Sunday, 6 September 2009

Sample Plan to prepare for GRE

Dear all, I am Dipen Ambalia from Mumbai…am working as a business analyst in Mphasis-HP…since 2003 I have been taking CAT, CET, GMAT and GREs..! I knew I deserved something good. So I waited till now.. took GRE on 6th aug 2009… got 1440- verbal 640 + maths-800…even in 2005 I had attempted GRE..that time my breakup was 640+780…. Anyways, this article is just an attempt from my side to help GRE takers…

After getting a lot of positive response from many GRE-takers, I felt that I should try even more to help out the GRE takers…

So, I have come up with a plan, that I followed for GRE in my first attempt (1420 – V640 + 780Q).

Everyday before you start with your preparation, repeat the words said by Will Smith in the Movie ‘Pursuit Of Happyness’ –

Don’t ever let somebody tell you that you can’t do something.
If you have a dream, protect it.
People can’t themselves do something, so they want to tell you that you can’t do it.
If you want something, GO GET IT. PERIOD!!!!!



First things first. I feel that quant in GRE is very simple. The biggest hurdle in GRE preparation is remembering words, having right plan, having right strategies, having right guidance.

Normally you should take your GRE in the month of July or August…see, the sooner you send you application packets to the univs, the better are your chances to get good RA, TA, scholarship…etc…. so to be in a position to take GRE in july or august, you should start preparing 4 to 5 months in advance. Normally people say “3 months are enough”. But I don’t feel so. 4 to 5 months of preparation should suffice. So start your preparation by March 1st .

Second of all, ignore what the world hypes about the difficulty level of GRE… people unnecessarily keep saying that ‘GRE is getting tougher day by day’..i don’t agree with that. It’s your level of preparation that is going to make the exam sound easy or difficult.

Third of all, before you start mugging the wordlist, go to the end of the word list of Barrons. There you will find the roots, prefixes, suffixes, etc.

Once you are familiar with that, you can easily remember the words from the wordlist.
Half of the words can be split or can be FELT by their prefixes, suffixes, roots, etc…

Understood??? So, DON’T EVER jump directly to the wordlist. Firstly create a good foundation upon which you can build your vocab.

Fourth of all, after you are done with the “prefixes, suffixes and roots” from Barrons, its time for you to start with the wordlist. Normally GRE takers get frightened by the number of wordlists - “50”!!!!... So the first thing that you need to do is do a psychological check! At least I used to use this kind of thinking --- Do five wordlists at a time.
5 wordlist = 1 WORDLIST.

So at one go you should read 5 wordlists!
so if you see, as per normal maths, you would have to do just 50/5 = 10 WORDLISTS!... Getting my point??? When I started with the first WORDLIST, I had a consolation at the back of my mind that ‘there are only 9 more to go’!!.... I know this is kind of fooling yourself, but believe me this technique helps!... it helped a normal person like me.. it might help you too… once you conquer the fear of the number of wordlists, you will have a lot of confidence…. REVISION is the key to remembering the words.

Take a look at the link below for techniques on remembering wordlists.

http://dipenambalia.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-remember-wordlist-for-gre.html


Here is the timetable:

(4 hrs of preparation per day should suffice.)

March 1st – 15th March ---- fully understand the “prefixes, suffixes and roots” from barrons.

March 16th – May 30th ---- fully understand all the wordlists… you should know the meaning of any damn word given in Barron’s wordlist!

Along with the wordlist, also start preparing for Reading comprehensions. The basics need to be strong. So for that you should be able to understand any article on any damn subject under the sun… And as I said you can get anything under the sun, its important that you go to net and surf the web for any damn subject topic you can think of .. eg : importance of algae in the animal kingdom, why Florence nightingale is so famous, the colonization of a few colonies in America, the internal structure of proton, feminism in the 16th century, the strategy used by Google to be the number one search engine, how to electricity is produced….!!!!!!!!! Any damn article will help you familiarize with the content THAT YOU NORMALLY DON’T LIKE TO READ!

From March 1st up to April 15th you have time to READ DIVERSE material. After that .ie. till may 31st its time for you to start solving the 1000 RC document. You will find it on the net… for tips on RC please go thru this link..

http://dipenambalia.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-tackle-rc-in-gre.html

Also, from March1st upto May 31st, solve with maths. Do maths half an hour a day. (the assumption is that you are already OK in maths.)

http://dipenambalia.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-tackle-maths-in-gre.html


So, by May 30th you will have built a good foundation for verbal.
Now its time for you to know whether you are ready for the big battle in july/august.

Start practising vocab exercises with guru.exe, voca.exe, antonym.exe….
Practice these till june 10th. 10 days shld be sufficient for you to practice these.
LEARN from the mistakes you make here.

Its time to take a practice test from ETS POWER PREP (the CD which you get when you register). Take the test. Don’t get depressed if you get lower than you expected; because you are yet to polish your mind. Make sure ANALYSE your performance very thoroughly. Spend 2.5 hours on what went wrong, why it went wrong, what you will do to make sure it doesn’t go wrong.

Now, spend time from june 11th till june 20th just to go thru the barrons wordlist again.
And make sure you prepare for maths steadily.... STEADY PREPARATION OF MATHS IS VERY IMPORTANT!...

From June 21st up to july 5th solve the GRE Bigbook. There are 27 tests. Solve the first 10 tests just for practice. I mean don’t time them.

The later 17 tests should be solved in a timed manner..it’s ok if you don’t get time to solve all 17…

From 6th July up to 10th July focus on AWA. From the ETS site, you will get a pool of topics (issues and arguments) that might be asked in the exam.


http://dipenambalia.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-tackle-awa-in-gre.html

Now its time to take the 2nd test from ETS POWER PREP.

In the actual exam you will get + or – 60 of what whatever score u get in the second test of ETS POWER PREP….

Now, uninstall and install again… again take 2 tests…
Now, uninstall and install again.. and again take 1 test.. by now you should have exhausted the database of the ETS POWER PREP….

Work for a week on your weaknesses… and then you should be good to crack the actual exam..!! ie. july 3rd week should be when you would come out with flying colours!!

Just to reword what Will Smith has said in the Movie ‘Pursuit Of Happyness’ –

Don’t ever let somebody tell you that you can’t score 1600 in GRE.
If you have a dream of scoring 1600 in GRE, protect that dream.
People themselves can’t score well, so they want to tell you that you can’t score well.
If you want 1600, GO GET IT. PERIOD!!!!!”


Give your best shot so that if ever someone googles “ the person who scored 1600/1600 in GRE”, the results should show up YOUR name!!!...

Mail me your comments or any doubts at dipenambalia@gmail.com. I will try my best to help u…
If you want to talk to me then mail me and then I will give you my phone number…

Keep visiting my blog- http://dipenambalia.blogspot.com for more updates…

Happy GREing!!...

DISCLAIMER : pls dont sue me if this plan doesnt work for u :).. this is just a logical plan to help u score what you deserve..!

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