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• Reputation: 1856 Q&A: 46 0 4 898 57 3 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 4 Griffin

  3 0 The GRE is not as bad as it's claimed to be. For me, the toughest part was remembering enough cursive to write the anti-cheating pledge out at the beginning. It's written and scored by the same people who make the ACT, if that's any comfort. I worked for and with people who scored the essay questions. The stupidest thing that people do when they take essay questions is not answer the question--do that and you'll probably get a 3 right off the bat. Also, if the question asks you to address items a, b, and c, then address them all. The exams are scored on a rubric, and no matter how good your writing skills are, if you don't answer the question, you won't do well. The best way I found to prepare was taking the practice test that you can get from GRE online. Take it and you'll be familiar with the setup. Also, the entire test bank of possible essay questions is online with them too--it's a long list so don't try to study for them all, but you can get a good grasp on what's coming. And, as Basil said, you can always take it again. Griffin answered in Jobs & Education about 1 year ago | Report 2 comments by emily and Griffin… 0 0 The GRE is just a more difficult version of the SAT. Actually, the math is the same, from what I remember, but I found the verbal was rather difficult, if only because I didn't know the definitions of all the words I got. You can always use the library as a resource (well, not this week). Some of the review books come with DVDs & are available for checkout. Actually, they may have online checkoutable ebooks. emily commented about 1 year ago | Report 0 0 I would also add that being "deficient" on the GRE isn't always a deal breaker. If you're going into art or music, say, schools aren't likely to care if your math score was middling. That said, if you want to work at Fermilab, you need good math skills. The profs I have known on graduate entrance committees are mostly concerned with whether or not you demonstrated critical thinking skills and good reading comprehension. You can be taught the math and vocabulary, but it's difficult to teach logical thought processes in grad school if you don't already have them. Griffin commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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• Reputation: 174 Q&A: 0 0 8 14 0 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 Mr John

  2 0 This question has a ton of different answers. Mostly I would say how much you need to study depends on these things: 1. Your standardized testing aptitude: Everyone is better or worse at these tests. If you 'get it' and don't have too much to learn you probably don't need much time to prepare. This basically boils down to if you remember how to do the high school level math, how well you read and comprehend and how much vocab you happen to know. Notice this has nothing to do with how smart or intelligent you are. Some people are just better prepared to take this test from what they do in their normal lives, such as reading a lot, thinking critically, or doing real math in their jobs. 2. How much you need to improve: If you're currently testing at a level much lower than where you need based on your desired program you will need to put in a lot more work. For some programs the GRE is just a hoop to jump through. For others they will really want to see how well you did and will compare applicants based on your scores. I would say that if the test doesn't matter to your program that much and if you're fairly close to their numbers, I would study a 2-3 hours a night for a 2-3 weeks. This will get you comfortable with the types of questions and the tactics to use, but probably won't give you much time to practice what you learned about the test. If you struggle with this kind of test and/or you really need to dominate the test to get into your program, I would suggest 3-4 hours a day for 1-2 months. This amount of time will really allow you to master the tactics and feel comfortable when you walk into the testing room. Mr John answered in Jobs & Education about 1 year ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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• Reputation: 2119 Q&A: 42 0 19 974 85 2 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 2 MyrnaMinkoff

  2 0 I think you have enough time, but I would think strategically about how you will be studying. Like, I'm the sort of person who scores much better on the verbal sections than on the math, so I spent much more time proportionally studying for the math section. Do a practice test or two, figure out where your weak areas are, and then throw yourself at those. I got a couple different GRE books; each would explain the types of problems a little differently, which was great if one explanation didn't make sense. (One difficult area where you probably can't make up any real ground in the next two weeks is in vocabulary; either you have it, or you don't, so I wouldn't stress too much about this part.) One other thing (which I'm sure you know already) -- the GRE is an adaptive exam, if you're taking it on a computer. This means that if you are doing well, the questions will get harder, so it is in your best interest to spend time both learning how to solve more challenging questions, and then working through them during the actual exam. In addition, taking it on a computer means that you can't really skip any hard questions and come back to them at the end, so you have even more of a reason to practice tricky questions now. Finally, PRACTICE WRITING THE ESSAYS. On the computer. The GRE comes with two essays, I'm pretty sure -- one where you need to construct an argument, and another where you need to identify where the logical holes are in an argument. This is a very old-school way of thinking about writing, and I would spend a substantial portion of time looking at sample essay topics and putting together quick 3-minute outlines on how you would respond. I don't think I had the patience to write out a whole essay in my studying sessions, but I definitely practiced looking at essay questions and putting together logical outlines for them. It's not a hard exam, it's just finicky. Once you figure out its quirks, you should be good! Best of luck! MyrnaMinkoff answered in Jobs & Education about 1 year ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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• Reputation: 2260 Q&A: 38 0 8 1718 398 4 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 2 Basil

  1 0 I think you will have plenty of time to study, as long as you take it very serious and really make sure to study effectively. Go through your study book, figure out how many chapters it has and how many you want to cover. Figure out which ones are your strongest, which ones are your weakest. Prioritize and set yourself a schedule to learn each one. A chapter a night - with mini-exam the next day of the material you learned the night before. After every 3 days or something like that take a practice exam of all the material you have learned so far. Study the areas your are weakest at first, and then areas that you used to be good at and you know some brushing up will refresh everything. Leave the stuff you know really well till the end and just go over that briefly. It will be a time crunch, but you should be alright. And remember, taking the GRE the first time is always a challenge and if you don't score as high as you want this time it is not the end of the world - you can always retake it. Basil answered in Jobs & Education about 1 year ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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• Reputation: 0 Q&A: 0 0 0 0 0 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0

  0 0 I was totally unprepared for the math component. I hadn't taken a math class in five years and had forgotten it all, basically. So I studied daily for a full summer. However, when it came to the verbal stuff, pretty much all I did was read the recommendations in the Kaplan book so I could get a better idea of how things were scored (it takes something like four examples to get full points on the writing component, I would have only included two or three without knowing) and to learn the "types" of analogies that are used. You don't need to learn a billion vocab words. Just read the tips on improving your score. And take practice tests so you can see where you are at now and what things you tend to have difficulties on. I think Kaplan even has a free program you can use that does the computer administration, and my scores on that were pretty close to what I got. Good luck! xxbrightxx answered in Jobs & Education about 1 year ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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