The Blackmetaller’s Guide to the GRE :)

Blogging after a long time . Courtesy GRE . Thankfully , I am done with it . An OK score of 1460 ( Quant: 800 , Verbal:660 :( ) .

Although the title of the post gives the idea that the post is a didactical treatise on how to study for the GRE , it actually isn’t . I have just listed the material I used for the same and added my views here and there . Nothing more , nothing less . It is upto thy intelligent self to winnow the useful stuff from the one which isn’t ....

For Verbal :
1. Mugged Barrons ....No ifs and buts here sadly !!

2. Solved all the Big Book Tests . U’ll find a host of new words here too....especially in the analogy questions . Do them !! And chances are you’ll never run out of them during your prep. duration .

3. Read the ‘Kaplan’s Verbal ‘ Ebook.....has certain fundae on how to approach various sections of the Verbal exam . Browse through. The word lists too deserve a glimpse for they are pretty well-organised and grouped .

4. “ 63 RC’s “ . Ignore this one if you are already able to crack the Big Book RC’s effortlessly . Personally , I used to always make a few mistakes in RC’s ...hence I used this ebook. It has an amazing collection of GMAT/GRE level passages . Again , there are so many that you’ll never run out of them !!

5. Prof. M.Krupa Shanker’s Audio Lists ( Only the ‘ Analogies ‘ and ‘ Special Words’ . These are 2 audio files ( 10-15 mins duration ..i think ) . Here are some words you can note down for analogies .....for e.g collective nouns , words related to a particular subject etc. The alternative for this Audio thingie is exploring a Thesaurus , but again , I didn’t have enough time to do the latter .

6 . Lastly , all your efforts in building a strong Vocabulary will remain incomplete if you don’t supplement it with section-wise tests on a regular basis . In the initial period of your prep , do Big Book , Princeton Review CD ( Really Easy !! ) , Kaplan ( A lil scary initially..sum tough words ) and Cambridge . And yeah ..the Powerprep section-wise practice exercises too .

For Quant :
Prepared very little for this section ....

I read through the Fundae in Barron’s . Solved a few examples here and there .
Did the same with an ebook “ Nova GRE “ . And the ‘ ETS GRE Math Review ‘ . That’s it .

Do some tests ( from the CD’s mentioned for Verbal ) and u shud be fine . Mind you , the actual GRE quants are slightly tougher ( cuz they take more time and require a tiny bit more of thinking ) . Avoid making silly mistakes and you should be through with a perfect score here !!

For AWA :
I wrote just ONE essay each for the Issue and Argument types two days before the exam . Was too lazy to practise more . Do read through the sample essays in ‘ ARCO’s Essay Book ‘ . Its an amazing book with samples based on the ETS list of issues and arguments . Get a basic feel on how to approach the section otherwise from the ETS AWA tutorial . That should be more than enough to land you a decent score .

Other useful material and links :
www.number2.com
www.greguide.com
Dr.Raju’s GRE ( check out the Orkut version of this page otherwise for most recent Quant and Verbal Questions faced by others for an idea !!
500 questions on Antonyms , Sentence Completion , Quantitative Comparison etc.etc. ( all separate ebooks  ).

That is about it ...i guess . It resulted in a decent score for me ....and hopefully atleast some of this might help you get a decent or probably a better score !!

Cheers ,
Count Grishnackh ( The Blackest ov the Black )

p.s. In case the readers of this post give the GRE in the future and come out with flying colours , they MUST treat the author or atleast drop a comment here :) .