Manhattan Prep - GRE Verbal Strategies: Effective Strategies Practice from 99th Percentile Instructors

GRE Verbal Strategies

Retail ISBN: 978-1-5062-3823-4
Course ISBN: 978-1-5062-4850-9
Retail eISBN: 978-1-5062-3824-1
Course eISBN: 978-1-5062-4853-0

Copyright 2018 MG Prep, LLC

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form or by any meansgraphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or web distributionwithout the prior written permission of the publisher, MG Prep, Inc.

GRE is a registered trademark of the Educational Testing Service, which neither sponsors nor endorses this product.

1. GRE Math Strategies
2. GRE Verbal Strategies

September 4, 2018

Dear Student,

Thank you for picking up a copy of GRE VerbalStrategies. I hope this book provides the guidance you need to get the most out of your GRE studies.

At Manhattan Prep, we continually aspire to provide the best instructors and resources possible. We hope that you will find our commitment manifest in this book.

If you have any questions or comments in general, please email our Student Services team at toefl@manhattanprep.com.

Or give us a shout at 212-721-7400 (or 800-576-4628 in the United States or Canada).

We try to keep all our books free of errors. But if you think weve goofed, please visit manhattanprep.com/GRE/errata.

I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks again, and best of luck preparing for the GRE!

Sincerely,

www.manhattanprep.com/gre 138 West 25th Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10001 Tel: 646-254-6479, Fax: 646-514-7425

We know that youre looking to succeed on the GRE so that you can go to graduate school and do the things you want to do in life.

We also know that you may not have read random Reading Comprehension passages and answered multiple-choice questions on them since high school. Its going to take hard work on your part to get a top GRE score. Thats why weve put together the only set of books that will take you from the basics all the way up to the material you need to master for a near-perfect scoreor whatever your goal score may be. Youve taken the first step. Now its time to get to work!

Manhattan Preps GRE materials are comprehensive. But keep in mind that, depending on your score goal, it may not be necessary to get absolutely everything. Grad schools only see your overall Quantitative, Verbal, and Writing scoresthey dont see exactly which strengths and weaknesses went into creating those scores.

You may be enrolled in one of our courses, in which case you already have a syllabus telling you the order in which you should approach this book. But if you bought this book online or at a bookstore, feel free to approach the unitsand even the chapters within the unitsin whatever order works best for you. For the most part, the units, and the chapters within them, are independent; you dont have to master one section before moving on to the next. So if youre having a hard time with something in particular, you can make a note to come back to it later and move on to another section. Similarly, it may not be necessary to solve every single practice problem for every section. As you go through the material, continually assess whether you understand and can apply the principles in each individual section and chapter. The best way to do this is to solve the Check Your Skills and Problem Sets throughout. If youre confident you have a concept or method down, feel free to move on. If you struggle with something, make a note of it for further review. Stay active in your learning, and stay oriented toward the testits easy to read something and think you understand it, only to have trouble applying it in the 12 minutes you have to solve a problem.

As youre studying for the GRE, try to integrate your learning into your everyday life. For example, vocabulary is a real part of the GRE, and its not something you can just cram foryoure going to want to do at least a little bit of vocab every day. So try to learn and internalize a small amount at a time, switching up topics often to help keep things interesting.

Keep in mind that, while many of your study materials are on paper (including Education Testing Services most recent source of official GRE questions, The Official Guide to the GRE General Test), your exam will be administered on a computer. Because this is a computer-based test, you will not be able to underline portions of reading passages or otherwise physically mark up problems. So get used to this now. Solve the problems in these books on scratch paper. (Each of our books talks specifically about what to write down for different problem types.)

Again, as you study, stay focused on the test-day experience. As you progress, work on timed drills and sets of questions. Eventually, you should be taking full practice tests (available at www.manhattanprep.com/gre) under actual timed conditions.

The GRE has six sections. You will get a 10-minute break between the third and fourth sections and a 1-minute break between the others. The Analytical Writing section, also known as the Essay, is always first. The other five sections can be seen in any order and will include:

• Two Verbal Reasoning sections (20 questions each in 30 minutes per section). Well call these sections Verbal for short.
• Two Quantitative Reasoning sections (20 questions each in 35 minutes per section). Well call these sections Math for short.
• Either an unscored section or a research section.

An unscored section will look just like a third Verbal or Math section. You will not be told which of the three sections doesnt count. If you get a research section, it will be identified as such, and it will be the last section you get.