A tryst with GRE..

So, after quite some gap, writing a post.. And this is on the GRE exam that I have just done with.. Gave it on the 7th September at the Mumbai center 1:00pm slot.. The result said:
Verbal: 660 Quant: 800.. Total 1460!!

Well, I had always aimed for a minimum score of 1450, and for most of my preparation, it seemed to be out of my reach.. But the last two weeks preparation and a change of strategy regarding the way of preparing really helped me from transforming a possible score of 1300-1350 into a 1450+ score..
So, this is the account of my GRE experience along with some advice and links, which will surely help anybody planning to give GRE in the coming time, in someway or the other..

The TEST:

Travel & timings: Well, Mumbai traffic is horrible and you surely got to face it, irrespective of whatever route you take to the test center. And this is especially the case for the 1:00pm slot.. So plan such that, you reach the centre atleast 2 hours before the actual test time.. This can be 1.5hrs for the 9:00am slot, but not for the other two slot timings.. Applies for the other centers as well.. This also gives enough time for one to refresh after a journey or to have some snacks (as in my case, coz I feared I would get hungry towards the end of the test :-) ).. And they let you in at 8am for the 9am-1pm slot and at 12pm for the 1-5pm slot..

Well, I reached the centre at 11am and had a light meal. Had already come to a relative's place in Mumbai, the day before.. Had done this with the intention that there wont be too much travel on the day of the test and would help in keeping cool and calm.. Learnt a lesson from the experience of BITS exam some years back, when the travel that day from Pune to the test center in Mumbai had really drained me out coz of a variety of reasons. That apart, so went in at 12 pm. Lots of signing stuff and filling in the form. And they absolutely dont allow anything inside the actual test lab except your passport, secondary ID (driving license or college ID ONLY) and you with your clothes on & all pockets emptied!! Jackets/sweaters are allowed and I had worn one coz was pretty cold and felt it pretty necessary.. Rest, you have to put everything in your bag which you keep inside the alloted locker. A lady explains you all the rules of the test.

Time to go in!! They take your photo and signature and I was given the scratch pad (more than sufficient pages) and two pencils and was led to my machine.. First was all the tutorials of how to use the mouse, keyboard and all.. Just to consume a bit of time, before I actually start with the essays, I saw one two screens of each and then exited.. Way too boring.. Proceeded to the AWM section.. You are given a headphone to keep out the noises from the neighboring keyboards, but I found it hardly effective. Also, it was hardly fitting over my huge sized head (!!), and had to wear it in an awkward fashion.

AWM Section (Essays): The screen showed up two topics for the issue writing. Went through them, reading each topic twice. Gave a thought and realized that I absolutely havent understood either of the two topics!! Went through those again, the same condition.. Out of those, I absolutely didnt get what the 2nd topic wanted to say.. So, had to choose the first one.. And I wrote an average essay on the interpretation that I took out from the issue statement. (It has turned out to be that my interpretation was completely wrong and had absolutely no relation with the intended meaning.. So, worried about my AWM scores which are yet to come). The argument was a pretty standard one with typical flaws and could easily point them out and elaborate.. So, relying on argument for consolidating my AWM score..


The option of taking the 10min break popped up.. Absolutely!! A much needed one! Went out, had some water.. Cooled myself down, regained a bit of composure after that real shaky start and went in again.. Still 4 min of break remaining.. Just closed my eyes and once again reviewed in mind, the strategies I had decided to tackle each question type (Thanks to Sahil for this suggestion) and then terminated the break.. ( I really recommend people to take this break coz it helps to reorganize yourself and get prepared for the crux part..) Also, any of the two sections, Verbal or Quant can come first after AWM.. So be mentally prepared to face either of the two upfront..

Verbal Section: The standard one first.. Started with it pretty cautiously.. But most of them were antonyms/SC/analogies mostly based on Barrons words.. Though, the 4/5th question puzzled me & I think I might have got that wrong there.. Also, I think, I have made a mistake in a sentence completion which was the 7/8th question.. There were very few non-Barron words in the options, but I could somehow either eliminate the others to get the non Barron word as the answer or some other option as the perfect one.No RC's in first 10! Real lucky me.. The RC's though started from the 12th question and 3 consecutive RC's (12-22) !! Dont remember whether any antonym was there in between, but mostly not.. The RC's were around 50, 110 & 60 lines respectively.. Had already spent too much time on first two RC's. so just marked some random answers for the third one.. At the end, it was down to 4 questions - 1 min, 3 questions-30sec, 2 questions-10sec!! This was the time, my heart was pounding like anything!! Had to somehow mark & confirm the last 2 answers at random.. And thankfully managed to do so..

