I took the GRE. yours are very general questions? Are you strong in science or in literature or both? what degree are you applying for? For me the math part was challenging, but I have an undergrad in computer science. The single problems were of average difficulty but you had to solve them fast. The verbal part was a disaster because all those terms are so rare and if you are not en English major you probably have never heard of them. You can train for it, and eventually you get used to the solving problem process. I have a 2006 GRE book if you are interested, but it's at home and I could give it to you for cheap in a month or so.
i took calc and that was hard for me. I did get a B but it was not easy. English is my second language.
I studied for a solid semester, at least an hour a weekday, and got an 1190. I ended up taking a job offer instead of going back to school. My thoughts: Anyone can do super well on this exam if you study for the exam the right way, ie. put in a ton of time. I had a big background in math (Econ with a math focus as a major), so for me I had spend night after night memorizing vocab. If you're bad at math, buy an SAT (dur, but seriously) book + a GRE book and do the Q section a billion times. The SAT book helps you read questions more carefully (they have less material to cover, so they make up for it with tricky wording and weird problems) while the GRE book lets you know what kind of material to expect. The questions are formulaic: one trick, one weird number. It doesn't even touch stuff like differential equations, so you really only have to nail through Calc 2 in order to do well on that section. Looking back, not worth it for me to study so hard. If you can get 1000+, any major university will sex you to come there, and 900+ will get you into a ton of places too.
I took the GMAT and thought it was pretty easy. The most valuable prep tool I used was the real-time practice tests that came in the Kaplan study package I bought. Those helped me recognize certain types of questions, showed me how I needed to budget my time for each question, and gave me an idea of how I would score. The material isn't challenging. Like most standardized tests, you'll get a good score if you learn how to take the test.
yeah I kind of doubt I will get a good score anyway. I did really bad on sat back in HS. I am terrible at taking tests. I am much better at writing papers. I know some schools don't even make you take any tests.
I took the GRE in the summer of 1999. At that time it was just shifting over to a computer-only format...prior to then it was a test done with paper and pencil. Like most standardized tests, it is primarily a measure of your ability to take a standardized test. I don't have any memory of my scores, but I was in the 99th percentile on the verbal and the mid 80s percentile on the quantitative. In college I was in the social sciences, not the hard sciences, so I didn't do so hot on those logic puzzles. The most disconcerting thing was the clock in the corner of the screen--when it got below 5 minutes or so left, you could literally see the seconds ticking off. Time management is crucial. It has pretty poor predictive ability as far as forecasting your performance in graduate school. And let's face it, grade inflation in graduate programs is so out of control it defies measurement anymore.
