take the Gre Preparation. In many cases the score on the Gre Preparation is a major input to the admission decision process. If a prospective student is really interested in going to graduate school at one of these schools, it is in their interest to get as high a score on the Gre Preparation as possible. Thus, such students may decide to look for a useful Gre Preparation guide.

The Educational Testing Service  is responsible for the Gre Preparation. In most situations it is taken on a computer, though paper versions do exist and may be used when the computerized version is not available. There are three multiple choice portions and a written part. There are many versions of the test, so one could take the test several times without getting much repetition of questions.

There are also eight Subject Tests that are optional parts of the Gre Preparation. They test knowledge in specific subject areas. One can take the Gre Preparation without taking any of them, though one or more of them may be required to be considered for some graduate programs. This article only discusses how to prepare for the main Gre Preparation.

According to the Gre Preparation or training for the GRE  Preparation is not useful. This is because the Gre Preparation is testing very basic knowledge, including analytical thinking, writing, and both verbal and numerical reasoning. None of these can be acquired in a short time period. Others argue that the Gre Preparation is so formal that taking similar tests in this format is useful practice.

ETS provides the PowerPrep software package for those who are signed up to take the Gre Preparation. This preparation software includes practice questions and review material. The questions are retired from previous. It can project the score you will receive on the actual Gre Preparation.

The Gre preparation is set up to make you fail. After taking it my first time that is exactly how I felt. Preparing for the Gre preparation can be much harder than you think. The most important thing is being prepared for the computerized version. When I first took my GRE Test I did not do very well. I only scored a 950, which was very embarrassing. On the practice tests I easily scored around 730 on the math and around 550 on the English. My actual results were only 590 on math and 360 on English. It was all about time. I felt robbed after the test. For those of you who do not know about the computerized Gre preparation, here are a few facts:

- You cannot go back and forth between questions. Once you have chosen an answer it is finalized.

- When the time is up the test disappears and you cannot answer any questions.

- Your testing center is going to be very strict, so do not even think about trying to cheat on it.

- You have to have a strategy for each section, or else you will not have enough time.

- Be very attentive to the time of each question. Just guess if you have to but the time is probably the most important. Always answer a question. Never leave an answer blank.

Some people don't believe in usefulness of studying for any standardized tests. My experience has been completely opposite. I first took GRE Preparation without a day of preparation a year after graduating from university. I didn't really need to score high and thought since I had good grades in school, GRE Preparation wouldn't be that tough. I was wrong and did pretty bad. Five years later I got serious about the grad school, decided to apply to a prestigious university and had to get a very high score on Gre preparation. It took me about 4 months to prepare to the level where I was comfortable. I could have probably used few more weeks, but was getting so tired of studying that decided to go for it.

English has been my weaker point, so I spent the most time working on that part: first increasing my vocabulary and then practicing verbal questions as much as I could. Since I was pretty comfortable with math, I left it for the last month of Gre preparation and mainly concentrated on getting timing right. Here is the list of the materials that I used to study. Hopefully some of this might be useful for the future test takers.

1.Word Smart for the Gre preparation

There are about 600 words in this little book. It's not perfect, examples are a little "cheesy" and there is no pronunciation guide. Yet, I think this book really helped me. At first I tried to use flashcard software on my pocket pc to help me memorize new words, but for some reasons that didn't work well and I felt that I could remember more words using just good ol' paper flash cards. I am not sure, maybe it's the process of writing the word down, but somehow I felt I could remember more words that way. There are also little quizzes after every 5-15 words to help with learning. I think one could probably memorize about 80 words a week, though I averaged about 40-50. Obviously this is not the best method of acquiring new words, yet it did work for me. Several of them came up on GRE and quite a few I still remember.

2.The Wizard of Oz Vocabulary Builder by Mark Philips

This a pretty cool book, it introduces "Gre preparation and SAT type" words in the context of a story to ease memorization. I didn't find it as useful as the Word Smart book, yet it was a nice change from just memorizing disconnected words. Every new "big" word is explained on the same page, with more examples to make it easier to remember words. Overall it was a pretty good, though a somewhat slower way of increasing vocabulary for GRE Preparation.

3.Kaplan Gre preparation Verbal Workbook

This book has strategies and tips for verbal section and the most important a lot of test questions. It helped me a lot with reading comprehension part and just getting over my "fear" of verbal section.

4.Barron's How to Prepare for the Gre preparation Test I think out of all GRE preparation books, this one is the most useful. It has pretty good math review and its test questions are probably the closest to the GRE Preparation difficulty level maybe even a little harder. Barron also has a book "Pass Key to the GRE Preparation Test", which is basically a smaller version of this book. I've also noticed that they reuse a lot of questions from previous editions, so if you're on the budget you don't have to buy the latest edition. An older version will be just as good and the newest edition will repeat many questions anyway.

5.Gre preparation: Practicing to Take the General Test, by ETS This book is published by the same guys that make the test. The review section is not that good, you'll probably be better off with Barron or Kaplan for that. However, tests are real GRE questions that were used about 10 years ago. The test has definitely increased in difficulty since then. I was somewhat disappointed with this book, yet I think 1 or 2 questions (or very similar) from the verbal section appeared on the actual test that I took. ETS definitely recycles questions, so it can be helpful to go through this book, but keep in mind that the real test will be much harder, especially the math section.

