A Masters from the ultra reputed universities in the United States is coveted all over the world. Students with a burning desire to learn and acquire knowledge apply to the best US universities for the degree in Master of Science, which is recognized all over the world and is a sweet and short way to high profile lucrative job offers.

However, not only is getting there tough, but a lot of international students find the overall cost of doing Masters in the US beyond their budget. Worst part is that they heed to the cost aspect of the US education only towards the end, devoting all their time and attention to the GRE exam and fulfilling other application requirements. While their parents think about the cost of studying in the US first thing.

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According to the ETS, the revised GRE pattern, which will come in effect from August 2011, will replace analogy based questions with reading comprehension exercises. The main motive behind this move to discourage students from rote learning or cramming up some thousand to two thousand words in the name of building GRE verbal vocabulary. A reading comprehension exercise, along with the verbal reasoning section will require the candidate to exercise his reasoning skills in a better way. Read more…

In the previous post GRE Verbal Ability: Understanding Conditionals (I), we discussed open conditional clauses and sentences. These are of the kind, “if this happens, that will happen” or “unless this happens, that won’t happen”.

Taking the discussion one step ahead, in the current post we will discuss the Hypothetical Condition Clauses. Something that is hypothetical exists in theory only, for example, the Perfect Competition Market in Economics or Equitable Distribution of Income and Resources in the Society.

A Type- II Conditional Clause contains a condition that may be theoretical, combined with improbability or unreality. The condition stated is not likely to be fulfilled. There are called ‘Unreal’ or ‘Hypothetical’ conditional clauses. In such clauses, the simple past form of the verb is used.

Examples:

• If she lost it, I would be very upset.
• If they were here, they would come to our house
• If I were you, I would challenge him
• Even if you were a President, I would not care for you.

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Sentence completion questions are very scoring and if you want high GRE score, then you have to be a pro at solving these kind of questions, not only accurately, but also quickly. This will make sure that you have sufficient time for reading comprehension questions.

1. In the months and years ahead, we intend to build both kinds of strengths; during times of ___ as well as tension, during periods of cooperation as well as conflict, until the world w pass on to our children is truly ___ and fosters diversity and freedom to flourish.

a)      Peace…insidious

b)      Détente…safe

c)       Perdition…conducive

d)      Tranquility…perfidious

e)      Safety…insular Read more…

In the GRE verbal strategy – I, we discussed about the techniques one should employ in solving questions based on Analogies and Reading comprehension, each with the help of a pertinent example.

Continuing from where we left, in this article we will take a look at solving Antonym-synonym and Sentence correction/completion questions.

Before beginning with the second post in the same series, please understand that you can further improvise upon these tips and techniques or come up with entirely new ones according to your requirements and abilities. Read more…

It is not easy to ace GRE verbal vocabulary questions, unless and until you have good knowledge of English grammar and the GRE vocabulary words, their meanings and usages.  You cannot expect to get high GRE scores unless and until you ace the vocabulary section. In this post, we will discuss a few strategies that will make overall verbal preparation and practice easy, fun and more efficient. Read more…

In the last post on GRE verbal reasoning, we discussed the tips and techniques of making the right conclusions from a given statement or a passage. Since every lesson must be followed by an assessment, here is a short GRE practice test on verbal reasoning. Remember you have to ace this section to get high GRE score and attend the best college in the country. Read more…

GRE analytical reasoning section is infamous for being the real pain because it expects the test takers to exercise their brains to correctly interpret a set of statements and then decide the conclusions.  However, one thing is sure: if you master this section, then there is nothing to stop you from getting high GRE score.

Now, if the candidates were expected to suggest an ordinary conclusion or course of action, it wouldn’t have been much of a problem. But no, apparently the conclusion itself is in the Statement and one has to read between the lines and observe keenly to conclude the right things. Read more…

Analytical reasoning and comparison tests are amongst the favorite topics of GRE test makers. This is so because they can experiment a lot with these kind of questions and twist the difficulty level without much effort.

You must have noticed that all GRE Quantitative tests do figures one or two sets of these kinds of questions, which basically test your reasoning faculties and the efficiency with which you use them. The key to solving these kinds of questions is to get your basics right and speed up your calculation cum thinking process. Read more…

GRE will be reasoning based from August 2011 and this is in news all over. Here, we are giving a short introduction of what reasoning based verbal GRE is going to be like. It is no more about knowing some 1500 GRE words and marking antonyms and synonyms. You will now be required to read between the lines and do things you did not imagine you will have to.

In these questions, a short passage is followed by a question. It is important however to remember that the passage usually consists of certain facts. They may also contain conclusions that can be drawn or inferences that can be made based on the given data. There may be certain assumptions that act as a bridge relating the fact to the conclusions. Critical reasoning questions call for the student’s skill to evaluate and analyze the arguments or a given situation.

Let us take a few examples:

Example 1: “The streets were deserted. A curfew was imposed in the locality following stray incidents of violence.”

We may connect these events to come to the conclusion – streets are usually deserted when a curfew is Imposed.

Example 2: “With the rapid invasion of our lives by the electronic media, sound engineering as a profession has an infinite scope and offers an aspirant several avenues of employment.”

An assumption, which is made in this statement is – the rapid advancements in the electronic media has been influential in bringing forth sound engineering as an employment option.

Example 3 : Let us work with the options now. Read more…