GRE 164+169

wusiyang

As I said, I score 164 in verbal and 169 in math. I did not use JJ, I did not memorize vocab, I did not even write a single essay before my test. Despite those, I still survived through decently.

About writing: first of all, I would NOT recommend any of you to take the test without practice. The reasons I can write an 600 words essay in 30 mins without prior practice are 1) I scored 12 in SAT and 6 in GMAT, so I know the ins and outs through and through and 2) I am taking the writing class in Stanford right now( which is grilling) and that helps a lot. What I would recommend here is a approach that disregard the use of template. I know a lot of you guys like to use template. I totally distaste of such thing. An essence of an essay is its intrinsic logic rather than how you layout the useless junk information. So don't use them. if you already started, forget them. Every time you start practicing an topic, the only thing you should hold in mind before the countdown starts is: what direction I should guide my essay to? Then with a specific argument in mind, you layout the argument, substantiate with reasoning(this is what I think most chinese students lack of - they ASSUME too much about what they grader should know) and examples. Treat the grader as an elementary school student and walk him through your argument slowly. People complained about they do now have much to write, that is most likely because they omitted too much what is necessary to make an coherent argument. Given my test taken experience, I would say that for a normal topic, at least 600-700 words are needed to make a cogent claim.


Math: nothing to say here. I did not get the full score. F*CK.


Reading: SPEND 20s on the first sentence and ask yourself "do I understand it?" I used to be horrible with reading too, and what I found out is that most readings that I flopped are those I did not even understand the first sentence and guessed the answers instead of made an knowledgeable choice. So spend time on the first sentence. and at the end of every sentence, pause, and ask yourself, "what is the connection with the last sentence?" If you feel that you cannot do this under the time constraint, you suck. That is true, you should read more in your free time. Economist, New yorker, novels, Sci-Fi, you name it. But do read. You are going to study in US for quite a while and if you cannot read, you cannot survive and learn. Last thing, every question corresponds to a exact answer - when I say exact I mean it word by word. Do not choose an answer because certain word in it appeals to you - it is a common signal of trap. If you feel diffident and choose one based on your intuition, you are 99% guaranteed WRONG.


Miscellaneous: 1. Do not drink 5-hour energy/coffee/anything that will trigger your body. The raise of adrenaline will naturally keep you alerted, and in the test environment, you do not need too much muscle excitement; you need CALM and FOCUS. So do not drink them. 2. be prepared but sweep them out of your mind before test. Sometimes it happens that people have deep memory in some word/article (notably the much discussed French Revolution) and when they spot this, they got exited and forget that they are in competence test rather than a memorization test - consequence of which is they only skim through article and bridge the gap with their predisposition acquired pretest. So please, do not read JJ. IF you are reading, stop and forget what you have read.


At last, good luck to everyone. PM me if you have any questions in test taking. ( I will be quite busy during the final week, so might not be able to check the box often; if I am not responsive and your question is urgent, send to wusiyang@stanford.edu)

竹林中人

Z060049

请问下你怎么解决单词这部分的？出的词你全认识？

wusiyang

请问下你怎么解决单词这部分的？出的词你全认识？

-- by 会员 Z060049 (2012/12/2 15:51:59)

Nope, of course not. Even for the native speakers, there would definitely be some words they could not know by all means. I would say that understanding 95% of the words is enough for nailing the test. The rest depends on your ability to understand the context.

木木卜卜1992

方法很好。考试时灌了一杯咖啡结果旁边的细小声音放大了一千倍。

zkh1991

那是因为lz本身底子就好吧。。。连单词都不用背
作文我倒是打算和lz学。。。感觉我背模板会更慢 但是现在顶多只能写个400啊啊啊啊啊

yinliu83

牛。不是普通人，没法学。

麻倉枼

方法很好。考试时灌了一杯咖啡结果旁边的细小声音放大了一千倍。

-- by 会员 木木卜卜1992 (2012/12/3 18:17:18)

其实有没有可能把耳塞藏起来然后进去偷偷拿来用？
你这个现象我考旧G时出现过。。满脑子钻地声

麻倉枼

As I said, I score 164 in verbal and 169 in math. I did not use JJ, I did not memorize vocab, I did not even write a single essay before my test. Despite those, I still survived through decently.

