₦airaland Forum

aanexplus:
Morning guys. I want to raise an issue concerning WES. Is it compulsory I do WES or any form of conversion? Most schools ain't asking for it. My gre is in 7 days... Nervous!!!

DanjaNinja:
My GRE Experience: Lessons Learnt - J.

General Tips
#Tip 1: Don’t rely on any one single book.

Each book has its strength and weakness. Combine them all for maximum impact.

#Tip 2: What books do I need?

1. Grubber 2015
2. Barron’s GRE
3. Nova GRE Math Bible
4. Kaplan
5. Princeton Review

#Tip 3: How can I get these books?

If you can afford physical copies of these books – Sweet, go head and buy them all. But If you can’t afford any or you’re a ijebu madam like the lovely,intelligent MsNas or like myself, simply send a blank mail to selfstudy360@gmail.com or selfstudy.version2@gmail.com for soft copies (Pdf’s). #MoneyMustNotWaste

(a) selfstudy360@gmail.com contains:

• Barron's New GRE 19th Edition
• Cracking the GRE 2013
• Gruber's Complete GRE Guide 2012

While

(b) Selfstudy.version2@gmail.com (New*) contains:

• Gruber's Complete GRE Guide (2015)
• Mahanttan Prep - 5* lb. Book of GRE® Practice Problems (2013)
• Nova’s GRE Math Bible (2008)

#Tip 4: When should I take the GRE?

Take the exam at least 4 months before you plan to send your admission applications. That way, if you don’t meet your targeted score (not your portion…Oya say Amen!), you would still have enough time to retake the exam without duress. For example, if the deadline for admission application is September 15th, the ideal time for taking the GRE should be by May. The reason for this is simple: If you don’t meet ur target score, you can retake the GRE by June thereby providing ample time for sending your application. This is not a rule but a suggestion.


#Tip 5: How much time would it take to prepare for the GRE?

Minimum: 2months @ 4-5hours per day.
Note: The number of hours do not really matter, it’s the amount of problem solving skills learnt per unit time that counts. Some people learn quickly while for others, it might take longer to read and understand new concepts. So remember, 4-5hours are just recommendations, whether u spend more or less time – ultimately, it doesn’t matter. What matters is how much u learn and how fast you can correctly answer questions. If it takes u 4-5hours per day to achieve this goal, so be it. If it takes u less time, so be it. If it takes you more time, so be it. No one cares. Ultimately it’s your scores that matters.

#Tip 6: Can I prepare within a month?

Yes u can, but it’s not advisable. You need time to internalize and completely memorizes the GRE strategies.

And lastly,

#Tip 7: Don’t be deceived by your score on POWERPREP II.

You took the sample test on PowerPrep II, you had an average of 160-165, you feel good and cant wait to take the actual test. Truth is Powerprep II does not compare to the actual test. On a scale of one to ten, one being very easy and ten being very difficult, Powerprep is a 4.5 and the actual test is an 8.5. #OkBye

Now for the part you’ve been waiting for: My GRE Experience.

This is a summary of lesson learnt from my personal experience, please feel free to add your insights and contributions. Sharing is caring.

You probably know this already but just to refresh your memory - The GRE is made up of three parts: Analytical writing, Verbal and Quantitative.
1. Analytical Writing
2. Verbal
3. Quantitative

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO ACHIEVE HIGH SCORES.

FOR ANALYTICAL WRITING:

Books and Resources needed for Analytical Writing:
Official GRE Topic List (30%) + Kaplan (60%) + Barron (10%).

(a) Official GRE Topic List: GRE maintains a list of every possible topic that you will find on the actual test date!!!!!! It’s totally legal and you can find the list here:
Pool of Argument Topics: https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/analytical_writing/argument/pool

Pool of Issue Topics: https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/analytical_writing/issue/pool

The list is quite exhaustive: 200 issue task topics and 200 argument task topics. Once you have the list, group the topics into categories and proceed to (b). I believe if u know the possible questions, your chances of success should be up 30%.

