Monday, July 30, 2012

How to prepare for the GRE

My GRE prep began in the last semester of university. I used to carry a big word list with me wherever I went. Some friends started to test me on the words randomly and it turned out to be a good way to pass the lazy lab sessions. I learned around 500 or so words during this time.
After university, when I joined Engro, I took a hiatus from my GRE prep and for the most part of my first year allowed myself to become completely engulfed in the vibrant life at Engro's Daharki site. Then beginning in Feb, 2011 I started to focus back on my GRE prep and cut back on the rest of my social engagements, to study Princeton Review's Word Smart for GRE. It helped me get back on track with my vocabulary preparation. A lot of people differ with my opinion but I really believe that using word lists gives a huge boost to your vocabulary prep, it is simple fast and easy. Everyday after studying the new words, I studying some of the tricky words from the last lesson too. After finishing word smart, I starting to study the Kaplan word list. Each day I targeted to finish 140 words, then revised the words from the last day's list and marked those words from last day's list that I couldn't recall at all. After going through Kaplan, I revised the marked words and on my second revision, re-marked those words which were still giving me trouble. Then I started the math prep, for which I quickly went through the math tips given in Barron's book and then moved on to attempting practice tests on my computer. Math prep should not take more than 2 weeks for an engineering student. Once done with maths, I started to take some complete CAT tests, and focused on the areas in which I consistently made mistakes, which for me were the comprehension questions.
After this I started to read ARCO book for essay questions, went through a few examples to get a good idea of structure and argument formation.
On the night of the test I went through the final marked words one last time. Took a good night's sleep. Gave the test. Scored 1550/1600.

2 comments:

  1. Good achievement Ali . . . It was an honor to study with you . . .

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  2. That was a really helpful article. I guess you waited for one year after your bachelor graduation and then applied for Rhodes.Do you think one should apply in the final year of undergraduate or she one wait ?

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