You have heard about the Gre preparation and how difficult it is to pass this exam. You may also have been told that you must be a genius with very high IQ to pass this exam. Here is the good news; passing this exam is easy provided you have appropriate GRE preparation course material and you use the right strategies to maximize the speed and efficiency of your learning.

The  Gre preparation test is about general intelligence and knowledge. The exam requires that you have an extensive masterly of the English language vocabulary.An effective preparation course should therefore unlock the following secrets:-

   1. The first key to passing this exam is to boost your vocabulary specifically for Gre preparation. The second key is to
   2. Learn the words in a record time, that is, the shortest time possible. This should leave you with sufficient time for other things.

The problem is that this is easier said than done.Large numbers of people sit and fail the  Gre preparation test while others are sitting and passing all the time. Yet, successful test preparation is not all that difficult. Your choice of right preparation course material will make a big difference between success and failure. As a minimum, your preparation materials should constitute of the following key elements:

   1. Selected pool of score boosting  Gre preparation words. These should include the most commonly used words presented with many examples on word usage. You are therefore able to focus on GRE related material which increases your chance of passing
   2. Different learning strategies. Word repetition, reproduction and recall techniques are all important. This can be further improved using auditory simulation and passive learning prompts techniques. These techniques can boost your learning by over 100%
   3. The best software packages should include personal tutor software that remembers the words that you have learned and takes you step-by step through progressive levels of difficulties. The main benefit of this approach is that it saves you time since you can stop learning what you know. The ability to track progress is also highly motivating

Once you locate the best GRE preparation course material, you open the secret to top the scores

The key to success is consistent effort.GRE preparation also requires the person taking the exam to be regular with his preparation. Verbal or in other words the English section is considered tough. Most of the students who have opted for GRE preparation are asked to focus more on this section.

In order to master the verbal section during the GRE preparation one needs to develop the habit of reading. Intensive reading helps increase your vocabulary. It is easy to remember the words when read in context of a line rather than cramming them individually.GRE preparation is considered futile without strong vocabulary knowledge.

There are a few tips which can assist a future test taker in conquering the verbal section during the GRE prep.  Before everything else one needs to know about the format so that the GRE prep strategy can be planned accordingly. The verbal section in the GRE exam is primarily divided into 4 sub sections namely

•    Analogies
•    Antonyms
•    Sentence completion
•    Comprehensive reading

All the four sections are to be tackled differently during the GRE preparation. It’s always said that practice makes a man perfect and it stands true for the GRE preparation also. All the four mentioned sub sections in the GRE verbal section can be mastered by practice. A few tips apart from intensive study complete the GRE preparation and are sure to produce desired results.

Some of these tips to help you with your GRE prep have been mentioned under:

•    The GRE prep starts only after you have set a target for yourself in terms of the college you want to get admission in and the score required for it.
•    You need to buy the suitable study material in order to start with the GRE prep in right direction.
•    GRE preparation involves more and more reading. The more you read the more will you learn
•    The GRE preparation of any student is incomplete without taking regular practice tests to evaluate his GRE preparation.
•    Learn to eliminate the wrong options of the question during the GRE preparation, in order to increase the chances of getting the right answer.
The above mentioned tips can only help you during your GRE prep. The final result depends on the effort you put in.GRE preparation requires considerable amount of patience and intensive learning.

The GRE General Tests measures skills in verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking and analytical writing skills. The GRE prep should be done in accordance with these divides. The GRE exam is the gateway for many graduate programs. The future of the students depends on the GRE score. This can be improved with a thorough GRE preparation. Apart from the regular practice and hard work there is one more aspect that should be taken care of by the students involved in GRE preparation.

This important aspect is leaning to remain calm during the exam. According to the stats obtained from several surveys conducted around the globe, 80% students fail to get the expected scores in the GRE exam. The reason for this is not any kind of lack in their GRE prep but the anxiety that they succumb to during the exam. During the course of GRE prep the students must be taught to overcome this anxiety so that they can give their best shot.

There are cases where students have been scoring well above the score of 1400 during their GRE preparation tests but are restricted at a score of 1100 during the actual exam. The reason for this is the fear of being in the test hall. Several coaching institutes have started paying attention to this aspect during the GRE prep course. The students are taught to remain calm during the exam. Actual test conditions are created during the gre preparation so that the students can get used to the exam atmosphere.

Another aspect of the gre prep is that the mode of practice should be same as the actual exam. If the students are opting for computer adaptive gre test then they should be acquainted with it before the exam. It is seen that the students often adopt the pen and paper method for solving questions and perform well. But same students perform terribly badly when it comes to the computer adaptive test. The reason behind this is the wrong choice of mode of practice during the gre prep.

In order that complete justice is done to the hard work put in during the gre preparation, it is important to keep these aspects in mind. You can succeed in getting the desired score only if you perform well in the exam without any fear and anxiety. Gre preparation can pave your path to college but you yourself need to take care of the pitfalls. A deep thought about the above mentioned aspects can help see the pitfalls.