(b) Get a copy of Kaplan’s New GRE Premiere and head to the Analytical Writing Section. Read, digest and understand the essay development template for both the issue task and the argument task as discussed on chapter 15 – Chapter 21 (New GRE Premiere - Kaplan 2011-2012 edition. Newer editions should be better). Don’t bother reading anything else on Kaplan, the rest of the book is useless. With the Kaplan template, you can begin to draw up possible responses to each topic category from the GRE topic list that you obtained from the GRE website. That way, on the test day, coming up with responses won’t be all that difficult because you’ve seen it all – abi how una see am?

(c) Get a copy of Barron: While this may not be compulsory, it will help you in paragraph development. Read and understand the “Claim, Grounds and Warrants” development on chapter 6 (Barron’s New GRE 19th Edition).

The last and most important step is to PRACTISE, PRACTISE AND PRACTISE. Practice using the available topics from the GRE list in a timed mode – your practice should mimic the real test. For the GRE, its 30minutes per writing task but for you, its 22 minutes. Why? It’s always better to practice with less time – It makes you stronger.

Practice with POWERPREP writing platform or Notepad to get a feel of the nature of the typing platform. Don’t practice with Microsoft Word.

One Again, PRACTISE AND PRACTISE. It’s ultra-important you do so. You can only write well by constant practice.

My Experience: I didn’t practice enough. Truth be told I practiced only once and the end result was abysmal. I could only manage one sensible paragraph for the issue task – Big Poo. The way time flies when ur messing up is simply amazing. The argument task was much better, I wrote 4 sensible paragraphs –all within 23 minutes.
Score: Surprisingly,I scored a 3 on the writing section. since the total score is the average of both scores, I assume I made a 5 on argument and a 1 on issue…lol..just my opinion.

Generally, Argument tasks are easier than issue tasks – for Argument tasks, an essay or issue with faulty premises is given; your job is to identify and logically explain them while for the Issue writing Task, you have to develop your own argument from scratch. Finding faults is easy (argument task), writing from scratch is less easy (issue essay). But for you reading this right now, a minimum of 4.5/6 should be perfectly achievable. Why? Cos you know every possible topic, you have pre-planned responses and your “hand dey hot” due to constant writing practice.

One last tip: As soon as you are done with a particular section, whether you performed well or not, it’s best to completely ignore that section, it belongs to the past - it doesn’t matter anymore. Whether you did well or not, does not matter and if you believe you didn’t perform well, it still doesn’t matter. Focus completely on the next section – You have seven (7) more sections to deal with and you need a focused, optimistic mindset to proceed successfully. There’s no use crying over spilt milk. [/b]

FOR QUANTITATIVE

Books You Need for Quantitative:

Grubber (25%) + Barron’s (25%) + Nova GRE Math Bible (25%) + Mahanttan (25%).

Do you have to read them all from cover to cover? Not really. Each book has its strength and weakness’s. You want to be prepared for every possibility. Better you write the GRE once than write it twice. Think of the cash - $200. Think of the time spent on preparation – weeks, even months and finally, think of your Goals. So grab does books and study like mad. The end justify the means.

Lesson 1: Study each question category and solve the most difficult questions you can find on that category to re-enforce your understanding of that category.

For example, if you had prepared with Grubber like I did, you will find the data interpretation, graphical and statistical questions difficult. Why? Grubber does not really delve into these sections. Barron in addition with Manhattan and Nova does a better job. So read and understand the underlying principles and skim all books for difficult questions on all topics.
Likewise, if u ignore Grubber’s Data Comparison and algebra strategies, you might not do so well. But then, there are notable exceptions. Individuals with an engineering, mathematical and statistical background would generally do better in the Quantitative section – they’ve been doing these problems for years. Also those with an aptitude for numbers would better. Does that mean those with little mathematically backgrounds would end up with low scores? – Nope. Just read up and practice, you might end up doing better than the so called Math wizards.

The GRE Quantitative consists of two sections made up of 25 questions each. Each section runs for 40minutes – that’s an average of 96 seconds per question – which leads to lesson 2.

Lesson 2: When studying and solving quantitative questions, set a time limit of 50 seconds per question and stick to it. Like previously stated, practicing with less time makes you stronger and faster.

Lesson 3: Solve lots of Quanttitative questions.

