Graduate records exam...

I had to take it when I started my MS in Mechanical as well. I didn't study for it, I'm not sure how you would. Seemed very similar to the SAT/ACT without the essay portion.

Funny story. The GRE test was administered about an hour from my house. I drove down pushed for time, thinking it would be easy to find the building since I had the address and sort of knew the area. It wasn't that easy however, none of the buildings were marked and the Sylvan Learning Center where it was given not have an outside sign. By process of elimination I had it down to two or three buildings. I ended up going door to door, which none looked like nor were marked SLC. I wondered if the first question was "did you find this facility?" Anyway, I was about 30 minutes late by the time I actually found it.

Basically strip down like going through airport security and receive some scratch paper and a pencil. Enter the testing room and I see people hunkered in front of monitors, furiously writing and sweating the questions. The test administrator was annoyed I was late and said something to the effect that I would not be allowed any extra time and I should have been there early. Whatever...

I take the test, basically questions on the screen, some multiple choice and some typed answers IIRC. Test was scheduled for 4 hours or so, in three parts. I'm done 2 hours into the testing period. I look around. No one has left and are still agonizing over their answers, you can just tell by their body language they are very stressed.

I remember actually asking the administrator if there were more questions I might have missed, like an entire section. She looked at my answers and said they were all filled out. She must have thought I was a complete idiot at this point...

It was nearly 10 years ago but I remember what she said and more importantly how she said it. "Well...let's see how you did." I'm not sure her expectations could have been any lower, and between the eye rolls toward me you know she had a condescending speech ready about how I needed to be more responsible, this was a serious test, blah blah.

The test was three parts, each scored at the time like a SAT out of 800.
Scores were:
Part 1: 800 (perfect)
Part 2: 800 (perfect)
Part 3: 640 (90% percentile)
total percentile: 99%

The look on her face when she pulled the paper out of the printer was worth the trip alone. She said "whoa, you did pretty good", handed it to me.

I'll never forget it.

 

I happen to be a very mediocre student. But I excel at standardized testing. I believe this is because I'm a terrible listener in the classroom lecture format, but do well when I can study at my own pace. I took the GRE relatively close to when I took the GMAT. The GMAT quant is harder than the GRE's, so I didn't study for the quant much on the GRE, and instead memorized a zillion vocab words that I quickly forgot after the exam. On the GRE, I scored a Q800 V670 AWA 5.5. Interestingly, a perfect score on the quant of the GRE is only 92%. Apparently 8% of all GRE test-takers get a perfect score. For the GMAT, I used some LSAT books for the reading comprehension. The LSAT reading comprehension is by far the hardest in my opinion. Good thing I never had any ambitions to be a lawyer and got a MBA instead.

Last Tuesday I found out that I passed Level III of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exam. I was able to pass all 3 levels on the first attempt in 1.5 years. I would say of all the standardized testing I've ever taken, the CFA was hands down the most rigorous and intense.

For the GRE, GMAT, and CFA, I used Kaplan books. I never attended any classes or anything, just read the books and drilled practice problems. The SAT was so long ago, I don't remember what I used, back when I took it, there were only 2 sections, quant and verbal.

Also, for the CFA exam, I had a Ferrari 458 desktop wallpaper as motivation while studying. I did glance at that frequently.

My friends who have CPAs tell me that Becker is the best for accounting prep. I may consider the CPA next, except I'd have to take some additional accounting classes to meet the credit requirements.

I think the main thing for standardized testing is to have a disciplined study system that works for you.

I'll share with you mine.

First I read the Kaplan books, and take detailed hand notes.
Then I study the hand notes, and never go back to the Kaplan books.
Then I do the Kaplan end of chapter practice problems.
Finally I do the practice exams, usually about 1-2 weeks before the exam date so that I'm peaking.
On a whiteboard in my living room, I write down the formulas that are hard to remember or common careless mistakes I make, and rectify those.

For the CFA, there's too much material to do hand notes, so I typed up notes instead. I remember reading somewhere that studies have shown that writing things down by hand helps memorization and ingraining things into you brain. I believe this to be true in my experience, but with the CFA, there's like such a large domain of material that it's too time consuming. I actually got a blister on my hand from writing notes while I was prepping.

Also, do your very best, surprisingly some companies, like management consulting firms ask for all your standardized test scores, going all the way back to the SAT.
From my b-school class, one of my friends who got a job at McKinsey got a 1600 on the SAT. A girl who went to Bain got a 1590 on the SAT. And another friend who went to Booz & Co got a 790 on the GMAT. Surprisingly, the SAT can still carry weight more than a decade after you take it.

Hope that helps.

 

GRE is pretty easy. No harder than an SAT.

I bought a Kaplan book.

The book itself is useless.

It's the practice tests that you pay for. The exam questions you get in the practice test are dead on for what you will see in the exam. But, more importantly, you'll learn how that type of test works (Computer Adaptive Test).


I bought the book, immediately took a practice test with no review, got my score breakdown and knew where I needed to focus my attention.

Studied sporadically for the month before the test, but I made sure to take a practice test each weekend.

It's absolutely critical that you get the first several questions for each section correct. If you miss any of those, the rest of the questions don't matter as you will never be able to recover. So spend significantly more time on those questions than you normally would, if necessary.

 

Good luck, Man. I took them way back- best advice is study your pants off. I studied for months and months. Dont know of any sure thing fast track way to beat it.

 

I really don't understand why you think the GRE is such a big deal. Just take the test already right strait as you stand. Either you know the stuff or you don’t after so many years of college. WTF. You think you can study for it like some high school final? Not.

 

Fastback-

There was a major overhaul to the GRE recently. Those people who took the GRE before August 2011 experienced a different test format/style than what is now available. Just fyi as you ask for advice and/or use older study books. All test courses being offered now will be centered on the new exam format.