How To Prepare For GRE

GRE (Graduate Record Examinations), being a standard exam, has made it easy for the universities and colleges to select the candidates of their parameters. GRE is the best tool for a person who dreams to enroll themselves to pursue an academic or a master degree, with a graduate school. This shows how important GRE is to prepare oneself to get qualified on a world class standard. That is the reason to know the strategies on how to prepare for GRE with proper tools in order to succeed in the test. When it comes to a standardized competitive exam like GRE, a person has to equip himself/herself with certain skills.  GRE measures the ability of a person in three sections viz, verbal, quantitative and analytical.

A. Verbal Section - These questions fall under analogies, reading comprehension and sentence completions. In this section the ability of a person to use English language, with strong grammar, innovative vocabulary and logical thinking are tested.

Tips For:

 Analogies test the ability of a person to identify the likeness between two words and the concepts they interpret.

• Pick up words which seem to have similar meanings and try to differentiate the degree of differences between them. Make a note of them in brief points. For example words like “evapourate” and “vapour”.
• Compare those differences and practice with the multiple choice answers. Now try fitting the relationship between the original pair and the ones   in the answer choices. This is the best way to prepare for analogies.

Reading Comprehension aims at measuring the ability to understand the content, important details and the logical order of events in a passage along with Standard English pronunciation.

• Practice with text books to find the inherence of the author, important details and the main idea of the passage.
• Make sure that you don’t make any lapse in pronunciation or grammar.

Sentence Completion intends to check the logical understanding and finding the meaning of a word according to the context.

• Depend completely on grammar and practice with a variety of words.
• The best tactic to choose correct answers from the multiple choice ones is by breaking up the sentence to find the meaning, it’s trying to convey. Then use your own word that fits with the meaning. Now match the word with one of the answer choice. You will find the correct answer.

B. Quantitative Section - The questions are of three varieties namely quantitative comparison questions, discrete quantitative questions, and data interpretation questions. Basic high school mathematics of a person is tested in this section, to check how good they are at applying their mathematical understanding.

Tips For: 

Quantitative Comparisons test one’s skill to find the relative sizes of two quantities.

• Always assume that there is no sufficient information given
• Prevent doing long calculations and needless calculations.
• To find the answer choice which fits best with the question algebraic expressions should be converted to normal form. This is a technique to find which quantity is larger or smaller. Added to that practice with zero, negative numbers and fractions.

Problem Solving requires an understanding in basic mathematics like algebra, arithmetic and geometry

• Look for the information given in the problem and do not rely on instant ideas about the problems
• Short calculations are the best to find the right answer choice and scan all the answer choice once again to check the accuracy.

Data Interpretations requires one’s ability to read and interpret data effectively

•  When it comes to data interpretation it’s a must to understand the way it is presented.
•  Read the texts which are presented along with the data and make a visual comparison by drawing a rough sketch of them.
•  Use this comparison to perform your statistical calculation. This is a simple method to find the answers.

C. Analytical Section – Two essays are to be completed for this section, one essay on argument and one essay on an issue. In an argument essay writing task, an individual’s ability to identify a hidden or an implicit reason in a passage. Their analytical thinking is more important in this section, because, they are needed to separate the assumptions, pros and cons, strength and weaknesses in a passage to find the indirectly expressed conclusion.

Tips For:

Essays on Argument tests the examinee on how good he is in writing in English, along with analytical thinking and constructing a strong argument.

•  After reading an argument do not accept or refuse a claim. Draw the assumptions, supporting facts, weakness and strengths in a passage. Now make an outline of your argument with supporting examples. Now substantiate your observation with examples for argument construction. Make sure that short sentences are used

Essays on Issues tests the examinee on how good he is in writing in English, along with logical thinking of causes and effects and being able to analyze the pros and cons of the issue.

•  While writing for an essay for an issue always analyze the pros and cons, causes and effect and their logical order to take sides. Then you can go ahead substantiating your support for that issue.

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