Just to mention here, unanswered questions are penalized by the test algorithm! So, even if you have 5,6 or whatever number of questions left in the last minute, make it a point to mark any random answer and confirm the answer for all the questions.. U might end up on a much lower score if you fail to confirm all your answers, depending on the number of unanswered questions.. This is really IMPORTANT!! (Thats why, marking those last two answers was really important)

What I did in the one minute break between these two sections was too calm down my heart beats.. GRE is an exam wherein if you don't maintain your calm and cool, then you are bound to make mistakes, howsoever prepared you are..

Quantitative Section: The section started with the standard stuff of questions on algebraic calculations, geometry and inequalities.. No sum was really difficult.. All were pretty easy.. The thing was that many of these sums were pretty lengthy.. Was taking a significant amount of time to be absolutely confirmed of an answer.. So, after a cautious approach for questions 1-10, I had to increase the speed for the next questions.. The DI questions had probability involved and many sums were worded so cleverly that you would easily go for the wrong answer.. The wording of the problem should be crosschecked after finding the solution, to confirm whether this is what the problem is demanding in the appropriate units.. Got 5-6 problems based on mean, mode, median concept as well.. Finally had 40 seconds with 2 questions left.. And with quant, there is no chance of solving a question quickly enough.. So no risks, straightaway marked random answers for the last two and completed the section..

Now, the research section.. And the screen had on it in bold letters "This will NOT be counted towards your final score" and that this wont affect your AWM score.. So, it was an issue.. But with the earlier issue screwed up, I was in no mood of writing another issue and so exited the research section.. Was more eager to get to the scores instead.. After confirming of reporting and not canceling the scores, there it was: Verbal: 660 Quantitative: 800
A broad smile on my face greeted the score screen.. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!

Submitted my scores to Georgia Tech, Purdue, USC and UMinnesota(Minneapolis) and DONE!!

For the free score reporting, you have to first select the state, and then it displays all the universities in that state. Selecting the university, displays the departments and then you finally confirm an university. So, it is necessary to know the state in which your desired university lies in as well as the exact name. The list that is displayed on the screen is same as that of the list given in the GRE bulletin at the very end. So, have a look at the GRE bulletin list before you come for the exam. NO need to remember codes, just remember the state.

So, came out with a real nice feeling of content and satisfaction.. A different experience..

THE PREPARATION :

Will talk here about my preparation and some tips and advice based on my experience and also of many others who gave the test in the same period..

I had joined Dilip Oak Academy (DOA) last year.. Then, I hardly knew about GRE and my primary motive was to get acquainted with how the actual preparation process should be.. I was actually planning to take my GRE in January, and so had joined the class last year.. But didnt take any date coz of project commitments.. On DOA, I would comment that the class gives you some good tips and the study material is really good.. Dont expect that you are done with the class and you are done with the preparation.. They just give you tips and directions.. The actual work starts after the class ends.. So, joining a class is not mandatory, though its good to start, if you are at 'zero'...

Turning to the sectionwise analysis.

VERBAL SECTION:

The most important thing for the verbal preparation.. Nothing even comes close, neither practice nor tests.. The 4000 Barrons words.. Its a must to know all these words with all their meaning variations or context.. Believe me, I didnt solve a single exercise from either of Barrons, Kaplans, DOA material or whatever else.. The CBT's and a few Big Book tests was all the practice I did.. I strongly believed that if I knew those 4000 words pit-pat, then the marks would automatically follow.. Well, I wouldn't recommend not practicing at all, but it proves the fact that you wont score good in any case if you are not well prepared with them..

Will talk about the strategy change that I made in the last 2 weeks.. I finished my first round of words, 23 days before the exam.. And finished the 2nd round around 14days before.. 4000 words at a time seems to big an amount to handle.. So what I did while doing this 2nd round, was using the wordflash software, i marked the words which I knew, I wouldnt remember after sometime or coudnt remember at that time.. Then, I printed this 'difficult word list' and for the next 2 weeks, just concentrated on these words.. It was still a list 1450 words!! Whatever it maybe, 800-1500-2000, separate these words and concentrate ONLY on these.. Master them and you will feel the increased comfort and ease with which you solve the tests.. I went back to the complete 4000 list of barrons, just 2 days before my actual test..

Of the question types, antonyms are the easiest as you immediately get to the answer if you know the word or by elimination. I found Sentence completion and RC's, one level up.. And analogies were the toughest.. You got to get the exact relation and apply them to the options, otherwise you are bound to get confused..

