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GRE Study Tips And Personal Statement


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1. Preparing for the GRE is like preparing for any other standardized test. Just buy a few GRE prep books, study them, and do all the exercises and tests they ask you to do(while making sure you understand what areas your weak in and improving upon them). The books I used and personally recommend are Barron's GRE, Kaplan's GRE exam workbook, Kaplan's GRE exam verbal workbook, and Kaplan GRE exam in a box. In regards to your severe test anxiety, I suggest taking A LOT of practice GREs under timed conditions so that you'll get used to how the exam is setup and feel more comfortable with the time constraints. You should also be aware that there will be a revised GRE starting Aug. 2011 if you plan to wait that long to take the test. (check out the ETS website to find out exactly what changes).

 

2. CASPA requires your statement to be limited to 5,000 characters(approx. 625 words). Are you really sure you want a complete stranger to proof your personal statement? Why not take it to a writing center or have your family, friends, or someone you can actually sit down with to read and edit it?? Right now many members of the forum are discouraging people from posting their PS and asking others to edit it...but maybe you'll get lucky and find a kind soul to help you. Just keep in mind that this person could be a troll, a person who flunked all his college writing courses, or a completely incompetent individual wanting to use your PS for ideas to write their own:) .

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I second eb1212's suggestions.

 

Since the GRE is computerized, try to do at least a couple of practice exams on a computer (maybe through a program or CD that you buy, and/or you can get something for free online -- I used PowerPrep, which is the practice-test software available from ETS for free: http://www.ets.org/gre/general/prepare/) in addition to all of your book-studying. I also found the Test Pacer (available at http://800score.com/gre-pacer.html) to be helpful. Getting all of this practice in, especially going through an actual practice computerized test & having an idea of how you should pace yourself, should help you out a lot.

 

It's helpful to send your personal statement to a variety of people... that way you get a good mix of opinions & stuff. If your school has a writing center or career center, that's a helpful resource. The people I asked to read my personal statement were: 2 career counselors (who I'd already met with before, so they knew a bit about me), a friend who's an English teacher, my sisters, my husband, and a close friend. Ideally you want a variety of people because some may focus more on content & making your writing more compelling, whereas others may focus on grammar/punctuation/etc. -- all of which are important components.

 

Good luck!

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  • 4 weeks later...

I agree that the more practice problems you do, the better off you will be. For the quantitative, make sure your simple math skills -- multiplying using exponents, working with fractions, and calculating percents -- are strong, because that will save you a lot of time. Unless you are a verbal virtuoso, I would definately spend a lot of time on studying vocabulary. The verbal section is definately harder to do well on, where if you score in the 90% you will only score a 600 (as opposed to the math where scoring within the 90% will earn you around a 750). Along with the recommendations above, I suggest reading a newspaper like the wall street journal, which will give you good exposure to short articles on disparate topics, much like the passages found on the GRE. Simply put, you have to study vocab hard. The prep books will help you with chunking similar words and developing stratagies to eliminate certain choices. Personally, I wouldn't buy all of these books -- you can make it through their practice problems in a few days. I just went to a barnes and noble periodically to use them.

 

As grace above has noted, powerprep is a great tool and is free. It has two practice tests that are nearly identicle to the actual test, along with other practices problems for each section. Just like anything in life, the more you practice the more you will improve. When you are truly confident in the material it is tough to be nervous. Just put the time in and you will be fine. And just be happy you dont' have to take the MCAT!

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