Introduction
SO YOU’VE DECIDED TO GO TO GRAD SCHOOL…
Much like the SAT that
you probably took to get into college, the GRE—or the Graduate Record Exam, as
it is officially known—is required for admissions by many graduate programs.
GRE test takers include future engineers, historians, philosophers,
psychologists, nurses, even veterinarians. In short, the GRE is used by just
about any graduate program that is not medical school, law school, or business
school. It may seem odd that a student who is applying for an advanced degree
in architecture must take the same exam as a student applying for a degree in
comparative literature. In many respects, it is. Because a wide variety of
graduate programs rely upon the GRE rather than their own proprietary exam, GRE
results are used in a wide variety of ways.
Some programs simply
have a minimum combined score that all applicants must achieve. Other programs,
such as a creative writing program, care far more about the Verbal score than
they do about the Math score. One would think that engineering programs would
care more about the Math score, as some do, but most engineering applicants
score in the very highest percentiles on the GRE quantitative section and
therefore Verbal scores, not Math, become a more effective tool for comparing
one candidate to another.
If you are frustrated
that the skills you have to dust off and polish for the GRE bear little
resemblance to the subjects you will be studying in grad school, remember three
things. First, the GRE is not a content test. It does not test a body of
knowledge, like U.S. history or French. It is designed to test a very specific
way of thinking. Second, taking the GRE is a skill, and like any other skill,
it can be learned. That is what this book and cracking the New GRE, 2012
Edition are all about. With diligence and practice you can learn everything you
need to know for the GRE, and you can do it in a surprisingly short period of
time. Far less time, in fact, than it took you to learn physiology, Renaissance
poetry, or whichever subject you plan to pursue in your graduate studies. The
last thing to remember is that the GRE is only one factor of many that will be
considered for admissions, and it is often the easiest to change.
The first task in
preparing for the GRE is doing your graduate school research. There is no such
thing as a good GRE score or a bad GRE score. There is only the score you have
and the score you need to get where you want to go. The gap between the two
represents the amount of work you will have to do in the meantime. If you need
an additional 50 points (on the old scale), that shouldn’t be too difficult to
achieve. Polish up your vocabulary, master the pacing of the exam, and take
some practice tests and you should do fine. If you need another 100 points (on
the old scale), that will take some more work. You’ll need more vocab, you’ll
need to identify and address your gaps on the Quantitative section and you’ll
need more practice. If you can push yourself to do that on your own, this book
and access to a few practice tests should be all you need. If you need more
than 100 points (on the old scale), or you aren’t likely to put in the time on
your own, you will need a course or a tutor. It all starts with the research.
Once you know the score you have and the score you need, you will know how much
time you need to put in to prepare for the real test.
Click the link below to download 1,014 Practice Questions for the New GRE by The Princeton Review from our dedicated google pdf drive.
0 Comments