GRE Vocab prep

[greybeta]

Okay, I admit that I'm in a bit of trouble on the GRE. On my practice test, I scored a measly 500 (out of 800). Fifty seventh percentile. That wouldn't be too bad of a score for an engineer, but I'm a history major now so I'm pretty sure that I'll need to bring that up at least 150 points. One major weakness I had was on analogies and antonyms (getting less than fifty percent correct). I remember doing some vocabulary builders in high school for the SATs, but I've regressed in that area. I suppose I could take the GRE prep class, but that's a lot of money. I'm sure I could pull up the 670 on my quantitive section by taking a bit more time.

Fortunately, while on a random trip to Borders to look through the manga section, I happened upon a GRE Vocab builder book made by the Kaplan people. It's a book full of ready-made flashcards, complete with parts of speech, sample sentences, pronunciation guide, and synonyms. It was only fifteen bucks, which I figured was worth the time I would have spent making flashcards on the 594 most commonly tested vocab words on the GRE. My mysterious suitemate wldntulk2knwwho (who bought the first two volumes of MegaTokyo while we were at Borders) and decided to split the words into 49.5 sets of twelve (they come in sheets of six). We realized how much in trouble we were with the first two sets. Sigh, I'm going to have to deal with these words as an academia sooner or later so it might as well be sooner. And I'm going to try to commit these words into long term memory.

I'd just like to note some of the words that have been used on Magic cards, linking to Star City.

abeyance - temporary supression or suspension
The baseball game was held in abeyance while it continued to rain.
synonyms: deferral, delay, dormancy, postponement, remission
Ah, the typical white card that only delays the problem.

abjure - to reject; abandon formally
The spy abjured his allegiance to the United States when he defected to Russia.
synonyms: forswear, recall, recant, retract, take back
Magic card from Weatherlight.

abyss - a deep pit or hole
I'm sure most people know what this means, and it was one of the coolest Magic cards ever.

aerie - a nest built high in the air; an elevated, often secluded dwelling
Perched high among the trees, the eagle's aerie was filled with eggs.
synonyms: perch, stronghold
The Magic card Soulcatcher's Aerie comes to mind

Comments

[md2020.livejournal.com]

analogies?! you?!

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that it's one of my bigger weaknesses.

[kimmaline.livejournal.com]

You can actually get Kaplan software for the GREs too...and it is supposed to be really good. I am actually getting the one for the SATs...mostly to keep my brain active during my forced semester off of school. (that, and I want to make sure that the fact that I've been off of school for so long doesn't show on my placement tests)

At any rate, you can get it off of their website...or you can get it on Ebay for a lot less. You may want to try that instead of the flashcards.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I'll think about it, although I'm kind of an old school guy. I'll probably get some testing software after building up my vocabulary.

[douhavepez.livejournal.com]

Actually, Tu, I have a bit of stuff from when I took the test in mid-October. If you would like to borrow any of it, just get ahold of me. I'm always around...unfortunately...but I have a big book of random problems, then a computer program that actually tests you on specific topics with tons of examples.

x4951

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Awesome, Goofy. I'll have to call you up some time.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

I guess you know the analogy trick of making a sentence out of a word pair? Like, if you have the analogy:

1. KITTEN : CAT ::
A) bird : flock
B) duck : goose
C) puppy : dog
D) mare : horse
E) child : adult

You could make the sentence: "A kitten is a young cat" and plug in each of the other pairs. A bird is a young flock? No. A duck is a young goose? Uhuh. Eventually you come to "child is a young adult" and that is the answer.

If you've been studying for the GRE, I'm sure you know this trick already, but just in case, there's a link with more information here (http://www.800score.com/gre-guidec2b.html).

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

This is where I would get totally owned, because I would have chosen C)puppy:dog without much qualms.

That, and often the analogies include words that I don't have a clue what they mean. Like affected doesn't mean "effected";rather affected means "phony" or "artificial" as in "The affected hairdresser spouted French phrases, though she had never been to France". Currently, I'm just trying to get step one down, which is knowing the meanings of words.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

Oh, erm, actually puppy and dog are right. I didn't read the choices closely enough ;) As the site puts it: " Is a child a young adult? Now this one may seem a little tricky, because a child will eventually age to become an adult, but we are not looking for the relationship of young to old, we are instead looking for the relationship of young of some kind of animal to that animal. If instead the answer choice was child : human, then this relationship would be similar to that of kitten : cat, since child is the young of humans, and we would need to consider this choice further."

*slinks away and resolves to ponder her advice more carefully next time*

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Reading the site a bit more, I find that they probably meant to have C)dog:puppy to illustrate that word order matters on these stupid analogies.

[stealthcomic.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering how long those analogies will be in the GREs since the College Board removed them from the SAT as of March 2005. Given the College Board's revamp, I can only imagine that it's a matter of time until the folks at ETS makes changes as well.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't know about that. I also read that the SAT will be a total of three hours and forty five minutes. Holy schmoly they've changed things around.

But, in any case, I suppose improving my vocabulary can't hurt my future as a history professor.