(no subject)

[sapote]

Eep. I just took my first GRE practice test and I got a 480 on the math. Algebra! I haven't done algebra since middle school! Eeek!

I got a 7-something on the verbal, but I'm not looking to be an English major, for heaven's sakes. Anyone got recommendations for a good GRE math website? A free one? I just looked at Kaplan, and sweet hairy cornhusks, batman, that mess is expensive.

Comments

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

I recommend getting the Princeton Review GRE practice book. I used that, and it was incredibly good.

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I've been meaning to ask you which one you took. And I just looked it up on Amazon, and it's not hideously expensive!

As a Classics major, was the verbal really, really easy? My test material keeps carrying on about Classical Roots.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

Classical roots?! What test materials do you have!? But actually, yes, although it *was* fairly easy, I still recommend going through the verbal section in the princeton review book, if you get it, because it's not actually enough to have a very good vocabulary and a handy ability to guess from Latin or Greek.

They teach you some good ways to manage the questions that are tailored to the specific test format and save a lot of time. Time is a much bigger factor in the test than you might think, and the book helps you get used to doing the questions in a really robotic, fast way instead of staring and thinking really hard, which is what I'd normally do, but which takes longer.

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

I have a marked-up copy of the Kaplan book, but since all the answers are already filled in (in orange and purple pen) I am shopping for another one. So that's the one that's telling me that if I have a year or more to prepare I might want to start memorizing Latin roots.

I had about 2/3 of the time to spare on each of the practice vocab bits I've done so far - and I got a 740, which isn't perfect, but I think does reflect a long lifetime of doing very, very similar multiple-choice tests. But on the math, I am completely in over my head. I knew how to do that stuff when I was twelve, but hells if anyone has asked me to find the area of a triangle since then.

[synecdochic]

Ditto to this. The PR has really fabulous study materials for all parts of the test, but their section on the math was particularly helpful for me.

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

Ooh thanks! And like I said to Toft, I like how it is not hellaciously expensive. Kaplan seems kind of overpriced.