New GRE- a pleasant nightmare- final part
September 25th, 2011
Im sorry for so much of time gap between my posts. I was kept extremely busy with some other activities and couldnt find time. Ive finally made my mind to conclude today as it is exactly 1 month since Ive given my GRE:
I left my last post at the point when I sat before my computer to take the test. Id continue from there. T
he first section was AWA as usual. As I previously mentioned, I didnt prepare for AWA at all and hence had a tough time writing issue in 30 minutes. I was unable to organise my views properly on the topic and present them.
I ended messing up the issue section, I felt. Writing the argument part was easy for me as I had to just critique the paragraph presented and was saved from the taxing task of organizing ideas.
Then the real test started.
My first section was verbal. When I started doing it, I realized that I didnt have any idea of the meaning of most of the words I was seeing in TC questions.
Added to it, most of the TC questions were having 3 fill-ups. I immediately saw myself in a trouble as I began losing control of all my faculties. I was not able to concentrate on the RC passages as well and I felt my performance was going to be bad.
I finished that section somehow and decided to keep myself collected.
Then came 1 quants section, which had easier questions than the ones I practiced. I did it well and was confident that Im going to score well in Quants. I didnt take the 10 min. break and the next section was verbal.
I felt the difficulty level of this section was almost the same as the previous one, which meant alien words and disturbed mind once again. By the time I finished this section I was convinced that my verbal scores would be very low.
I decided to keep this out of my mind as I didnt want my Quants performance to be affected. which was obviously the next section.
This quants section had some questions which were really tricky and required careful calculations. In both the quants sections, I solved all the questions in the same order they appeared, albeit I could skip and come back.
The reason- once I start skipping, I feel like skipping every question and come back later, ending up with a pile of unsolved questions when the time is running out. I
only skipped the DI questions without solving in the 1st go and came back to them after I finished all others. This strategy worked wonders for me.
I was almost in tears when I saw one more verbal section at the end. I was already exhausted and my mind was not at all ready to cooperate.
However I had to do it and started doing that.
Once I did, I realised that this section was a bit easier compared to the other 2, a harbinger that my verbal scores would be less. I attribute the disturbed condition of my mind while doing verbal sections partly to my test timings.
Its my advice to everyone not to schedule your test for 18:00 as it gets very irritating by the time you reach the end of your test. I finished this section somehow and few clicks later got my score ranges. Im diffident to tell my score ranges as almost everyone who posted their experience had a score range of 1400+. My Quants score range was 750-800 and Verbal was 490-590 giving a total score range of 1240-1390.
I was completely stolid when I saw my score ranges. I didnt understand how to react and just finished the test and came out. As for the verbal section, although it may sound cliched, Id ask everyone to practice RCs as much as you can. They can be your saviour when you are in troubled waters. Also, do not neglect the vocab and read as many words as you can before giving the actual exam.
The verbal sections invariably followed more or less the same pattern given in Princeton reviews book- 6 TC+ 5/6 RC+ 4 SE+ 5/6 RC.
1 or 2 of the TC questions were of 1 blank, 1 question was of 2 blanks and 3 questions were of 3 blanks, i.e., 50% of the TC questions had 3 blanks, which are very confusing and take up much time.
Even SE questions are tough nuts to crack given the options presented are so close that you require the ability to differentiate subtly between the words with almost the same meanings.
The 1st RC you encounter in each section would be a big one with 3 questions and the next one would be a medium sized one with 2 or 3 questions. The RCs you see towards the end of a section are normally small ones, mostly having 1 question each.
And my experience says that answering the questions with multiple answers and the ones which require you to select a sentence from a passage is easier compared to answering the single answer questions, which present so close choices that you often get caught in a tug-of-war between you brain and heart.
Nevertheless, TC and SE questions are highly vocab intensive and you cant expect good scores without having a good knowledge of words. For the quants part, I think we dont have to worry much. Finally, I thank all of you for reading all my 3 posts patiently. I also thank HSB for having allowed me to share my experiences in 3 lengthy posts. Id be obliged if HSB or any of you could advice me if I should be content and go ahead with this score or should I give GRE again as I always aimed for 1400+ in GRE. THANK YOU AND ALL THE BEST TO ALL:-)
Your Score range is 1240 to 1390.
Even if your end up scoring 1240, I would strongly recommend you to start your application process.
Just think about the folks who scores in the range of 900 to 1000.
There are universities that admit students in any given score range.
The challenge is to find the best fit universities that suit your profile.
Thanks for sharing your Revised GRE experience.
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