About writing: first of all, I would NOT recommend any of you to take the test without practice. The reasons I can write an 600 words essay in 30 mins without prior practice are 1) I scored 12 in SAT and 6 in GMAT, so I know the ins and outs through and through and 2) I am taking the writing class in Stanford right now( which is grilling) and that helps a lot. What I would recommend here is a approach that disregard the use of template. I know a lot of you guys like to use template. I totally distaste of such thing. An essence of an essay is its intrinsic logic rather than how you layout the useless junk information. So don't use them. if you already started, forget them. Every time you start practicing an topic, the only thing you should hold in mind before the countdown starts is: what direction I should guide my essay to? Then with a specific argument in mind, you layout the argument, substantiate with reasoning(this is what I think most chinese students lack of - they ASSUME too much about what they grader should know) and examples. Treat the grader as an elementary school student and walk him through your argument slowly. People complained about they do now have much to write, that is most likely because they omitted too much what is necessary to make an coherent argument. Given my test taken experience, I would say that for a normal topic, at least 600-700 words are needed to make a cogent claim.


Math: nothing to say here. I did not get the full score. F*CK.


Reading: SPEND 20s on the first sentence and ask yourself "do I understand it?" I used to be horrible with reading too, and what I found out is that most readings that I flopped are those I did not even understand the first sentence and guessed the answers instead of made an knowledgeable choice. So spend time on the first sentence. and at the end of every sentence, pause, and ask yourself, "what is the connection with the last sentence?" If you feel that you cannot do this under the time constraint, you suck. That is true, you should read more in your free time. Economist, New yorker, novels, Sci-Fi, you name it. But do read. You are going to study in US for quite a while and if you cannot read, you cannot survive and learn. Last thing, every question corresponds to a exact answer - when I say exact I mean it word by word. Do not choose an answer because certain word in it appeals to you - it is a common signal of trap. If you feel diffident and choose one based on your intuition, you are 99% guaranteed WRONG.


Miscellaneous: 1. Do not drink 5-hour energy/coffee/anything that will trigger your body. The raise of adrenaline will naturally keep you alerted, and in the test environment, you do not need too much muscle excitement; you need CALM and FOCUS. So do not drink them. 2. be prepared but sweep them out of your mind before test. Sometimes it happens that people have deep memory in some word/article (notably the much discussed French Revolution) and when they spot this, they got exited and forget that they are in competence test rather than a memorization test - consequence of which is they only skim through article and bridge the gap with their predisposition acquired pretest. So please, do not read JJ. IF you are reading, stop and forget what you have read.


At last, good luck to everyone. PM me if you have any questions in test taking. ( I will be quite busy during the final week, so might not be able to check the box often; if I am not responsive and your question is urgent, send to wusiyang@stanford.edu)

-- by 会员 wusiyang (2012/12/2 10:06:49)

that is a pretty awesome experience for what I have read, as being spoken out from a Stanford student. In my opinion, we just need to figure out the best way of learning that fits to our standard, but of course absorbing others experience could calm and motivate ourselves. I thought this was some sort of Verbal exercise at the first moment I scanned through the thread. ...

木木卜卜1992

方法很好。考试时灌了一杯咖啡结果旁边的细小声音放大了一千倍。

-- by 会员 木木卜卜1992 (2012/12/3 18:17:18)

其实有没有可能把耳塞藏起来然后进去偷偷拿来用？
你这个现象我考旧G时出现过。。满脑子钻地声

-- by 会员 麻倉枼 (2012/12/4 5:14:48)

不晓得。。因为我觉得耳机没有用的。而且以后出去看英文什么的不可能天天带着耳塞呀