Manhanttan and Nova Math Bible offer a huge collection of quality quantitative questions. Solve as much questions as you can on both books. Luckily, if you don’t know the answers, solutions and explanations are provided in both books.

My Experience: I studied solely with grubber. Algebra and data comparison were a walk in the park but “I hear “ween” for Data interpretation/Statistics, Combinations and Graphs. On the actual test, I saw 6 hefty graphical and data interpretation problems and some others I can’t recall @ the moment. Were they super hard? – Not really but “them hard small o”. To answer them, you need to understand the question (30secs), solve for solutions (30-40secs) and compare possible answers (10secs). If u get it wrong, u start all over again. But as you start over, remember Time dey go ooooo!
That’s why you need Lesson 4.


Lesson 4:Someone on this thread advised - if you find any question difficult, simply mark that question and move on to others.. You may return to that question later. Don’t waste time trying to solve one question for over 1 minute, skip and return later. This is so true!.

FOR VERBAL

Books you need: Grubber (90%) + Barron (10%).

Honestly, You can actually survive by using only grubber. The verbal section seems like the easiest section on the GRE but don’t be complacent o! This section is pretty tricky. I remember one particular essay with about seven (7) paragraphs. It was so dense that you could barely understand the content of a single paragraph; It also felt like it was written in another language. It was that difficult.

Also,the verbal section is made up of several subsections all mixed into one. You will find sentence completion (synonyms and antonyms) and essay comprehension all packed into one.
My Experience: I scored a 157/170 – Not bad @ all given that Grubber was the sole book I used. I won’t lie, am an avid reader – I guess that helped. However, if you study the Grubber Verbal Strategies: Latin and Greek Roots, Prefixes and Suffixes; the Most Important/Frequently Used GRE Words and Reading Comprehension Strategies – You should have no problem with the Verbal section. Grubber does an excellent job by building ur vocabulary, teaching new words and providing some interesting strategies for essay comprehension.
There are other books like Princeton Review but since I didn’t use it, I can’t say much about it. This is where external input is advisable. Those who used Princeton, oya speak up.

Final Advice:
Unlike Jamb (wicked people) that provides a single opportunity to write the exam per year, the GRE gives you 5 chances per year to write the exam (better people). But because you can doesn’t mean you should. Prepare well and write it once. A score of 160 per section is totally achievable. Just read and solve a huge collection of difficult questions in a timed mode.

Oya it haff do, una bye bye, I don try.


UPDATE 1: If you had to choose one Book for Quantitative Analysis, Barron's should be it. That Book is the truth. The best GRE Quantitative prep book ever.

UPDATE 2: Listen all, i just found this incredible online resource for GRE materials. Its a facebook group but its by invitation only. So drop ur email addresses or send me a pm and i'll send you an invite to the group. Here's the group link, however it can only be accessed by members of the group:

https://www./newgremaster/

After joining the group, head to the file section and you will find every book and test questions there. #OneLove
.

UPDATE 3: Added Kaplan New GRE to "selfstudy.version2@gmail.com". If you want a copy of the Kaplan GRE book, send a blank mail to selfstudy.version2@gmail.com" .

Scholastica16:
@TOEFL I thought I was the only one till I saw Drhopeful make the same complaint on this thread. Also, some people got 42 questions and 4 passages for 1hr while others (like myself) got 56questions or 5 passages for 1hr 20 mins..I wonder why though.

ETS release my TOEFL.

Time2Smile:
I was at JKK building yesterday to take TOEFL. I have to say the exam is getting more difficult. The passages were as abstruse, recondite and esoteric as a GRE reading comprehension passage. Nevertheless, it was a good dress rehearsal for the main course of GRE on 6 January. I realized that nothing compares to the real thing, I was really surprised by how much I found it difficult to grasp the passages (And I consider myself an excellent reader). That might be a problem for GRE but thankfully not for TOEFL, since you always know where to find answers. Another thing is that it helps a lot to be conversant with the format of the exam. I can't stress enough the importance of taking full length practice tests.