Well, Big Book tests are really good.. The only thing is that they are paper based.. Could only solve 10 of those (there are a total of 54!), but I found them really worth the time and the level is pretty good..Attaching the link for the.. BigBookTests
Also, attaching a file which gives the equivalent CBT scores for a BigBook test score.. BigBookScores

From what I have heard from friends who have given GRE, DOA material is good and even the Kaplan drills in the Kaplan CBT software are good..

Some really good mobile softwares that I used:
(1) Wordy2
(2) Vocabol
Another useful link:

http://gre-verbal.blogspot.com/

QUANTITATIVE SECTION:

Well again, I havent solved any exercise from any book here, mostly coz of the confidence I had in these types of problems.. Didnt want to be overconfident, but a consistent score of around 790-800 in the tests assured me that I wasnt being overconfident.. Though, had a look at the all the different types of diagrams that DI comes up with.. And just revised the formulaes.. The questions in the actual GRE though, were pretty lengthy.. More lengthy than any of the quant sections problems of any of the CBT's including PowerPrep.. So, the only advice would be to practice a lot and get familiar with the question types, as it would reduce the time of thinking on a solution in the actual GRE.. Mind you, no question in GRE was 'difficult', it was just a bit more time consuming..
And even though I didnt practice anything, most of my friends found DOA material as a useful practice source.. Also, many say that no book gives you the exact feel of the actual level of the quant section problems in the actual GRE.. So, as I said, get familiar of ways of going about a particular type of problem to save time and that in turn would ensure an 800!

AWM SECTION:

Well as I said, I royally screwed up the issue in this section.. One really important thing.. Go through all the issue topics that ETS gives for the issue.. DOA has classified these topics according to the broad subject that they come under.. Reading from there would be more helpful.. Just read them and see if you can understand the basic concept of each topic and what all it can encompass.. Dont forget to clarify any such doubtful point rather than keeping it unsolved till the end.. If you are comfortable with understanding the main theme of all these topics, then facing the issue at the main GRE wont be any big 'issue'.. :-)
The tips given in Barrons and some of DOA tips are really useful and you must go through them once before you start preparing for this section. Also, practice atleast 5 timed issues of different subjects, so that you can understand properly the time management and your comfort level..

The Computer Based Tests (CBT's)

Well, follow the link to Rohan's blog post to download the CBT softwares..
Well, there's a lot of speculation regarding which CBT gives you the closest score..
According to me, PowerPrep software given on the ETS site comes closest.. No other CBT is as accurate as PowerPrep, both in terms of level of questions and the marking algorithm..
But a word of caution.. Dont read too much into either of the test scores of any CBT, including PowerPrep.. In these two months, I have seen many scores increase or decrease by margins as high as 100 points or even more in rare cases.. Dont get bogged down by them.. Here's a list of CBT's and how I performed there..

30days before: Davisons Score:1290 (Q:800 V:490)
24days before: Kaplan-1 Score:1220 (Q:780 V:440)
[these two were just when I was completing the first round of 4000 words.. To get some positive tension.. :-) ]

8 days before: Barrons Score:1360 (Q:800 V:560)
[first round of 1450 difficult words done]

7 days before: Kaplan-2 Score:1410 (Q:790 V:620)

7 days before: PowerPrep-1 Score:1350 (Q:790 V:560)
[Got 1,3,6 wrong in the first 10]

6 days before: Princeton Score:1480 (Q:780 V:700) (too lenient, I feel)

5 days before: Kaplan-3 Score:1350 (Q:800 V:550)

3 days before: PowerPrep-2 Score:1450 (Q:800 V:650)
[2nd round of 1450 difficult words done.. The effect was visible..]

1 day before: PowerPrep-3 Score:1460 (Q:800 V:660)

FINAL GRE Score: 1460 (Q:800 V:660)

Gave the powerprep the day before, after resetting the first one.. Hardly 2-3 questions repeated, rest all where different.. All I had to do to maintain that score was keep my calm and composure during the main exam.. Rest was to follow..

To round up this very wordy and preachy post, let me stress on this very very very important thing.. Whatever happens, dont lose your cool and composure.. However bad or good the earlier section was, make the use of break to cool down your nerves and regain your compusure.. You panic, and you are a GONER.. It has happened that people have got mentally disturbed by an earlier section, which has led to a low score in the next section, inspite of good preparation.. GRE is all mind game, especially on that day.. Your preparation level obviously plays a part but more importantly, to what extent you keep your brain and heart intact, MATTERS!!

Well, the following blog posts were really helpful and were my guides:
(1) Rohan's Blog post (2) Sahil's Blog post