Gre Vocab

Hey folks, back with some info and personal experience in studying the Vocabulary part of GRE. Look buds, as i have already mentioned you that me ain't here to make money. I wanna help people out who are bound to do mistakes like i did.

At first, i couldn't get what did exactly GRE mean( not the abbreviation dear). The Quant part was awesome, i used to score around 750 in the beginning tests . I till date remember when i gave the first shot to Verbal Section, damn i scored just 210. Was shocked to death for a second as i was presumably a good speaker of the English language (no boasting going here, i can just manage it) and i scored just 10 as my pals mentioned that the test gives you 200 points for free as you've paid your ass off on it. Optimal returns over the 170$ investment, i call it.

        

The Verbal section contains:

1. Analogies

2.Antonyms

3.Sentence completions(SC's)

4.Reading Comprehension  (is that all?) 

         Thank you for reading till here. Here-on please don't read it like a post on a blog, read it like an experience of an normal guy who struggled it out to remember those canny and incalculable list of words.  I till date (took the test in the last week of september 09) remember 2k words. It ain't amazing, they got stored. :) 

                 Let me come to the point here, the first three sections are where you are gonna score on words you know (i mean if you know, you'll score 'em). Let me start with the easiest of all:

-> Sentence Completion: The sentence completion questions will make up about a quarter of your marks in the verbal ability section of the GRE test, and your vocabulary will make or break your score!

Lets learn it with an example here:

-> Researchers say it will be several years before computer programs will accurately ___________ the  behavior the way television weathermen tell viewers where a hurricane or a ___________ is heading.

A. precede… rainfall
B. predict… cloud
C. prepare… shower
D. forecast … blizzard
E. forbear… tornado .


Take your time before seeing the answer, think what the heck the sentence is about. The line starts with Researchers say ....something. 

then what is that? that computer programs will accurately do something....

whats that? (read the sentence after the first blank) ....weatherman says where something is heading? 

Looks like all the second blanks are related to nature, one need not predict a cloud right? eliminate it first. Look upon the first choice  preceding rainfall? why is that needed?similarly prepare and shower.

The best answer is D. What the researchers do is being compared to what weathermen do, therefore, predict or forecast are logical choices. While any of the choices for the second blank are feasible, a blizzard is more similar to hurricane. 

 

Tips:  

1. Look for key words and phrases in the sentence that tell you where the sentence is going. Is it continuing along one line of thought? If so, you're looking for a word that supports that thought. Is it changing direction in midstream? If so, you're looking for a word that sets up a contrast between the thoughts in the sentence.

Words signal blanks that go with the flow:
and, also, consequently, as a result, thus, hence, so

Words signal blanks that shift gears:
but, yet, although, on the other hand, in contrast, however, nevertheless. 

2. Be alert to transitional words.Transitional words tell you what is coming up. They indicate that the author is now going to draw a contrast with something stated previously, or support something stated previously.

i). Contrast Indicators - To contrast two things is to point out how they differ. In this type of sentence completion problem, we look for a word that has the opposite meaning (an antonym) of some key word or phrase in the sentence.

Following are some of the most common contrast indicators:
But
Yet
Despite
Although
However
Nevertheless

ii). Support Indicators - Supporting words support or further explain what has already been said. These words often introduce synonyms for words elsewhere in the sentence.

Following are some common supporting words:

And
Also
Furthermore
Likewise
In Addition
For

iii). Cause And Effect Indicators - These words indicate that one thing causes another to occur.

Some of the most common cause and effect indicators are

Because
For
Thus
Hence
Therefore
If , Then .

3.Don't choose an answer to a dual-blank question just because one of the words is a perfect fit. As often as not, one word that fits perfectly is paired with another word that doesn't fit well at all. This is the test-makers' most common Sentence Completion ploy; do

n't fall for it!

4.Check for usage and idiom problems if you're having trouble homing in on the best answer. Sentence Completion questions cover not just overall sentence sense but also word usage and idiom (how ideas are expressed as phrases). So eliminate any answer choice that makes any part of the sentence confusing, awkward, or sound wrong to your ear. 

5.Don't confirm your response until you've considered each and every one of the five answer choices. Remember: The qualitative difference between the best and second-best answer choice can be subtle. 

Check for more @ barrons. (never neglect it, read all the tips from it and do all the 100 Sc's given in them).