Finegirlacct:
I feel lost and demotivated; i always perform woefully in my practice tests which discourages me from perparing for the exam. my exam is in 45 days and i am lost and scared. i have a free schedule please suggest ways i can prepare for my GMAT exam not Gre. Thanx

drhopeful:
Sorry about the boring passages. Don't worry, you will make it. I remember when I took mine. I came here to flog some people for deceiving me. Lol. Just wondering if you found the speaking section easier than reading.

drhopeful:
ETS please release his TOEFL!!! Sho, wetin na? Deadlines don dey reach. Sorry dear.
Lol @ the exam itself. I also got 56 questions for reading section. It was brain-draining. I found the passages confusing but the good thing is that I wrote it after writing 2 GREs. If I wrote it before GRE, I most likely would not have made my score of 29.

Toakins:
Hi guys,
My Toefl exam is in few weeks time..Please I need materials to study for the test. Thanks in anticipation.

Scholastica16:
Funny enough, almost the same fate. Only that I was taking the TOEFL after my first GRE with the second GRE in mind so I was testing a strategy I hoped to use in my second V in the GRE. The strategy was to use keywords to just focus on that part of the passage to locate my answer. TOEFL simplifies the process by at least telling you the paragraph to go to so that was helpful.

My speaking section on the other hand was cray cray. For one, I didn't prepare for it like most of you are describing here. If I am being honest with myself I didn't practice at all. I only did more of Reading and Writing and little Listening. At least 2 times while I was still talking my time elapsed. I would have been worried had I not watched a YouTube video in which one Russian chick was explaining her experience and she said the same happened to her. She even said at some point she spoke too quickly to prevent the time elapsing and when she realised she had so much time on her hands she thought to add a few more things but she froze and yelled "arrgh" in frustration. LOL. Her speaking score came out as 28 with her round score as 117.

The guy by my side on the day of the TOEFL was trying to describe an issue a girl was having in his speaking prompt and he said "she didn't want any wahala". I felt for him. He immediately tried to retract it but the damage had been done I guess. It was amusing. Still is.

Scholastica16:
Funny enough, almost the same fate. Only that I was taking the TOEFL after my first GRE with the second GRE in mind so I was testing a strategy I hoped to use in my second V in the GRE. The strategy was to use keywords to just focus on that part of the passage to locate my answer. TOEFL simplifies the process by at least telling you the paragraph to go to so that was helpful.

My speaking section on the other hand was cray cray. For one, I didn't prepare for it like most of you are describing here. If I am being honest with myself I didn't practice at all. I only did more of Reading and Writing and little Listening. At least 2 times while I was still talking my time elapsed. I would have been worried had I not watched a YouTube video in which one Russian chick was explaining her experience and she said the same happened to her. She even said at some point she spoke too quickly to prevent the time elapsing and when she realised she had so much time on her hands she thought to add a few more things but she froze and yelled "arrgh" in frustration. LOL. Her speaking score came out as 28 with her round score as 117.

The guy by my side on the day of the TOEFL was trying to describe an issue a girl was having in his speaking prompt and he said "she didn't want any wahala". I felt for him. He immediately tried to retract it but the damage had been done I guess. It was amusing. Still is.

drhopeful:
I am good too. Thanks. Done with all my applications. Na siddon look I dey now.

OGreene:
You can still perform excellently. Take it topic by topic.
Read each topic, then practice the questions. Make sure you go thru the answers to understand how to solve the ones you failed.

A lot can be done in 45 days. Take it step by step. Each week go thru all the words you gave learnt, your brain will easily recall them by the 3rd time you are reviewing a word.

Mogenerous:
Please I need a quick info, my friend wrote TOEFL exam on 5th of November, till now she hasn't been able to view her result. I will like to get info on what could be the cause or what can be done about pls

andradaeze:
This last paragraph is so funny. Maybe, we are all taking TOEFL for granted. Maybe, it might be better we stop saying TOEFL is easy so people can really prepare better. For instance, on the day of my test, while we were discussing outside, one guy overhead us saying speaking section. The guy asked so there is a Speaking section, we said yes. Unfortunately, he did not know and was obviously not aware of the TOEFL structure.

When we got into the hall, after testing our volume and all that. You cannot imagine what happened next. The unprepared dude saw Reading section and started reading out the whole passage while speaking into the headset. I did not know whether to laugh or be upset. He was distracting us from reading those involved TOEFL passages while at the same time, it was now clear that he never knew that the Reading section was not the Speaking Section. He was just shouting his reading for everyone. And you know what... He was not a secondary school student.

