From: eleeaf9@rosie.uh.edu (92F10560)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
Subject: GRE TIPS
Date: 18 Nov 1992 15:03 CST
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rosie.uh.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

Hi guys,I've just recived my GRE report of the test that I took last
month.I made a 580 for the verbal part. Thinking about having only two
months' preparation(I had a T.A. job at school in the summer too)
I'm pretty happy with this score.
But I must admit that my real verbal ability is much LOWER than that,
the reason that I made it so good was because I used some tricks,and 
as we are all Chinese,facing the same difficulty,I want to share them
with you. Remember,I'm not talking about dirty tricks.

Trick 1.
Except the reading comprehansion,all problems in the other three parts 
are designed in a way that the level of difficulty is in an increasing 
order. If you read the answer key for any real GRE test,you will
find the percentage of people who get the problem right is always
decreasing as the serious number increases.

What's the heck? Well,you can make a big deal out of it.
For instance,when you are working on the last two problems of the 
filling blank part,since you know usually there are only 20% of
people can get it right,and you are surely not in that group,
so you should NOT trust yourself,on the contrary,you should look
at answers that seem wrong to you,this will inrease your possibility
of getting it right.On the other hand,if you are working on the first
two problems,you sholud trust your instinct,DON'T make it too
complicated,because most people can do it,so it must be easy.
It will be too pity that you missed the easy problem which you
really can do but just over estimated its difficulty.

Trick 2.
The word pair comparison part is only used to test your vocabulary,
not your analytical ability.So their relationship is always clear
an simple.

Why is this important? It can help you eliminate a lot of 
obvious wrong answers. This is especially helpful if you
don't know the word(s) in the problem.

EXAMPLE 1.
16. ****:**** (suppose we don't know these two words) 
(a)tree:green (b)green:black (c)tortuous:sinous (d)warning:stop 
(e)fish:turtle

This is the last problem in the comparison part,and it turns out
that we are having our worst luck. But using trick 2 you can
eliminate (a) and (e). In (a),the relationship between tree
and green is too vague(a tree may not be green),and in (e) we
simply can't see any clear link between a fish and a turtle (yes 
they both can swim,but that is too farfetched,such relation is 
never used in GRE)So even you don't know the problem words,you 
still inreased your winning possibility to 1/3 instead of 1/5.

Now suppose the two words are as simple as these:

EXAMPLE 2.
16. YELLOW:RED
(a)tree:green (b)green:black (c)tortuous:sinous (d)warning:stop 
(e)fish:turtle

People don't know the tricks mentioned above might choose (b).

Now let's see why (b) is wrong.
First,notice this is problem 16,which is the last problem of the 
comparison part,So we should know it CAN'T be so easy.(trick 1
is used here). Remember,when you go to the last two problems,
always give yourself a second thought.

Second,suppose the answer is (b),then what is this problem about ?
Presenting four colors? Common,ETS guys are not so illogical.

Combining the thoughts in example 1,we are now only left with  
(c) and (d). See,your winning chance has been increased to 
50:50.You probably don't know the words in (c).But if you
look at (d)...,my god,that's it !

These tricks are not my invention,they are talked about in a lot
more detail in a book called "GRE,Crack Down The System" I forgot
the auther's name.In that book they also tell you how to crack
the reading part,math,analytics so on. Very thoughtful and useful
stuff. After reading this book,my GRE verbal was increased at least
50 points,and I think more the vocabulary you posses the more
difference you can make by using those tricks.

Good luck.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china