->Antonyms: 

These are the second simplest section in the GRE, doesn't even take a thirty seconds to answer provided that you are in touch all the words( including the options) . Antonyms is a purely word based section. Will deal on how to remember the words in the next section. 

Tips:

 1. In most Antonym questions ( in all of them) the best answer isn't a perfect antonym. The test-makers can't resist hiding the ball from you; so don't expect to find an exact opposite among the answer choices.Check out for the most apt one's buddy, not the exact. 
2.Try to predict the top word's opposite before you look at the answer choices. You will stay one step ahead of the test writers and avoid trap answers.  
3.  If you're stuck, try converting a word to another part of speech. Many GRE words are difficult to deal with simply because their part of speech (noun, verb, or adjective) is not commonly used. Turning the word into a more familiar form can help. 

4.Resolve close judgment calls in favor of the more specific antonym. This is another one of the test-makers' common ploys, and it is sometimes the key to distinguishing a best response from a second-best one. Always be on the lookout for this ploy!

A free software to practice Analogy and antonyms:

->Include big database, all items and questions are obtained from popular test books of GRE and real tests 

-> Use memory-curve to help remember the analogy/antonyms 

->Support many users. Default user name is 'user' (without quote) Default password is EMPTY

Here is the link:

                Gre.2.0
Analogies:

                  Analogy questions present a set of two words, followed by five answer choices also containing a set of two words. Examinees are required to identify the answer choice that has a set of words that are related in the same way as the original set of words.

           Analogy questions test your vocabulary, your ability to recognize relationships between words, and your ability to recognize parallel relationships between word pairs.We need to deal it in detail. Check out for the next post! 

Reading Comprehension: They say it's a second class guy's play, the reading comprehension. Even we used to have 'em during our school days but buds its not the same thing down here. It sucks to the core! The worst part of the vocabulary is this(as far as i' am concerned) They ask you questions like:

What does the author mean by that?
What does the author imply?
What is the author's main idea?
Why did he mention of something? etc.. i doubt only the author can answer them, unless you are a hard core reader. :)  
Okay i need to discuss it out, even i read novels but remember you are doing it on the PC.
So you gotta be used to it. For this i prefer you to

->start reading the HINDU paper editorial section online, just that one. By the end of one month you'll be in awesome touch with it. I promise. Start it now. Those editorials are a big head ache but yes the Rc's in the test are the same either
-> They test you with the most driest passages available in the world, with such a stupid and moronic words in the btw making it more difficult to understand.
        In general, three short RC's or Two big one's are given. Short one's are a bit easy to answer. So it all depends on your stars what comes to you! 

Remembering Words:  

   A lot people start scratching their bum-heads when asked on words.There are an in-numerous ways in which people suggest students to remember words. I followed one of them and did produce some good work by the end(450 in verbal, i agree its not too high but there were reasons for it which we'll discuss later). Let's see how to do it:

->In the beginning i followed a few techniques which said to break the words into parts:
like
Vituperative
Vitu+aperative? who the f should i remember it?????


I could never figure it out. Some-one said to write a story on a word....3400 words....3400 stories wow i could be a director then :P 


Fine, i worked it out in the weirdest way as possible coz we remember weird things :)
lets come back to the same word:
Vituperative ( it means abusive) = VIT+...... you need to remember vit (its famous for something else) but yes you don't find many words in gre that start with vit.... 
vit= abuse of (say gals). So whenever your eyes strike upon VIT, dude i' am gonna bet you Vituperative will be ready to pop out of your head. 


In a few cases, using telugu could be helpful: 
Say veracity = Vere+city... vere in telugu means (new or other) and city in english means city :P 
Vere city....whenever you go to other city, you must be truthful...a common sense is missing right? that is why we'll remember it. 


A few tips on remembering words:

->As that you are going to remember all the words using the above techniques, but words are more worse than girl-friends. Even you leave them for a day, they gonna vanish.
-> That's true, keep repeating the flash cards from any site or gre bible as and when you can. It doesn't take much time. 
-> Get to know what are the synonyms and what are the exceptional words. Synonyms are available at thesaurus click here
-> There is a new software that has been given on net , its the visual thesaurus  which shows the synonyms in a ball and stick model.
check it here   

Thank you for reading and do comment if you like it! For further assistance or material mail me @skarthikc@gmail.com