Time2Smile:
LOL, the bolded really got me laughing, that's why I always discourage excessive use of Colloquials and chat language. By the way, I hope ETS releases your TOEFL soonest.

Mogenerous:
Anyone pls

Scholastica16:
Your friend wrote the TOEFL same day as me and I am guessing she wrote it at PIT center at Ajah-Lekki. If that is also the case, then we are in the same boat.

They said there was a discrepancy between when some of us submitted our tests compared to others taking the test the same day and in some cases still in the same venue and that the time disparity was significant. I know that some computers (including the one I used) froze on the said day and it took about 20mins to rectify. That could account for the disparity and I wasn't alone. There were about 7 of us if I am not mistaken.

Additionally, we started late in that center for some strange reason they kept us waiting for over an hour. A test billed for 10AM started by 11ish. Obviously it was no fault of ours but ETS TOEFL say they are strict proponents of fair testing and as such need to investigate the proceedings of that day to determine if to outrightly cancel the test and reschedule a new one (if it is no fault of the students) or they will release the result if any member of the investigative board votes against the outright cancellation.

Hope this helps.

Scholastica16:
The guy by my side on the day of the TOEFL was trying to describe an issue a girl was having in his speaking prompt and he said "she didn't want any wahala". I felt for him. He immediately tried to retract it but the damage had been done I guess. It was amusing. Still is.

andradaeze:
When we got into the hall, after testing our volume and all that. You cannot imagine what happened next. The unprepared dude saw Reading section and started reading out the whole passage while speaking into the headset. I did not know whether to laugh or be upset. He was distracting us from reading those involved TOEFL passages while at the same time, it was now clear that he never knew that the Reading section was not the Speaking Section. He was just shouting his reading for everyone. And you know what... He was not a secondary school student.

seeker88:
Choi....what a drama

Socratez20:
Hello House, my exam is tomorrow, please I will like to know, besides my international passport what other document should I take along?

Nitta08:
Mine is tomorrow too. Please how can I get to RELIANCE S & T LIMITED - 127 OGUNLANA DRIVE SURULERE

Mogenerous:
Wow... That's some screwed up thing... For how long is it going to take... She has a deadline... Her application is pending as a result

Socratez20:
Hello House, my exam is tomorrow, please I will like to know, besides my international passport what other document should I take along?

Scholastica16:
Nothing else.

Scholastica16:
Just want to update the house. My AWA came out as 5 today. 93rd percentile. Saying I am excited does not do justice to how I feel. I was expecting the same 4.5 or 4 because I didn't feel I wrote better than my first one.

I looked at CrunchPrep, Barron, ETS, Nova and Princeton for the AWA but this was before my first one. In the second one, I didn't even practice let alone look at any material.

One thing that changed from the last time was the use of transitional or linking words. I noticed that higher scoring essays rarely made use of firstly, secondly etc but instead used Moreover, However, Additionally etc. My recommendation is that for the Issue-based aspect one should stay away from the use of first, second etc.

As per the Argumentative aspect, the mistake many people make is that they could identify the loopholes but not state the implications/assumptions made by the author and the modifications that could be made to plug those loopholes and make the argument more robust.

For example, if you say "first (yea in the argumentative aspect you could use this but avoid it entirely in the issue-based) the author states that X will happen". You have to add- "by stating this he assumes that Y and Z must have happened. This is not always the case as A or B could have been the cause. By doing so, the author unwittingly makes a fallacy of a false correlation. To make his argument more logically sound, he could have added C and D, that way we can know bla bla bla".

Ofcourse, I am not an authority. I am only stating what I did in both essays to have gotten 4.5 and 5. Having a template to work with also helps. I think I dubbed HappyDay's own. Also take note of some always recurring fallacies like hasty generalization, false correlation and the use of polls. In fact, if your argumentative prompt mentions a poll or survey or questionnaire, begin by questioning it. You can never go wrong.

At the end of the day, the topic you see in the both of them should be favourable to you. I pray it is the case for all members of the forum.

Scholastica16 out!