GRE and Ball State University

[goth_kittykat]

hello everyone.

i am currently studying to take the gre before they change the format in august.  this is my first time studying and taking it and i am using the kaplan gre premier 2011 book to study.  i got to the analogy section and realized i am really bad at those! partly because i don't know some of the words in the examples given(which i am

Comments

[hkitsune]

Use this site to study for the GRE vocab: http://flashcarddb.com/cardset/41712-barrons-300-absolutely-essential-gre-words-flashcards

[tisiphone]

I like http://www.freerice.com for vocabulary learning - once you get to level 40 or so you start seeing GRE words, and you can feel warm and fuzzy about doing it.

[lifeofbai]

Beyond memorizing vocab, it is also a good idea to learn the logic of the test and specific strategies that will help you to use process of elimination and to spot "tricks" in the questions. It is very possible for someone to have a strong vocabulary and still screw up on the Verbal section because s/he fell for one of the ETS tricks (for example, on the analogies, they almost always put a pair of words that does have the same sort of relation as the one in the analogy given -- but another choice is actually the correct answer because the relation of those words is even stronger).

I personally liked the Princeton Review book a lot. It gave a lot of useful tips about how to approach the Verbal section systematically (even if you didn't know all of the words) and how to pick up on ETS tricks -- for example, "intensity" of the adjective is usually a good hint for analogies and antonyms, e.g. admiring vs. fawning

[roseofjuly]

I used Barron's 3500 word list, and made flash cards of the ones I didn't know. Practically every word that showed up on the test was on that list. I have a large vocabulary but the analogies were the second most difficult for me (after antonyms) because of the lack of context. I honestly didn't like Kaplan's words - I used their book to prepare, too, and I felt like their word list was far too easy and didn't 1) show some of the more difficult GRE words and 2) didn't give second and third meanings. One of the difficult analogy questions I distinctly remember used some obscure third meaning of a common word. If you didn't know the third meaning, none of the answer choices made sense

[erat_in_fatis]

Thank you, this was not my post but your answer was very thorough and helpful, especially with all of the links.

[anonymous]

hello!!! I am also going to take my 1st GRE test at Ball State university. I live in illinois, and never been to Indiana. I have no idea about the location of that test center. I would appreciate if you can tell me something about the test center. My test is in the late afternoon, I am afraid I have to stay there one night...But not for sure. I want a place that has wireless internet, and very close to the test center. Thanks!!!!

[goth_kittykat]

hi, i live 2/3 hours away from ball state and moved here a year ago. i can't really help you except to go check out reviews of places online.