Friday 8 January 2016

GRE Preparation Tips



GRE Preparation Tips would be mainly relevant to working professionals who want to achieve high scores, although others might also find it useful.
Some GRE Preparation Tips:
·  Managing work and GRE preparation alongside is hectic, but doable. Start of by building your vocabulary every day. Atlei  has a vocabulary flashcard app and a vocab builder app, which you can use on the go. Also, GREedge has a nice vocabulary app, WordBot, which has pictures corresponding to words, which makes word associations fun and easy to remember. Make your own lists, either in paper or in Quizlet app. Wordnik.com is a great online dictionary.

·  With vocabulary knowledge you can ace in SE and TC, but for RC you need a whole lot preparation and practice. GRE is famous for its hard passages, and I lost few points there. Not only practice RC questions, know the traps, and simultaneously build a good reading habit by reading dense content, such as The Hindu Opinions (they have a mobile app), The New Yorker, The Economist etc. Atlei blog has a great curated list of passages which they add every month.

·  Keep the evenings for Math (that is my strategy, yours may be different) as after a day of hard work you will feel groggy and sleepy so mugging up words wont be fruitful

·  For Quants, practice as many questions as you can. Do not leave out any topics, although you may leave Probability for the end as few questions come from them.

·  If you buy Atlei, try to watch the videos of Atlei according to your weak areas. Target to complete all (yes, ALL) the questions from the Atlei package (There is around 550+ math and 500+ verbal) by the end of study plan.
·  Revise, and make note of your mistakes. You will have a lot of mistakes while you attempt tests, but do not get demotivated by it. Instead, notice how you failed. Quants are prone to even the silliest of the silly mistake which will make you hit yourself! Stay calm, and notice how you failed, and create a list of your failures. Before the next mock test, read up that list.

·  For AWA’s, first read the responses from the ETS official resources of AWA, and judge how the scores are given. Then take a topic and write in timed conditions (30 mins), and review your work by someone else. I used to get them reviewed by GREedge SFA’s. Remember this base rule: for Issue, write examples supporting and disputing your position, and for Argument, “there is one plan, Attack!”

·  Take mock tests. Beginning from the penultimate week plan at least 5 full-length mock tests having one day gap in between. So you give one FLT, analyze your mistakes and study the next day and so on. You can get those FLT’s from Atlei, one free FLT from Manhattan online, and two from ETS Powerprep. GREedge gives you 4 full-length test and 20 short 1-hour tests. These mock tests are a must, as it will build up your stamina.
·  Study every day to maintain regularity. Some days you might be stuck at office late, some days you won’t feel to study. Even in those days do light prep, such as like learning new words or reading passages.

·  Do not study at all on the previous day of your test. Read Atlei tips for the test day from their blog and follow it

·  On the test day, have a healthy breakfast and take some energy foods for the break (I took chocolates, amazing mental boosters!). Remember, you will only get 10 minutes of break after two AWA sessions and one test section. This ten minutes effectively ends up into seven, as three minutes are gone in you signing out and signing in and being frisked! (yes, they will frisk you much more than airport standards). Reach early at the test center, and be calm and relaxed. Always remember, every question is equal, so do not waste on a question too much.

·  If you have time make a list of universities which you can apply depending on scores you might get, which will be useful to select four universities ETS lets you send scores for free, but you have to select them right after your test are over in the test center.
·  Make a plan, stick to it, and you can score easily 320+.

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