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GRE prep books?

BrianBrian 7,618 Posts
edited January 2007 in Strut Central
my sister just decided to take the GRE and i decided to hit the most knowlegeable place i know of and ask if anyone had any recommended prep books. thank you.

  Comments

  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    my sister just decided to take the GRE and i decided to hit the most knowlegeable place i know of and ask if anyone had any recommended prep books. thank you.

    I don't think it really matters--just got a volume that has a bunch of back tests, so she can familiarize herself with the basic question formats.

    Then work through a bunch of them.
  • SnagglepusSnagglepus 1,756 Posts
    I used the 2005 version of http://www.syvum.com/gre/

    Anyway, hope she does well.
  • tripledoubletripledouble 7,636 Posts
    yo brian,
    i was only working part time when i prepped for that test, so i put good study time in for a month. i went to borders and read kaplan front to back. a friend gave me the interactive cd to take tests online and do exercises.
    then i bought another book and went through all of that, reading all tips, taking all practice tests. that came with a dvd too.

    point is, just immerse herself with any book, be diligent and practice alot. the tips are really good because they help you save time and avoid common traps and give you a good approach to the test.

    i completely destoryed the test, doing much bette rthan i could have expected, so i was happy with the time spent. the math is supposed to be easier than SAT math.
  • hemolhemol 2,578 Posts
    Of utmost importance is to study the vocab. I picked up a flashcard type book that consisted solely of 'hard words', and that mess definitely saved my ass. Unless she just graduated from a seriously intensive program, make sure to suggest that she puts in plenty of time on vocab. The vocab stuff is
  • bthavbthav 1,538 Posts
    and taking the computerized adaptive tests. those things are a mind fuck.
  • dj_pidj_pi 335 Posts
    I just took the GRE as well and taking a month to prepare is a good measure (unfortunately I couldn't do this). Tell your sister to look into the program she wants to go into and find out if they value the vocab over the math section or vice versa. I am looking at going back to engineering school and for most schools they don't even look at the vocab. The first time I took the GRE, I didn't know this, so I studied hard on the vocab and did OK, but completely overlooked the math and under-estimated it. When I started e-mailing some professors they either only were interested in the math or not interested at all in the GRE. Took it a second time and did much better on the math...but not as well on the vocab.

    Besides studying for the GRE...tell your sister to e-mail professors in the department of schools she's interested in and let them know she's interested in the program and try to establish some type of communication. A lot of times, the decision on whether a student is admitted is based on if the professor needs people doing research for him/her and the professor can basically choose whomever he/she wants. I know many grad students that didn't even take the GRE and got into programs solely cause they had an 'in' with the prof.

    Also look up information about what she's going into and how much programs value the GRE score. Like I've said, for engineering, the GRE is on the bottom of the list, where many schools consider research and letters of recommendation of more value than GRE scores.
  • edulusedulus 421 Posts
    i would just take practice tests. my opinion as science major, they MADE UP words on the verbal part. the key thing on the math part is knowing all the stupid tricks, like trig relationships and stuff. cant use calculator on math at all. so get used to that.
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