GRE-2

In my first ever post in blogger, I express my amateur thinking regarding the GRE. This is how i feel like, after having gone through the preparation and the test.


" I agree with the introductory statements even now.. i feel there is still a little lack of preparation, since I did not by heart the Barron's word-list, which is considered a must for GRE preparation. I don't think the way to start our preparation is mugging the word lists in order. If you want to retain all the words that you have read by then, completing the word list would take a lifetime! instead go thru some word groups. By word groups I mean, arrogance has a lot of synonyms some of which directly indicate arrogance and some of which indicate in a sinuous way, similarly there are many groups like irascibility, hard working, laziness, etc..
If you take hard working a variety of words express it : industrious, assiduous, sedulous,diligent, so on. similarly something/being in the starting stages or birth: incipient, inchoate, genesis, fledgling, germinal, seminal, etc..
similarly other word groups include broad topics like law, sports, mythology, etc..
these cover most of the words you need to learn. not all but the very important part of the word lists. other words are not very frequent..
The most repeated smaller topics are arrogance, friendliness, stubbornness, laziness, working hard, quarrelsomeness, criticizing, praising, hugeness or lightness, being sad,being cheerful, type of personality, nonchalant attitude, active or inactive, copying, stealing, deceiving, exaggerated speech, patriotism, cunning, innocence, kinds of literature, mockery etc..
After having gone through these topics the questions will be relatively easy since most of the questions should use this kind of topics, and then one can target the remaining words. No need to be very upset if one doesn't know many of them. very specific nouns like parapet are not seen very regularly. After taking so many tests I haven't seen many words like that.

barron's includes words like parapet which means a small wall at the edge of a balcony or terrace for which you try hard to remember when it is relatively a very unimportant word. Moreover when u do not remember the word with a context, it is highly likely that you forget it. Instead take a topic "spontaneous presentation w/o prep": some words that have a similar meaning are extempore,ad lib,improvise,impromptu. These words will be easy to remember if studied as a group and can be considered as a single reading, whereas if studied from a word list they would constitute a different read every time one of these comes across.

contrary to what I said in the post earlier mentioned, we prepare for vocab not because a professor at a very good univ speaks a high level english, but the vocab skill is more or less equivalent to one's logical skill! it serves an additional purpose of testing if we have enough vocab skill to be able to live there may be!!
In my first days of preparation I didn't find any logic in the questions, once I had enough words in my grip I started to find some logic. In fact, a word can be used in various ways and thereby different logics.
analogies have two words in which we have to find a reln between the words.the relation should be modified if necessary in a more specific way depending on the options . all this accounts to a logic.
sentence completion tests how one thinks in a situation,a blank.
similarly the opposite of something can be taken in various ways and our thinking should be in tone with the options again.

That's all for now!! I've been talking too much about the GRE as if I succeeded in getting a great score!! So I stop this for now!!My next topic is one, whatever bub says!! ;)

Now, its only half as cumbersome

This has been easily the best week for me this summer. Not only did I get through two of my three jobs-to-do, I received a good reward in both of them. First of them being the driving license for which I was waking up at 6 in the morning all through the summer, the reward being a quick response from the RTO that I got my driving license in less than a week delivered to my house :D. Another effort pertaining to GRE paid off. Although not a great score I am content enough with what I got.

The test score is this satiating because I was very tense, in fact I was never this tense before for any other exam, because I preferred GRE preparation to placement preparation. Anything wrong if happened would not only have ruined my effort but also make the placements more crucial for me, that too with a very little preparation.

Coming to the test, nothing is allowed inside the exam hall except the passport,a must.
Then there is no extra section, a verbal or quant section,that I heard from so many people. There is only an experimental section which you may or may not attempt. And finally coming to applying for the four universities, one should better note their anticipated universities and their states as well, as there are so many universities, they were divided in terms of state. I missed out one of the universities I thought I would apply :(. The universities I sent my score card are: Univ of maryland,college park
Ohio state univ
univ of california,san diego
texas A&M univ

A respite in terms of encouraging your prep: do not be obsessed thinking that the words will be tough. I did not find any tough words in my exam: of course part of that happening can be attributed to the fact that there is still a possibility for 250 marks. But even then i think the most difficult is the most easiest question and that which uses simple words. I was very confused early on when all the questions I got seemed easy to me and since this is a CAT(computer adaptive test) test the level of the question remains easy only when u answer the previous one wrong. But there is a other way of looking at it which did not cross my mind then. The words or questions I know do not imply that they are easy or whatever, but with the natural negative tendency I became over cautious and lost some important time. Adding to my fear there came the reading comprehensions, which I feared the most, in the topic I feared the most(literature).I left out all of them, a whole of six questions which I guessed w/o even seeing the questions. These factors made me think of canceling the test, however the invigilator insisted on proceeding to the score, ultimately made me joyous. I didn't want any thing to prevent me from a good score, this made me resort to something I have never done before in my life wholeheartedly or by myself, devudi bottu pettukunna :)

my first blog

Now that I am preparing for GRE, I would try to improve my issue essay writing skills here rather than putting them on paper. Although I planned to give the exam late this summer, i dont think i have enough time to prepare for it, owing to the facts that I will be given assignments and projects this semester and they will be nothing like easy to do. Moreover there are tests here and there all through the semester to make me restless. now, i joined a preparation course for GRE.
If someone asks me whether it does any good taking up the GRE course i would be in no position to answer as i have'nt tasted any of good or bad so far. i suppose it depends on the way we take the course. for example when they first gave me the wordlists to prepare in my vacation for a test that was conducted the day i returned to college i was dumbstruck at the sight of the paper. the format of questions was completely unfamiliar to me as i simply mugged up some words, i could not zero in on any synonym for the meaning they asked me. then, i thought they should have said the approach in reading the wordlist beforehand. i still did'nt get what they were upto in giving these long wordlists without giving any idea how to prepare. is it that they thought we would get to know eventually or anything else!!
what good does it do to us learning all these english words?? and how does this help us do our masters in U.S etc ? some say we cannot understand what the professors say unless we learn quite a lot of these words. is every American adept with all these words? i dont think so!! and when it relates to understanding a professor's lecture then how come there be different cut offs for different universities? do the professors at higher rated universities speak in words that people cannot easily understand? they are'nt teaching english i suppose.. moreover there is a part namely quantitative section where in secondary school level mathematics is tested..i dont think thats very much necessary when the level of questions is so simple.
Anyway when they want some skills for doing masters we need to practice them. so better not think my way and think how to crack GRE!! :) all the best for me !!!!