About the Exam
GRE is mainly centered on testing the general understanding of students in Mathematics and English. The format of the exam keeps on changing but as for past several years it is broadly divided in to three sections. (1) Quantitative Ability (2) Verbal section (3) Analytical writing section. The maximum score you can get in the 1st two sections is 800 and for the last section i guess the maximum grade is 6.0. You will get your score for the 1st two sections immediately after your exam and for the third section it usually takes about 4-6 weeks and it comes with your official score sheet from the ETS.
ETS - Educational testing services is an organization who conducts this exam.
In general the average score for most of the aspirants is :-
(1) Quantitative Ability - around 730- 780.
(2) Verbal section - around 400 - 600.(yup broad variance here)
(3) Analytical writing - around 4.0.
However a score of above 1300 is considered good and should be good enough to clear cut off list of most schools. The admits however depends on lot many other factors (such as Letter of Recommendations , Statement of purpose,publications etc..)and different schools give weightage to different factors while giving admits. All these factors are however internal to the school and not much of this information is publicly available. Application is a topic of a whole another blog so i wouldn't go in much details here.
Overall an average student takes about 3-4 months for preparing for this exam , but again it depends on indiviuals , their are people who have done it in a 6-8 weeks.Take a sample GRE exam online and you should be able to gauge where you stand.
In the following sections I will try to give you some basic information about the 1st two sections. The third one ie Analytical Writing is about writing essays and considering my own writing skills i might not be the best person to talk about this.
Important Information
• GRE is a Computer adaptive test. By computer adaptive I mean the level of problems varies depending upon your answer. If you answer correctly, the next problem will be a little tough and vice versa.
• Try to answer at least first 12-15 questions correctly as this is the time when computer ji :) is pushing up your score so if you falter in the initial cycle then there is a good probability that your score might be affected even if you do well in the remaining section. The markings level varies as you scrap through the paper so it’s always beneficial to reach a good level score before the tricky problems come your way.
• Another important thing to remember is that you must answer all the questions with in the given amount of time .The exam penalizes you severely if you fail to complete the exam. Also be aware that you cannot go back to questions and change your response. So even if you are not sure of an answer make an intelligent guess and move on, don’t be struck with a problem if you think its going to take considerable time. Time is indicated on top of your GRE exam screen.
• There are some typical problems in the exam which has been put only for experimental basis and you don’t have to answer them correctly. These don’t count towards your score and will appear among other problems and there is no way you would know that the problem is put for experimental purpose only. It’s just a way of evaluating if that problem could be put in future exams or not. So answer every problem as honestly as you can.
So the crux is, pace your exam carefully, being extra attentive in the 1st cycle of questions [also they are the easiest ones] and then pacing your speed carefully through the exam.
The following section covers the Quantitative Ability and Verbal section and the views are solely based on my observations.
Quantitative Analysis [Mathematics]:
Basic tenth grade level understanding of mathematics is expected. Engineers usually don’t find this section tough. Even if you have a descent understanding of the subject you should be able to score considerably well in this section. The different parts of mathematics tested are shown in the following diagram. Note that these shows the majority area’s from which problems come and NOT the only ones.
The type of problems is a mixed bag of data evaluation type problems, dealing with calculation related to different type of graphs, simple formulae applications. The problems nonetheless are quite straightforward. Typical problems:-
From graphs :-
An important point to note here is that the answer choices are far apart from each other,So if you make an educated guess depending on the data you should be able to guess it right. This point is a little important as sometimes the problem might be quite easy but it will involve some complex calculations and since the exam does not permit any calculators you don’t want to waste time,so try guessing the right answer with a little aptness.
Rest there is thumb rule for Mathematics – Practice and you are well on your way.
Recommended Material:
There are many sample books available for this section in the market and I guess each one is as good as the other. Some good books for Mathematics are from Kaplan series, Princeton Reviews.
Verbal Section [English]:
This section is a little tough, I am saying so as for the majority of the test takers the English score is lower than math’s score. GRE tests you actually on Vocabulary and its usage. The English section consists of Reading Comprehension questions, Synonyms, Antonyms,sentence completion, Word meanings and so on…
For people with good grasp of English vocabulary this section might be easy but in general it requires considerable effort. As I pointed out earlier this section is all Vocabulary and I mean this literally for most part of it. The key here is memorize the words which are GRE test makers favorite (you could get the list from any GRE preparing coaching class) and their usage in different contexts.
Hmmm…The only important thing worth mentioning is to read the questions properly and try to assimilate what it is asking for .Many test takers becomes nervous when they see the clock tick by and in this haziness they don’t read the problems carefully and jump on to the mark the answer. Be cautious there is no going back so read the questions carefully and try to balance your time so the clock don't look like a time bomb to you :) .
Example:--
The problem above says Antonyms which means opposite. The word embarrass and mortify are negative words so the correct answer for this is the 4th one which have positive connotations. Some exam takers might oversee Antonyms and jump on to mark 3rd.
So read the Questions carefully as many exam takers fail to read what the question is actually asking for.
Below is the screen shot of typical RC problem which you might see in the exam:-
These are just for the taste :).There are plethora of other problem types to explore.
Recommended Material:
There is no limit to vocabulary, the more you could get the better. However to begin with I think - Norman Lewis – Word Power Made Easy is a good starting point. This book teaches you about the very commonly used Word Roots and how different words stem from them. Barron’s Book for GRE is another common reference point; it covers more than 5000 words without any aid on remembering the words. Let’s just call it a specialized dictionary for GRE. As I mentioned the book is quite exhaustive so go for it if you have the time.
Note : For more information you might want to check out the GRE’s official Website :- www.ets.org/gre/
Ps :Don't mind the quality of pics here :)
Adios
Vikram
